My final post

Ok time to sum everything up. Firstly I had a great time and made new friends, I would like to do it again but not for a long long time. St Petersburg reeked of wealth and came as quite a shock after Petrozavodsk. I didn't enjoy it as much as I should because I booked into the worlds noisiest youth hostel, hence I couldn't even be bothered taking photos, I will go back sometime later on a holiday to see the Hermitage etc.

Britain seems really quite strange, Leeds especially so purely because their are so many people and they all look so English. I didn't realise that England is the world capital of broken windows and hyperactive attention deficit children but it seems like it is. Russia had some bad points corruption, dodgy plumbing etc but people seemed so much better behaved. Ho hum.

I have been featured in the Huddersfield Examiner. Fame at last, unfortunately the journalist obviously had a particular slant in mind before he interviewed me, hence the headline "Chess player caught in Russian warzone". They even describe where Petrozovodsk is (ie no-where near the bloody war zone) but never mind, it did read quite well.

I may have some photos being sent to me from other students which I will put on the site but I feel I have typed enough.

конец (The End)

All the rest of the photos

Well I'm back, I will blog again in a few days and sum up what its like to be home and what I did in St Petersburg. I have spent several hours uploading the pictures and need to go out and eat so will annotate them later.



The only photo I could be bothered taking in St Petersburg - it looked better in real life


Alternative view of Petrozavodsk best known sculpture on the lakefront

Art gallery

The opera house which is about half way through a 3 year renovation, it looks seriously impressive closer up

Lots of the city blocks have areas of greenery around the back and quite often wooden houses, I photographed this one purely because of the striking colour of the house.

local beauty spot called the devils armchair

look closely - its a double decker car

map on the wall of my classroom, I spent 3 months looking at this map when I was struggling to remember something.

Insect bites - I had these all over

Logs in the river in Kondopoga - along the lakefront are hundreds of garages all of them at least hal a mile away from any flats of houses!

Me and Larisa - Larissa isnt as stern as she looks, but I wouldnt dare go to class without doing my homework

Eastern europes larges paper mill

The above 4 are all pictures of Kivach waterfalls a locl beauty spot, it is a russian tradition on wedding days for the party to visit a war memorial, several beauty spots and the statue of a dead commie. The result is that on a summer Saturday you happen across newlyweds everywhere you go.

2 more of the paper mill

another wedding

Lake and fountain in one of the cities many parks

cruise ship docked in Petrozavodsk

Outside the Karelian resteraunt - where the village theme commences

Korean students giving a talk

My honey pie

I think this bloke was the vice-chancellor of the uni

2 pictures of the war memorial with eternal flame. In the top picture its the view beyong the memorial with the tractor factory in the distance - really I am not making this up, zoom in on the picture and look closely and you will see the tractor monument thingy outside.

One of the cities formal squares

Kazan, the host families dog

The bus station in Sortavala - the sign on the left of the marlboro sign says that it is the cash desk of Sortavala bus station, I was rther pleased that I was able to find it to get the bus home.

releasing balloons at one of the bars I went too, apparently it was the bars birthday.

The above two are countryside near Sortavala

The above are all the nicest buildings in Sortavala

View towards the promenard and across the lake, their are some very popular beer and kebab tents and of course lots of public sculptures.

Countryside on Kizhi island

View from the que for the drop toilet on the way to Sortavala

Some of the lesser buildings on Kizhi

My mum - slightly off topic

View from my window during a rainstorm

View from on the lake.

6201 Princess Elizabeth - for anyone who I have mentioned my mums train enthusiast tendancies too - this is the engine. Thanks to Steve for the photo.

Dosvedanya Petrozavodsk

Well its time for me to say goodbye to Petrozavodsk I leave on the train to St Petersburg at 11pm this evening and I do feel a slight twinge when I think that I my might not see some of the places or people here again. Having said that I am looking forward to being in Britain again - even if I will be using public transport on a bank holiday monday to get home, hmm.

Went to Kondopoga (Kondopohja) at the weekend and saw in what would be a small town in Britain an enormous "palace of culture"(art gallery, concert hall etc), Ice hockey stadium, and new churches as well as the source of this conspicous wealth which claims to be the largest paper mill in europe, the site of trees being floated across the lake to the mill was really amazing - pictures when I get home.

I had a send off by going to the sauna - which was a new experience, I should perhaps point out that most of the attendees were from Finland and to them the sauna has no dubious connotation like it does in Britain. I thought the first 2 and a half hours were the worst (yes really) but by the end being alternately in a room too hot to breath in and in a cold pool became strangely pleasureable.

Anway thats everything for now I have to buy my host a present which is proving tricky, she doesnt eat fruit or chocalate, doesnt drink alcohol and the house is allready full of plants in nice pots and Vase's which I imagine were presents from previous students who also couldnt think of anything better. I am in St petersburg for a few days and probably wont post again till I am home.

Top (Sports) news item

please see the link below - or paste into your address bar

http://www.tranmererovers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10365~1366420,00.html

Dont Panic

Nothing much new to report except of course Russia has been at war. First of all I should point out that South Ossetia is about as far away from me as it is from Britain. It has also been interesting for me to watch the TV coverage. Lots of pictures of Russian refugees and little comment about how this whole mess started or what the outside world thinks of it. The other thing you get is various people reporting to Putin / Medveded in televised meetings, you dont have to be a body language expert to see Putins posture as the expression of power - he sits their not moving a muscle except occaisionally to brush some imaginery crumbs of his leg, rarely even blinking while the other person talks, just staring them in the eye.

Have been to a BBQ by the beach with the expat crowd and were planning a trip out into the country on Saturday. I will be leaving Petrozavodsk on Thursday and will be in St Petersburg until I fly home on the 25th. I arrive manchester at about 9.30pm and intend to get back to Huddersfield before the Kabana indian resteraunt shuts for the night.

No post for a while

I have been getting on with my studies and in any case life here has pretty much come to seem normal and not worth blogging. Last night I went to a party given by the Korean students of Russian, - great food but as we could only communicate in bad Russian with strong English / Korean accents conversation was a bit lacking.

Anyway my main news is that I have moved house - my previous host spoke no English and after 9 weeks of me the strain was showing, especially when her English speaking daughter has just gone on holiday for 3 weeks. So I have made a switch, I am glad to say my new host Lidia is lovely and seems to be able to understand my Russian (probably she is good at guessing) her flat is lovely and their is a TV in my room so I can watch the olympics - and of course listen to Russian at the same time. The only down point to the new flat is that it is on Ulitsa Dzerzhinskaya at the bottom end of town and like most Russian houses the heating and hot water is supplied communally. Being at the bottom end of town gets you plenty of heat which is good as its getting chilly but if you want to shower, wash the dishes etc you are best doing it beetween one and seven in the morning otherwise the water is cold.

Oh I think she also complained about the council not repairing some tiles around the bath but I hope I only imagined this. No computer at my new home so I am afraid theire will be lots of photos uploaded once I get home, but not before.

Reply to comments

Drop toilet = hole in the ground and hardly anyone here drinks Vodka - beer and lots of it but not much Vodka

Chris, hard to tell if someone is being ironic when you cant see their face!

Tranmere in the final of the UK masters - sorry for not publicising it sooner, did we win?, isnt the UK masters a snooker competition?