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Bridges, Sun and Dali

(Sunday 18th September 2011 written on same day)

Today was officially a day off. I walked south to Rechnoi Vakhsa (River Station). It was a beautiful day again. I didn’t see anything to indicate the temperature, but I’m sure it was over 20 deg C. The River Ob is very wide. It is spanned by a road bridge, a metro bridge and a railway bridge. There is a park and amusement park along the river bank and I spent some of the time trying to read the various signs. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn’t.

The city art museum is a very short distance away. In the afternoon I went to went to an exhibition of Salvador Dali lithographs. I like Dali pictures, but they don’t make any more sense to me with Russian captions!

On the way home from the exhibition I noticed a travel agent listing places the could fly you to from Novosibirsk. Here’s the list in English: Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Goa, China, Cyprus, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Cuba. Russians like the sun too!

When I’d returned from Dali, I finished off the homework exercises. First, questions on a short story (eg “Whose wife is a good cook?”, “Who are Natasha and Julias parents?”, “Who studies physics at university?”. Then I have to compose a number of sentences about my own family. Not very exciting, but I can see that it serves a useful purpose.

(Saturday 17th September 2011 written up same day)

What a fantastic day! I have literally walked miles, on a self-conducted tour of Novosibirsk. I’ve held (simple) conversations with people, bought things and been to the opera!

It’s my day off! Except it isn’t! I had to fly solo for the first time. If I hadn’t been able to speak, I wouldn’t have been able to eat, or drink. Apart from “enjoying the experience”, I set myself the objectives of:

• Buying a decent meal in somewhere new,
• Buying something in a shop, and
• Buying a beer in a bar.

I “exceeded requirements” on all objectives.

My tour started by looking down one of the side-streets near my home.Wooden houses are typical of Siberia and of Novosibirsk. When this place started out in the late 19th Century, it was a construction site. The most readily available material was lumber. Here are a few photos of some old houses I noticed:

• Wooden house dated 1906
• Another wooden house dated 1906
• Yet another, but I don’t know how old it is

I walked North into town. When I got to “The Centre of Russia”, I noticed a wedding party. I paused for a look and realised that couples come there to have their photos taken. Some seem to have arranged for a blessing as well. It was a Saturday, and the sun was shining brightly. A great day for a wedding. Winter is coming too. I passed the church several times during the day and saw several parties. Here are a couple of photos (Two Weddings and Another Wedding). Apparently the church is not that old. The original was demolished during the Soviet era and this replica was built only a few years ago. It seems that God and maybe tradition are stronger than governments.

I was looking for a place to have lunch. This is it “Sunny Bake”: salad and a cutlet and green tea and bliny. If you get the opportunity, you must try Russian blini. They are pancakes or crepes. Excellent! Mine was served with melted butter and smetana (sour cream) but there are a wide range of fillings both sweet and savoury, including smoked salmon, mushrooms, sugar and chocolate (not all at the same time, I hope). I ordered it all with words, not just point and shoot.

After lunch I went for a walk in “Central Park” (in Novosibirsk, not New York!). It’s a really attractive place, with fairground attractions, rides for the kids, a stage for bands. From this view along one of the paths, you can see how sunny it was. It was warm but you can also see the leaves are changing colour for Autumn, and they have started fall.

Next stop was “Novosibirsk Glavniy” (Novosibirsk Main) Station. This is on the Transiberian railway, half way between Moscow and Vladivostok. From Vladivostock you can get a ferry to Japan, via Korea. There is an enormous paved area in front of the station. The station clock and another one nearby said that the temperature was over 20 degrees C. I was thirsty. Russian street vendors were selling cold kvass (weak beer) from little tankers. How civilised! I bought a half-litre from a street vendor (17 rubles= 0.42 eur). It was excellent! The lady asked if I was German. I told her I was English. We both laughed. My Father would be horrified, but it’s easier to say that than bring in another two countries. Kvass is very weak beer, they say it is “brewed from bread”. I don’t quite understand that. It is so weak you would give it to your children, like bottled shandy. It has a slightly acid, almost lemony taste. Good for a hot day. Just off the square, I went into a shop and bought a litre bottle of mineral water (as in “Perrier” or “Evian” 35 roubles = 0.88 eur).

I walked back from the station by a different route. On the way I saw this restored church, which is right next to the Circus. I’m not sure if if there is something a little odd going on here, because in Russian the two words are very similar: Circus = “Tsirk” and Church = “Tsirkov”. Then I went along Gogol Street to join Krasny Prospect. I passed a Russian bar. I would have stopped for a beer, but I already had a plan. It would have been cheaper if I’d had the beer in the Russian bar.

Close to the school is a bar called “Old Irish”, which I had already found on the internet. I popped in there for a drink. The bar is nice enough, but the price (290 rub = 7 Euro)! The price of 1 pint was more than all my other purchases. I won’t be spending much time in there, but I will probably have a pint of Guinness on “Arthur’s Day” (sometimes I’m a mug for advertising). It just shows that prices can vary a lot and you have to be careful in foreign countries. I just put it down to experience.

On the way home I couldn’t resist taking a picture of these fountains. The building in the background is the museum on Lenin Square I visited on Wednesday.

I got home, bumped into my landlady, and just had enough time to post pictures onto Facebook before it was time to go to the theatre. The school had booked me a ticket so I felt obliged to go.

The Novosibirsk Ballet Opera is the largest in Russia. It’s not the sort of place I would normally go to, but I’m glad I did. I have some pictures of the inside on my phone. It is a magnificent building. I’ll post them when doing so won’t cost me an unreasonable amount of money. The opera was “Iolanta” (by Pyotr Tchiakovsky, which is unrelated to “Iolanthe” by Gilbert and Sullivan. That had me confused too.). The opera was entirely in Russian, with no “titles”. Strangely, I started off hearing only music or babble, but by the end I was hearing words. I didn’t understand it, but I probably wouldn’t have understood it in English either. It was a magnificent spectacle, and the staging was really interesting, making use of backlighting and projections. At one point I really thought it was raining on stage.

After the show I went home to Dinner. It was good. Vegetable stew, with pureed veg and ratatouille, served with dark brown bread and green tea. My landlady probably thinks I’m mad about food. I’m not, but it is easy to talk about: “I like this”, “this is sweet”, “what is this?” etc. I’ve found some interesting problems eg they have one word for both vegetable marrow and aubergine! I’ve also been served three entirely different things, all called “Kasha” (porridge) for breakfast. One of them was rice pudding! Good job I’m a true omnivore.

The landlady had some music on while she was doing the ironing. I thought I recognised it and checked. I was right. It was “Enigma”. Some things travel well.

Writing done, I’m going to post this.

And so to bed!
(Blog Post updated to include pictures directly, rather than as links. 17th November 2015)

(Friday 16th September 2011 written on same day)

How things change! Yesterday dinner was; early in the evening, with the upper classes in a fancy restaurant, watching an Italian chef (called “Fabio”) make pasta dishes, throw pizzas around and make ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Today dinner is eaten after 10:00, and (something like) cottage cheese, black tea and brown bread. All in Siberia.

And with a clear sky the temperature changes from hot (walk around the streets in your shirtsleeves) during the day, to cold (brr) at night.

My landlady just arrived and it’s time for dinner (after 22:00 at night). I’ll describe dinner first and then the rest of the day.

Dinner this evening is “Slava” (Tvorak (cream cottage cheece), Smetana (sour cream) and sugar mixed together), pureed vegetables (carrots and I don’t know what), several kinds of bread and black tea. Delicious!

This morning I found that I’d “got away with” my translation. I could answer all the questions (verbally) and the only significant mistake was that I can misunderstood one word and turned a desire into a reality (and future into present tense). Not too bad considering it was done under pressure.

Next was more grammar: Nominative, Accusative and Genitive cases. You don’t want to know!

After lunch, which was “you know where” all three students set off down to the bus station to give moral support to one of our number (the Spanish lady) who is making a weeked trip to Tomsk. Good for her! Mission accomplished we returned to the school, and I got on with my homework.

It was really pretty hot outside, providing you are in the sun. On the way home I took photos of the Opera House at the back of Lenin Square, and the base of the Novosibirsk Architecture Preservation Organisation (or something like that). I’m going to the Opera tomorrow.

Then I did some more homework, and fell asleep. I was thinking about going to bed when my landlady arrived.

(Thursday 15th September 2011, written up 16th September 2011)

Now that was a busy day! There are no photographs because, although there were some interesting things to see I didn’t have my camera with me at the time. I didn’t have time to write things up at the time, because I didn’t finish working until nearly midnight, by which time I was well and truly ready for bed.

The internet connection in the flat isn’t working at present, so there may be some delay before this actually gets recorded.

At breakfast I was told that I was going out to dinner. I was told that the place we were going was “Rimski Caniculi”. At the time I was told this meant “Roman Holiday”. I have to confess that at the time it took a little time for exactly what I was being told to sink in, but I got it in the end. By the time I left for school I knew where the restaurant was, and what time I was to be there (Krasny Prospect 42a, for 19:00). Fortunately the address is near the school so I was able to find the building and the restaraunt on my way there.

The morning was spent with lessons on verbs. Lots and lots of verbs. I think at the time I was told there were about twenty. Even a day later it has become a bit of a blur. There were lots of new verbs, and before they had time to settle in my mind, lots of exercises requiring me to find the correct conjugation for a verb in a particular situation (I run, She runs, They run…)

This was followed by a game where there was a standard sentence and using cards drawn from the 3 different piles (Subject Gender: Masculine/Feminine/Neuter/Plural,

Verb and Location) I had to provide a “Subject”. The objectives of the exercise were to put the (new) verb into the correct conjugation, provide a suitable subject, put the subject into the “Accusative Case”, and put the location into the “Locative” Case. There’s also another little wrinkle, in that you have to be “in” some locations and “at” or “on” others. There are a few which can be both (you can be both “in” and “on” the sea). Don’t worry if you read this and don’t understand it, I not sure I do either! If you read it and _really_ understand it, explain it to me some time.

As you can imagine, some of the results were a little strange, if not surreal. One that has stuck in my mind was:

• “It” (=Subject) “waits” (=Verb) “toilet” (=Location; this is the room by the way)
• to which I added “Service” (=Object), so after some changes to the component words we got:
• “It waits for service in the toilet.”
• I really don’t want to dwell for too long on what that might possibly mean!

The result was often a bit like David Bowie or Brian Eno lyrics. Sometimes it made real sense, sometimes it was complete nonsense and sometimes it had a slippery quality which made me think that perhaps there was some peculiar message hidden in the sentence.

(by the way, my landlady has just come it. It’s 22:00 and time for dinner!)

Homework was a comprehension exercise. I had to translate a passage and answer questions on it. I was given the passage as a sound file for my computer, and the passage text is in my textbook. The teacher made sure I understood the questions before we finished.

After this, it was time for lunch (thank goodness). Lunch was our now favourite (only) restaraunt, “Vilka-Lojka”. Apparently, not only is there a chain of Vilka-Lojkas, but there is a class of restaraunts known as “Staloviya” (dining room).

After lunch, there was an opportunity to visit a museum in town with one of the teachers. I wanted to visit the museum but that created a possible problem with the homework, because of dinner.

The museum was the “Novosibirsk history and natural history museum” (I’m not sure of the correct title. I may update thisket). It’s situated in a hundred-year-old converted metro station just off Lenin Square. Admission is cheap (For us. 200 rub = 5 Eur). Like many Russian public buildings, you are expected to leave your coat and bag in the “garderobe”. The first thing that meets you when you enter the exhibition proper is the skeleton of a mammoth. You’re probably already aware that from time to time they did up mammoths in Siberia. The museum contains sections on:

• Natural history
• Native cultures – Siberia has a number of peoples somewhat like the native americans and inuit.
• The way people lived at various times the Russians were colonising siberia.
• The Revolution
• The Second World War (or Great Patriotic War)
• Artistic material

The contents are interesting, but it’s difficult to explain the intensity of the experience of really trying to understand what the labels of the exhibits say in a foreign language. At least I was able to tell the teacher who was acting as our guide that the motorcycle in the middle of the “Revolution” section was a Norton and that it was made in Birmingham, England. And that was before I read the label!

After the museum we returned to the school and so I go stuck into the comprehension. Rather than listen to the passage (which was difficult at the school), I decided to translate from the text first and then listen later. It was a good job I did, because otherwise I would have run out of time. In the mean time I attended a presentation on “Soviet films” (which was pretty interesting). I had completed about three-quarters of the translation when it was time for the school to kick me out, and me to go to dinner.

The restaurant (“Rimski Kaniculi” (Roman Holidays), use your web browser to translate) was only a short distance away. I spent a little while trying to look inconspicuous waiting for my hostess to arrive. My hostess is my landladies employer (I think) she was accompanied by two of her sons: Ivan (12) and Anton (9). They arrived just a few minutes late. My landlady was delayed. I was struck by Ivan wearing a military uniform. He attends a “Officer School” and the uniform was for the “Siberian Cadet Corps”. Wikipedia has an article of the historic Siberian Cadet Corps. I’m not sure about any associations between the modern and historic organisations, but I know that “the cadets” are significant in Russian history. Both sons spoke a little english and we were able to converse, me speaking Russian, and them speaking English.

Dinner for me was an extremely good lasagne. As we dined we were entertained by an Italian chef (named “Fabio”) demostrating how to cook a couple of pasta dishes. Later he demonstrated making ice-cream using liquid nitrogen. Later still, he demonstrated tossing pizza bases to the music “Love, Sex, American Express” (?!). The Russian word for show is “spektakl” and this was certainly spectacular! All we drank all evening was several different varieties of black or green tea. At the end of the evening my hostess gave me a lift home at about 22:00. It was a thoroughly good evening.

I got home and had to get down to work. I had the translation completed before midnight, and so to bed.

Today was a straight “work day”, so not many photos. Lessons in the morning, administration at lunch-time, homework and prep in the afternoon, presentation on “Siberian Cities” in the late afternoon.

The day started with a lady friend of my landlady’s arriving for breakfast. She spoke some English, but we spoke Russian. It wasn’t an exciting conversation, but we communicated. I used my pre-prepared stories, she told me a little about herself. I’m starting to understand things. It’s limited, but I’m improving.

School was more individual work. This time I had a man teacher. I think it is good to move between different teachers. Different tones and vocal styles help my understanding.

The first exercise was about Ireland! It was conducted in Russian. At first I didn’t really understand what was happening, but it was very good. The objective was to teach me, what I knew already about my home country, and how to express that in Russian.

• How big is Ireland?
• How many people?
• Famous people?

To my surprise I found I was holding a conversation, in Russian, about a subject I hadn’t prepared. You wouldn’t call it “fluent”, but I came away with a resource sheet, which I had completed, in Russian which I can use as the basis for small talk. The exercise was useful, and the product was useful. I also learned the equivalent facts about Russia.

Then on to more grammar. More on personal possessive pronouns and Nominative, Accusative and Locative cases. Don’t worry if you don’t understand, because I’m not sure if I do. I do the exercises and I think I’m learning, but it isn’t clear yet.

This is followed by an exercise in aural comprehension supported by written comprehension as well. It’s all about some ghastly little boy’s plans for his birthday. The boy may be horrible, but the exercise is good. Part of the homework is finishing off the written translation and checking/completing the answers to questions.

The rest of the homework is conjugating verbs (don’t worry…) and the prepositional case (…).

When the 3 students escape from their lessons, we all go to eat in Vilka-Lojka. This is the McDonald’s meets a works canteen. It’s good and cheap.

After lunch we go back to the school. One of the other students has the same problem as me, his cards won’t work. With the help of the school we identify another bank to try, and also go armed for my “Plan C”, which is to exchange some of my emergency stash of Euro’s and Sterling.

We’re in luck! We find a bank which accepts our cards. We have access to money. We can eat! The other student suggests a celebratory beer. I think that’s an excellent idea. So we do. Half a pint of (keg) London Pride, with a Frenchman in an Irish themed pub in the middle of Siberia. And it feels great! I haven’t felt so good about getting the equivalent of 25 Euro out of a cash machine since I was a student (and they didn’t have cash machines, I cashed cheques)!

Back to the school where I spend the afternoon doing the translation and answering the questions.

Then we have a presentation on “Cities of Siberia”. The teacher giving the talk has an excellent style. Not slow, but clear as a bell. Even though I can’t understand it all, I can make out the words. After the presentation, I explain that two of my reasons for being interesting in the City of Tomsk. One is the name: it stands on the River Tom. The other means that I have try and explain “The Wombles” to the Russians! It got a few laughs anyway.

After the presentation, I went home by a new route. I took a photo of the roof-line.

At home, after tea, it was conjugating verbs.

Then write up the journal, and so, to bed.