Wow has it really been under two weeks since i got on the bus to Riga? it feels like months have passed...
Riga... Latvia passed in a sleepy blurry haze, tending tender heart and and feet (bloomin bee sting to a week to heal and theres still a little lup there now) but after a few days of lie-ins and early nights my new traveling buddy Jack and I headed to the bus station to beging our Russian Leg of our adventure. Already in latvia the landscape was wonderfully difeerent to that of the mountainous france... the further east i got the flatter it got, the more silver birched lined the road side, rowan trees would pop their little bright red berry faces between them, more building were made of wood rather than bricks aтв the city was a concrete world in a new language... so as we boarded our bus to Russia i knew of what there was more to come... the bus took small roads through forrests of what seemed to be pine or larch and birch trees and headed slowly towards the russian border... every moment the mountains of france got further away and the temples of Japan became more of a reality. Jack as i passed our time on the bus sharing peanut butter sandwhiches and he began to reveal to me the limitles knowledge his brain seems to hold. For a sieve head like me its seems inconceivable that someone could remember so many dates and events and geographical changes through out history.... i barely remember my own birthday let alone the in's and outs of the USSR, revolutions and border changes to countries... but he does and hes a never ending font of information... which is nice because its like being told stories consistantly... even if i forget who each character was and need explaining a million times that its not called the Gremlin and that Stalin and Lenin were'nt the same person... im slowly getting the hang of it though :p
So the border passed smothly; despite my socialy planted images of evil russian guards robbing me at every oppotunity they have, and aside from a giggle passing the lips of the customs ladies as they saw the image of beardless babyfaced jack in his passport it was suprisingly uneventfull and suddenly i was in Russia...
...vague memories of Mr Wilson's History class.. something about the winter palace... men with large eye brows, a big moustauch and Rasputin yet looking out the window at the wispering silver birch i find it hard to believe such a land had been through so much torment and change...The landscape continues to shift slowly, the alphabet on the road signs illegable and the churches regal and gold topped with domes of pride.
Arriving in St Petersburg that night we had little more than an address and a metro stop name to get us to where we woule и staying that night at an apparment gifted to us by our couchsurfing host Elena. But not long trudging through the rain (which apparently had been falling for 11 days now) we arrived at the appartment block and was met by a french man who handed us the keys and swiftly left never to be seen again. ...so there we were in st petersburg in an appartment which held the decor of the soviet world which had once been, plastic chandeliers and greeny grey yellowy brown colouring to everything (including the water) yet charming and homely all the same...
Our time in St petersburg was for me glittered with beautiful moments, however the characters and excentrics we met sat down and farted on the face of the architecture...as beautiful and enchanting as that was....
St Petersburg city... probably number on highligh...the metro... blieve it or not. A man selling plasters... light box advert slots which contain no more than cute pictures of kittens and grand architecture and chandeliers... nothing like old sewege tunnels of the london underground. But better than the actual space was the perfect spot to sit on a bench and watch the locals storm by. Jack and i precticed our Russian Faces in an attempt to blend in with the locals but the outbursts of giggle fits and the shabby clothes i fear may have given us away slightly.
One lovely metro moment was when jack and i were sitting in our favourite spot under nevsky prospect and a woman walked past amongst the croud carrying two balloons shaped like balloon people...with balloony heads..balloony arms.. and little balloony feet... i felt the spark of inner child light up in me, my eyes sparkeled and a beaming smile came out of me..parhaps (knowing me) i may even have let out a joyous squeek to go with it. i looked at jack and he too had the fire of the little boys glee in his eyes... that lady saw us anв beamed a warm russian smile at us (a rarety in the metro) and was sweapt away in the crowd... a few moments later we pased her on our way to meet our couch surfing host. She was waiting at her platform and again we caught eye contact and big smiles, as we passed her she held out onу ща the balloons to us as a gift... wow "no no" we say "yes" she" gestures" though language barriers are no problem in situations when the heart and body are communicating "thank you" our eyes said "spasiba" our mouths said and we wondered away full of liquid gold carrying our new friend Bubbles up to the Streets.
This leads nicely to a perfect syncro flow moment up on the surface where Bubbles was wobbling greetings to the stoney faced russian passers by when suddenly i see a face very different... a feeling of home and sensation of familiarity in him... his dreads? ..no something else... he smiles and makes wiggley noises at bubbles and as he passes i spy a hang drum and a familiar blue monkey on him back... "Bristol?" he says "yes!" i say "Hangplaying hedgemonkey?" i say "yes!" he says... "mannyfesta da monkey?!" "yes!!" and we revel in a moment of praising our beautiful shared tribe of friends from back in bristol, mike, craig, ben, kev, marcus, the whole crew were with us right there in St Petersburg.... and suddenly our rivers pulled us on seperate currents, he was swept away with the crouds and we were meeting up with our couch surfing host with whome will still hadnt met even after staying two nights in her appartment.
The evening was spent with red wine, bread, chocolate and canals... at a friends house we wiled away the evening at at 2am a knowck on the door introduces us to excited Valentina. Babbeling madly in Russian our lovely friends translate for us "she has always loved england and when she found out real english people were here in her own appartment she just HAD to get you a gift" at 2 am she had run to the shop and bought us chocolates set in the shape of local tourist attractions and she brought them out from their hiding place behind her back..overwealmed we took them laughing atthe obserdidty of it all "she is in love with england and has never met english people before, she says england in a country of honour and stays at late into the night to watch period dramas" ... We gift her wit реру only theng suitable we could find on us, a 20 pence piece and pointed out the queen which made her happy... she truddled off to her appartment.. the first english people she had met in her 50 od years of life.
She also woke us up in the morning with a knock and a plate full of the best pancakes ive ever haв (ерун LOVE pancakes in russia!!) and a bowl of AMAZING honey from her dads own bees. whilst eating i wished i could post back the honey to the bummbling honey bears in brighton, amy, guy and green and send some to mike as it was sures some of the best honey i have ever had. (as a side note there was also a honey market happening the next day which we didnt make it to)
So aside from them and many many other amazing characters we met in st petersburg the actually city was beautiful its self. Architecture ranging from bleak soviet appartment blocks to grand gold topped churches, cathertrals and the hanzel and grettel esque Church on Spilled Blood. We spent days walking the city, drawing things and eating pancakes in different establishment, getting to grips with the alphabet and the language.
After 5 nights in st petersburg we boarded our first russian train for our 8 hour journey to Moscow. Bunk beds and children we showed the provinitsa our passports and boarded the train. Probably the best train i have ever been on, and the cheapest (especially compared to the uk) there was an urn with constant hot water from which we made ourselves free cups of tea with our tea bags... thre were feather pillows designed for the bedding which we sat upon and drifted the ride away. About an hour from Moscow three Russian drunks boarded the train and sat in our area as their tickets told them to, we spent the next our battling for our perfsonal space and jack got sucked into a convocation about football (which to me sounds like hell but he loved it i think) with three drunk guys who dont speak a word of english (and according to a friendly english speaking russian girl) barely made sence in russian either...
we greatfully got off the train at Moscow and was instantly recieved into the arms (quite litterally) of the lovely Dennis, Jacks old friend.
He took us out to a gerogian restaurant and we did a night tour of the red square and now here we are a few days later in his appartment after having convinced him that he wants to leave the hostel he runs for a week and run off to the mountains with us... on saturday we shall board a train to the mountains... 50 hours ....and our first experiences of the great trans siberian railway. ..WOOOHOOO
.....side notes:
-i must give up caffine again, jack corrupted me with ealr grey and now im dealing with an over excited heart rate and the sweats.
- I was shocked to see HUGE billboard posters with our old friend Dub FX on them here, turns out he's arriving sometime soon, synchro flow!! and it seems hes pretty fameous. A ticket for his show is almost as much as the tickets to go see tori amos here!! oooOOOOOoooo go Ben ... funny considering im used to seeing him cotch up on a street corner with a busking amp haha. So we may well cross paths with him and shosh at some point too.
- Oh and i am SO in love with all my friends in england right now, constantly latenting my love for them... so i love you all sooo sooo much, you are strong in my heart.
Love and light. May your journeys be strong and great.
Fleassy xx
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