Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Rostov on Don

It was about 5pm when I got to downtown Rostov on Don after the 10 hour bus ride from Volgograd.
I had a 3am train to catch from Rostov to Kharkov ,Eastern Ukraine the next morning.This leaves me with more than 6 hours in the city.But i wasn't keen on walking around the city when it got dark.Asking for buses to get to the city, I wasn't looking to see any attraction in particular.Perhaps some food to last me the night.

Downtown rostov looks like just another city .Nice cafe , shops and neat sidewalks.Young people were walking to the parks for their dates.As night descended , I returned back to the train station , surfing the net and pricking myself to stay awake to catch my train.

Trains in Russia do not wait for passengers.They leave on time and I was not keen on missing another train!The militsa came around to scream at people lying on the benches."If you want to lie down and sleep , go to the hotels!"

Leaning on my backpack for support ,nodding off and jolting up ,checking my watch, I just couldn't wait to get to the Ukraine.

The bus ride from Volgograd to Rostov on Don

While bus rides might seem boring to many,this one deserved some special mention from me because I had my first freaky encounter on this bus.There is always plenty of space for first times isn't it!

After Marina and I parted ways at the bus station at Volgograd, I got on the bus,relieved that I was finally on my way to Rostov.I didn't sleep much at the train station the night before and needed some rest.The trip will take almost 10hours which means that I had an hour or 2 to still go to downtown Rostov to check it out.

In bus trips like these, there are normally 2 bus drivers.There was a 40+year old driver and a  50+year old driver.It was a 40person bus.The bus departed from Volgograd and I was the only passenger on it.It was totally weird.For the next 2 hours , the bus drove into smaller villages to pick up passengers but no one got on.

the 50+ year old bus driver came up to me and chatted.He was curious to find out where I was from and what I was doing alone.Was I married?What am I going to do in Rostov.And the question of sex came up.I wasn't fluent in speaking Russian and he knew that I only took classes for about 6-7 months.I pretended not to understand what he was saying once that question came up and thinking that I was clueless , he went on to explain what sex was....,"When a man love a woman...." and went on to put his hand on my thigh.He started giving suggestions as to what I could do in Rostov.Join them at a hotel.

Pushing his hand away , a series of pissed off looks and "нет" (no) ensued.He returned back to the front of the bus to join his fellow driver and talk about this asian girl sitting in the middle of the bus.( Guide books always tell you to sit in front.Well, if you have bus drivers like this , make sure you sit somewhere in the middle where there is a good buffer from harrassment.)

I looked out of the bus.Road and grass plains.I was in the middle of nowhere.I could have been raped and thrown out on the grass plains of southern Russia.Of course that is just my wild imagination.Bus drivers will not risk that.Jobs are hard to come by and they will lose their job if they do something stupid.
Harrassment is just a small thing which I've started to learn how to handle.But it was disgusting that he was in his 50ties and he was making such suggestions to a person he knew that was only 23. What a pedophile!

Another hour of driving into villages to pick up passengers and the bus started filling up.An hour or 2 before reaching Volgograd, the bus was completely packed with people.

By 4pm, I reached Rostov on Don.Scurrying out of the bus , i hurried towards the train station and got my luggage stored at the luggage storage and found a bus to bring me downtown to check out the city when it was still bright.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Volgograd

Alma and Maxim  put me on the 4pm marshrutka from Elista to Volgograd.The marshrutka driver told me that I was not going to make it to Volgograd by 9pm.I had a train going from the train station at 917pm to Rostov on Don.If i miss my train , i'm screwed big time.

Guess what , ,i missed my train but got a more interesting experience instead.I arrived at the city at 920pm.The train had already left.I told the marshrutka driver about my train .He and another passenger started making phonecalls to their friends to ask about the next train out to Rostov.He told me that the next transport out of Volgograd to Rostov was by bus.He dropped me off at the bus station and wished me well.

Here goes.The next bus leaves at 6am the next morning.I bought my ticket.
It is 930pm.Now what?
It was pitch dark outside.I could see the train station from the bus station.But it was separated by a canal.The bus station closes at 11pm.What in the world am I going to do?How do i get to the train station without being mugged?

 Standing at the entrance of the bus station , I saw a young couple walking towards the bus station and I asked them for directions to the train station.Apparently they were going to the train station too.The girl told me to wait for them and she went in to buy her bus ticket.

So it turns out that the girl is from Astrakhan,Marina She had missed her bus back home and needed to buy a ticket for the next bus (departing the next morning ).The boy,Tioma, is from Cheboksary and was waiting for his cruise adventure down the Volga river the next morning.So 3 lost souls found themselves some company.

They brought me to the train station and told me to leave my bags with their's.Let the babushki(grandmothers) guard them.The babushki are waiting for their trains too.So my luggage was lying around with theirs guarded by the babushki for free.It's amazing how much i trusted them.I then left with the 2 russians to have a walk near the Volgograd train station at 10pm at night.

We sat at the park talking about ourselves,thinking about how strange a way it was that we all met.Must have been fate.

After the little walk around, we went back to the train station and slept on the benches.Tioma was a little bored and wanted to know more about Singapore.I happen to have 2 books with photos of Singapore (intended to give them to my friends in Ukraine ) and I let him flip through them,along with the Russian Newsweek magazines that was in my backpack.As I went on typing in my laptop in russian , he leaned over and started correcting my Russian grammar!

Tioma and I had spoken a little about Cheboksary earlier.He never imagined that a girl from so far away would have been to his city and I told him about my experience there.He was astounded by the number of cities in Russia I have visited.Astonished after I said да to every city that he mentioned.And his mouth dropped when I said yes to Cheboksary as well.

My impression of Cheboksary was that of a city with modern and new buildings.He agreed that the city is indeed very modern with the new buildings but it is an old city with it's own unique language,Chuvash (similar to Turkish ).He even let me listent to a song on his mp3 player.

The night at the Volgograd station allowed me to explore the station as well.They have very very nice and clean bathrooms which nobody uses because you have to pay to use them.Western style.Very clean and modern.And they have fantastic hot showers as well.

Sleeping at the station was not exactly very comfortable.Every seat had seat handles and I was too big to squeeze in between the handles to lie straight down.Marina was petite and was able to squeeze between the seat handles and lie down comfortably.

The next morning, we bade Tioma goodbye and left for the bus station where Marina and I had buses departing for our various destinations.

She gave me a mirror she bought from Saint Petersburg as a souvenir and I gave her a bookmark from Singapore.To remember this night in Volgograd.Great company ,great experience.
I'm glad they were my angels in the time of crisis.

I just wish that i had taken down their email addresses.Will be nice to contact them again.
If you readers recognise the 2 russians in my photos, do let them know and get them to drop me an email.Will love to talk to them again.

I don't know what made me trust these 2 russian kids so much.My instincts just told me that they were trustable.And im glad I trusted them and enjoyed their company at the station that night. :)

Volgograd Photos

Elista _ Kalmykia Republic

Many tourists coming to Russia will never imagine that buddhist republics exist here.Afterall, majority of the population in Russia are orthodox christians.

I brought up the idea of checking out Elista (Chess city) of Russia to a friend whom I met in Moscow,Alma.(Alma means apple in the Kalmyk language!)I met Alma during Kickboxing class in Pleshka ( academy where I did my university study exchange in 2009).She is from Elista and she invited me to stay with her during my time in Elista.

After my studies in Petrozavodsk in May 2010, I took a train down to Moscow to catch a bus from Moscow to Elista , on route to the Ukraine where I will be spending 12 days.

It was a 20+hour bus ride from Moscow.Alma had arranged the bus tickets for me with the bus driver.Most of the people on the bus were asian looking.Yes!Asian looking Russians.I felt just at home.Blending into the crowd,except that I was in very shabby backpacker clothes and carrying a huge backpack.

Alma and her brother Maxim greeted me at the bus station and brought me to their very nice apartment in the city center.Her father is the head of the village which rears the best cows.Very impressive indeeed.I wished that I got to see the village too!

Elista indeed does have some impressive attractions.

The golden temple is known to be the biggest temple in Europe.It is a procedure for Buddhists to walk one round around the temple spinning the drums.spin each small drum 3 times and spin the big drums once.Leave a bronze and silve kopek(russian coins) near the drums for blessings.There was a delegation from Saint Petersburg visiting the temple as well.A Kalmyk man was leading them and came up to talk to us when he heard Alma speaking to me in english.He is a lawyer from Saint Petersburg and was showing his delegation from Saint Petersburg the temple.A woman in his delegation has even been to Singapore and she told me about how impressed she was with my country.She spoke about the conference which she attended there and Orchard Road.He even asked the monks to stop and take a photo with me.Priceless!

My gracious hosts later brought me to the famed Chess city.It was 6pm and Chess city was extremely quiet and there was few people in sight.A modern building and many new houses built around it.They were all new,but eeriely empty.These houses are used to house chess players when they come to Elista for chess competitions.A relatively new establishment.This is the brainchild of the currently Kalymkia president who is a huge fan of chess.Kalmykia has churned out some chess prodigies and the students from the city are known to be extremely intelligent as well.Whether this will attract tourists, remains to be seen.But at the point of time when i was there, it was empty, silent and looked like a waste of money....

Alma and her brother brought me out for Shaslik at Elista's best Shaslik eatery that night (barbecued meat-caucasus).It was then i found out that Buddhist people in Russia eat beef but do not eat pork.It seems quite contradictory to the dietary habits of buddhists in Singapore.They invited their cousin, a doctor in Kalmykia along.A charming young man, i hope he earns a decent salary in Elista working as a doctor ( even though i know that doctors are severally underpaid in Russia ).I got to try the famed Kalmyk tea.A tea brewed with horse milk and butter.The tea at this eatery reminded me alot of mushroom soup.It was really unique and good.But it was hard to call it tea for it was so rich.The meal was fantastic and to top it off ,my hosts refused to let me pay the bill.Such graciousness!
 The one attraction that is extremely interesting in Elista is the national museum.Paintings of local Kalmyk artists were featured and there was an exhibition on buddhism as well.The museum has even put up some exhibits of a traveller who had traced the route of Ghengis Khan on a horse.Can you imagine a man riding a horse across different countries these days? Well, that actually happened.Those crazy foreigners!

Elista has some interesting statues showcasing the sufferings of war.Wagons which was used to send the Kalmyks to Siberia during the Stalin regime.There is also has a small russian church at the russian district.The ethnic russians belong to the minority group in Kalmykia.

The problem for tourism in Elista is that the different attractions are pretty far apart in the city and is so much easier to see only if you have a car.My hosts were driving me around to see the best of Elista!

Just before I left Elista,they brought me to a Kalmyk resturant the next day where their ethnic food was cooked.Mutton soup.It was similar to what we had in Singapore.I remember the meals fixed by Alma's granny.A really cheerful lady ,always smiling and in a good mood since her grandchildren are back home.The borshiki (you tiao equivalent ) , the plov, Kalmyk tea and mantis.

It felt like home.And it was fantastic being around warm and friendly people who want to show you the best of their city.

I bought a huge book of Kalmyk fairy tales.It is in Russian and very nicely illustrated.It has been 1 year since i had the book.I've only read 1 page!I swear that i'll get started on reading a chapter this weekend!

I left Elista happy .Happy to meet Alma again,happy to find out that Elista is indeed one of Russia's jewels and such an amazing city!


Murmansk Magic

I took a trip up to Murmansk in April 2010.It was a weekend trip from Petrozavodsk where I was studying Russian at for 2 months.Murmansk is located in the extreme north western tip of Russia.

While , many have described Murmansk as a dreary city, I saw a side of Murmansk which was really interesting and made new friends too :)

Read about it here.
http://burtonback.blogspot.com/2010/04/murmansk-festival-of-north.html


Petrozavodsk _ Karelia Republic

Capital of the Karelia Republic , I spent 2 fantastic months in Petrozavodsk from March - April 2010 studying Russian.Although it is a small city, it appealed to me.Perhaps because i have been a city slicker for way too long and needed a break from it.Petrozavodsk has become my favourite city in Russia because of the amazing times I had there.

From my fantastic host family , wonderful teachers , people who I befriended there , dog sledding, snowmobiling , the arts and everything in between. :)

Read about the whole experience here :)
http://burtonback.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html