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(Saturday 8th October 2011, written Sunday 9th October)

Today started very early and finished very late. There was a bit of excitement in between, but “what does not kill me, makes me stronger”. By the end of the day I had experienced, survived and recovered from two of the hazards of air transport:

• I nearly missed a connecting flight, and
• I lost my luggage for a while.

I got up pretty early, at 04:00 am in the morning. The taxi was due to collect me at 05:00. My Landlady saw me to the taxi and we said our goodbyes. I would be pleased to meet her again. I had the same taxi-driver that collected me from the airport at the beginning of my trip. That seemed appropriate, a sort-of “closing of the circle”. I believe the school had arranged it like that. What was interesting to me was that this time I was able to engage in a simple conversation with him on the way to the airport. That was a satisfactory demonstration to me of the progress I had made.

The driver to took me to the airport and made sure that I was delivered to correct terminal. I hadn’t noticed, but Novosibirsk Tolemechevo Airport has two terminals: an International Terminal and a Domestic Terminal. I was going to the Domestic Terminal because I was flying to Moscow.

Check-in went without incident. They accepted my case without comment and checked it through to London and issued me with boarding cards for both the flights: Novosibirsk to Moscow and Moscow to London. More of that later.

The flight to Moscow was pleasant and uneventful. A little while before we landed I noticed that we were going to be about half and hour later than was indicated on my ticket. That gave me a little concern, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Once we had landed, and been disembarked by bus, I set off to find the departure gate. That had to be a priority. The departure area of Domededovo was a throng of people. When I had found my way to the correct departure area, the lady checking the boarding cards, said “time!” and for a short while I was afraid that I was not going to be allowed to board. Instead I was directed through “Business Class” and processed in double-quick time. I made it onto the aircraft and was in my seat barely 10 minutes before departure time. That is really far to tight and I was sweating from running and worry. I barely had time to send texts to England and Ireland, saying that I had made the flight, before the doors closed and I switched off my phone.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened with the flight connection. The connection was as specified by the carrier, but to me seemed far too tight. I’m not sure if the inbound flight was delayed. Maybe I missed an announcement. I would gladly have spent a few hours in Moscow and bought a few souvenirs.

The flight to London was uneventful. I like Transaero’s cabin service. I also like the 737-800 aircraft they are using on that route. I don’t know if Boeing have changed the fuselage in some way, but the plane seemed much more spacious than the aircraft (also a 737) I had just got off. One slightly strange thing, is that all their aircraft seem to be registered in Ireland.

Once in London (on schedule at 11:30), I found that my bag not made the flight! Baggage handling for Transaero in London is managed by BMI. The BMI staff were helpful, and located my bag quickly. It was in Moscow. So were the bags of two fellows from Middlesborough and two Russian ladies. I was actually able to help the Russians and the desk staff communicate sufficiently well to get their bags located as well. I filled in a claim form and was told that they expected go get my bag from Moscow at 16:00, and that they would deliver it to me, but given a number to call if the bag had not been delivered by 19:00.

I caught the bus to Ashford and was at Dave’s house, drinking tea at about 13:15, exactly the time I had estimated in one of my eMails to Dave.

By 19:00, my bag had still not arrived, and understandably I was getting a little twitchy. I phoned the number I had been given. Nobody answered. I tried a couple of times, and then gave up. Tomorrow would have to do. Dave said he needed to go out to get something from a shop. A few minutes later, there was a knocking at the door. I assumed that Dave had forgotten his keys. Wrong! It was a courier with my case! He had bumped into Dave in the street, and got directions for the difficult last few yards. A quick check and a signature later, and I had my bag back. It was a few hours late, but undamaged and I hadn’t had to lug it home on the bus!

I stayed up watching the TV with Dave, and eventually went to bed at 22:00. Apart from naps on the planes, I had been on the go for 24 hours!

(Wednesday 5th October 2011, written and posted same day)

I took a different route to work this morning. On the way I passed the “Academy of Water Transport”, which is an impressive building and I assume has something to do with moving people and stuff around the inland waterways (after all, you can’t get much further from the sea than Novosibirsk) and the offices of “Sibir Telecom” which have this interesting sculpture at the front. Notice the blue “phone box”. It isn’t a GPO original, but it is a close copy. Isn’t it strange, how that design has acquired “icon” status.

A substantial bit of yesterdays homework was sorting “things” into groups and then writing the sentence “I have many …things…” for each of the “Things”. The sorting was fine, but the sentences are harder than you might think, because for technical reasons the form of the word “things” (which is in the “genitive case”) changes. I did alright, but believe me, it isn’t easy.

Another part of the homework from yesterday was to write a “Recipe for happyness”. For a while this had me stumped, and then I decided that I know a “Recipe for Paradise”, which for technical reasons fitted the bill. This “recipe” is a poem by someone called Omar Khayam (translated from Persian by Edward Fitzgerald in the 19th Century). Here’s the poem:

A loaf of bread, a flask of wine,

A book of verse, and thou,

Beside me singing in the wilderness,

And wilderness is paradise (e)now.

To my amazement, I almost got away with it. “Beside me” got a bit mangled and “Wilderness is Paradise” needed adjusting, but I did pretty well (in the English, Fitzgerald tacks an extra “e”, in front of “now”, to adjust the rhythmn). And that led us on to a question and answer about poetry.

Another part of the lesson today was conversation. Diana (my teacher) asked me about what sports I was interested in. I said that I wasn’t a “Sportsman” but that I watched some sport. I explained that Ireland has some special sports which are restricted to Ireland. Specifically “Hurling” and “Gaelic Football”. For anyone who doesn’t know, Hurling as a very fast field game played with sticks and a hard leather ball. To someone who doesn’t know it (like me), it is a little like hockey, but only a very little! Then I have to explain to Diana what Hurling is like. I don’t really understand Hurling, but we finish up with a Scotsman, explaining an Irish game, to a Russian, in Russian in Siberia! There was lots of arm-waving and a few diagrams (for the goal posts). I don’t know if Diana is any the wiser.

After lunch, I set out on a expedition. I have been commissioned to buy a “Novosibirsk” Ice-Hockey jersey. Up until today, I had no luck but I finally succeeded. The expedition was to a part of town which I hadn’t visited before. It took me a one trolley-bus ride and a bus ride to get there. The stadium was a little non-descript, but it is an indoor sport. There was a banner advertising “wrestling”, but I’m not sure what sort of wrestling. It took me a little while to find the merchandise shop. It wasn’t marked at all well. And then the negotiations started. There were two men in the shop. Both were helpful, but neither spoke any English. My Russian has improved, but this was entirely new territory, and I don’t even know anything about ice-hockey (By the way, if a Russian refers to “Hockey”, they mean Ice-Hockey). They didn’t accept plastic, but they did direct me to a cash-machine. I wasn’t that hopeful, because I haven’t had very good luck with cash-machines, but I went and tried. We were in luck! I short while later, I left. Now the proud owner of a rather attractive Hockey Jersey (Front and Back). The journey home was a little bit of an adventure. I spotted a trolley-bus which said it was going to a suitable place. Then it took a turning I didn’t expect! After frantic map-reading, I decided I was going in the right direction. A little later, the bus turned onto a road that I knew and eventually I got off very close to the school. I actually had an easier journey coming home, than I did on the way out.

Once I was back at the school, I got stuck into the homework. I hope I’ve understood it properly, and if I have, then I’ve done all I needed to.

At 5:30 today we had a presentation on the work of a film-maker called Alexander Petrov. He’s an animator, and I’m afraid I hadn’t heard of him before, even though he has won an Oscar. I don’t even understand how he does what he does. The pictures are drawn somehow, but have a distinctive “grainy” appearance, like chalk, charcoal or pastels on a rough surface. We were told that it takes Petrova 2 years to make 20 minutes of film, so it’s in the same area as “Wallace and Gromit”. I will find out more about his work. The films we saw were:

• “The Cow”
• “Rusalka” (which doesn’t translate, but I think is a bit like an mermaid in a river)
• “The Old Man and the Sea” (based on Ernest Hemmingway’s story)
• “First Love”

I think the weather has finally turned. On the way home, it started to rain. It was only a few spots to begin with but then it started to rain pretty hard. A proper “April shower”, except it is October. Even though it was raining a bit, I popped into a local shop to buy a bottle of beer. One has to have priorities. By the time I got out of the shop, it was raining a lot harder (by the way, the Russians use “verbs of motion” to describe weather). When I got to the courtyard of the group of blocks where I live, I was greeted by loads of red and white plastic tape. I hope it is there because someone is planning to re-tarmac the car-parking and access road, because if not, I’ve just crossed a crime-scene!

supper this evening was pork cutlet (minced, battered and fried), fried potatoes, and a fried egg, accompanied by cucumber. I wish you could experience how good the cucumbers and tomatoes are here. The cucumbers are short, 3 to 4 inches long. The kind that you might see as pickled gherkins in a chip shop. Only these are fresh. I can’t get over how good they taste. My Landlady served them sliced thinly, lengthways. They’re almost sweet, like melon! Either on their own, or with just a little salt, they are delicious.

The internet has stopped working (again), so I don’t know when this will reach the internet. I have an exam on Friday (you didn’t think I got off scot-free, did you?) and then I fly out of Novosibirsk a little after 07:00 local time on Saturday. That means there will be a taxi for me at 5:00 and I’m getting up at 04:00. Nice! Even if this gets posted, you may not hear too much more from me this trip.

Addendum 1: Try eating blini (pancakes) with melted butter. Zap the butter in the microwave.

Addendum 2: Just been taken on a trip to the shops at 22:45. It was a place called “Lenta”. It’s enormous – 35 checkout lanes, and open 24 hours. The stock is stored on racking above the shelves. Aldi/Lidl meets Wickes. Sells everything from car tyres to groceries.

Addendum 3: And a tour of Novosibirsk by night. This really is a 24 hour city, and not just for the clubbers.

(Tuesday 4th October 2011 written and posted 5th October)

The lesson today was about numbers. Numbers of “things” in Russian present special problems for a foreigner. The form of the word “thing” depends on the details of the “thing” (masculine, feminine, neuter, animate, inanimate) and the number:

• One thing is “nominative”
• 2, 3 and 4 things are “genitive singular” (yes, I know that 2, 3 and 4 are plural), and
• 5 and more things are “genitive plural”
• And the game starts again at 21, 22-23-24, 25+, 31, etc!

If someone really understands it, contact me off-line, you may be able to earn yourself a drink!

Another exercise was a lady telling me her recipe for happiness: “A dollup of this, 5 tonnes of that, a smidgin of something else”. You can probably see how it relates to the earlier stuff about plurals. Part of the homework is to produce my own recipe.

After lunch I went on a trip round the a Novosibirsk art gallery with a lady called Nastia. The association of the name in English is completely wrong. She’s a 21 year old Literature student, who speaks better English than my Russian, but won’t while she’s with me! We went round the gallery, and I learned about her taste in art (she likes paintings of the sea, and so do I) and she learned that I used to work in a steelworks (because there were Soviet era engravings of coke-ovens and a blast furnace). I enjoyed the trip and I hope she did too. We spent over an hour and a half in the gallery and I haven’t concentrated so hard for a long time.

Then it was back to school to do some of the homework. I did formal “numbers of this and that” exerises I had to do, but just couldn’t get to grips with the “recipe for happines”.

Fed up with the Recipe for happiness (which was making me unhappy), and armed with a flyer I found at the school, I set off to find a souvenir shop. A bus ride and a short walk later, I bought some carved wooden spoons with painted decoration. I think they are very pretty.

On the way home, I decided to go by a different route and take a trip on a tram. The trams in Novosibirsk are pretty old. You have to climb a long way up to get into them. This one took me pretty much the whole way home. I could get it (the other way round) to the school, but I think that would be a waste of effort. (Minibuses cost 35 r, Metro 15 r, buses and trolley-buses 14 r, and trams 13 roubles). If you want the real, post-soviet experience, travel by tram.

Dinner was pork cutlet, mashed potato, tomato and cucumber.

Boosa is 12. She’s getting pretty old. I hope the “accident” was an isolated incident, otherwise her days are probably numbered.

I still couldn’t think of a suitable “recipe, so I “played hookey”, and watched “Pirates of the Carribean” (in Russian), and had a bottle of strong beer (that’s what is says on the label, and it is 7%).

(Monday 3rd October 2011, written and posted 5th October)

It’s amazing how quickly the memory fades. There is only one thing sticks in my mind. Maybe I will remember more and add more detail later.

I took my “Teachers’ Day” card to school and was told that I was a little early, because some days are marked according to the old Julian calendar, rather than the modern Gregorian one! That’s one more thing down to experience.

(Sunday 2nd October 2011 written same day)

It turns out I slept through supper last night! Still, the rest must have done me good. Breakfast this morning was good. For “Porridge” substitute “Rice Pudding”. It’s still nourishing!

My landlady tells me that the weather we we’re experiencing is unusual. She says I have been very lucky. She also assures me that the first snow will come before the end of October. With that warning ringing in my ears, once I’d done the homework, I decided to explore some new bits of the city.

First stop was supposed to be another look at the “Birch Bark Museum”. Unfortunately it is closed on Sundays, so I’ll try to fit that in another afternoon. I paused to take a picture of a building I found interesting. Then I walked to “Oktoberskya Metro Station”. On the way I crossed a large arterial road. Metro stations are pretty well signposted with a large red “M”, like the ones in Paris.

Catching the train was no problem. A metro ride costs 15 roubles (0.38 Euro) any distance. I had a couple of minutes problem with the ticket machine, but soon worked it out. The metro stations here aren’t palatial like the ones in Moscow, but they are clean. If London Underground decoration favours glazed ceramic tiles, then Novosibirsk Metro decoration seems to favour marble and terrazzo.

I went to the southern end of the Lenin Line, which ends at Karl Marx square. The area south (east) of the River Ob is more industrial and considered a little rougher. Karl Marx Square looked OK to me, but I didn’t venture into the industrial areas. The square itself has formal gardens

and an imposing statue of:

“Александр Иванович Покрышкин

Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin

Hero of the Soviet Union

Marshal Of the Airforce”

He’s worth reading about.

From Karl Marx Square I took the Metro to the North end of the line at “Zaeltsovskaya”.

Wandered home, buying some provisions (like beer!) along the way.
(Blog Post updated to include pictures directly, rather than as links. 17th November 2015)