Will wrote this a week ago when we were in Moscow but couldn’t post it up so it’s a bit behind where we are now (Poland!)…
I am slowly beginning to appreciate the inventive phonetic translations of many english and french words into cyrillic. My (Will’s) name for example becomes beautifully foreign as it contains three sounds which just don’t exist in Russian; W, F and Th. Its ok though as they have exciting letters that more than make up for it, “the spider with two legs missing” (Ж) is my favourite .
We’re staying in HomefromHome hostel in a very central location in Moscow at the moment. Москва is excellent and everything is BIG. The buildings of the Red Square were impressive against the drab, nondescript grey sky, and almost alien when they were lit against the black night. Mr. Putin was not in but Mr. Lenin was, much against his will it seems as he was locked away behind glass with some of the highest security I have ever encounted.
Last night we went to a house party with some Moscow “couch surfers” and met lots of people living, travelling through, studying and working in the city. I met Thomas from Toulouse, Tanya from Krasnojarsk in Siberia and Iakov from Georgia to mention a few. We have a couch to surf for tonight and the rest of the week with a very nice girl called Sasha.
Its worth mentioning that our plans changed somewhat upon hanging around in Lviv. We decided to leave the van in some “secure” parking (I certainly wouldn’t mess with the attendant, but you wouldn’t have to if you walked through a hole in the fence) in Lviv and complete a brief former USSR taster trip on the train. A number of reasons compelled us to leave Nevil out in the cold:
- It gives us a chance for a bit of a change. Experiencing Russian trains.
- A break from cold mornings
- Ensures we are totally broke upon return (not used to all this paying for accomodation lark and there are no hostels)
- We looked at a map
We’ve been in Moscow now for a couple of days and had nearly forgotten to write a post about Minsk, but have just found some spare time while waiting for Will and our second Canadian friend also called Nick to get out of bed!
Quite an interesting place Minsk: their president has pretty much made himself into a dictator (“president for life”) and they still have the state security service KGB which keeps close tabs on its citizens. Everything in Minsk is very clean and tidy and there are armies of cleaners and gardeners out all over the central streets.
It is the first city we’ve been to for a while which feels a little like a western city centre (clean, modern, decent roads with no holes/cracks, smart looking shops etc). Apart from their pedestrian-crossing militia who give you a bollocking (and apparently a fine if you can understand what they’re saying, which I couldn’t) for crossing an empty road when the pedestrian light doesn’t say you can cross, the bitter cold temperature and the over-regimented streets, Minsk was quite nice.
In a cafe we met a guy called Sasha who spoke very little English and had nothing to do, and after an hour or so of working through our phrasebook we arranged to meet up the next day for him to give us a tour of the city! Next day saw a museum and a really cool art gallery, I think one of my favourite visits to any art gallery. They like their arts here in Belarus/Russia – ballet, opera, music: there’s lots of it and, unlike in London, it’s dirt cheap.
We were planning on staying a couple more days in Belarus but we were both keen to get to Moscow where there’s much more to do. Also, as we’ve left the van in L’viv (Ukraine) for our travels through Belarus & Russia – had I mentioned that?! – it’s a lot more difficult to get out of the city and see the countryside. Therefore after two days and one night in Belarus and we set off for Moscow.
Belarus is relatively difficult travelling in without knowing any Russian as it is a difficult language and with the different alphabet too gets tiring after a while and can be hardwork. Moscow is not so difficult as there are quite a few English-speaking tourists but still, very few Russians speak any English. More to follow soon…
After our previous border crossing attempts, most of which since leaving western Europe have resulted in us parting with money or bottles of wine, we were a little apprehensive approaching the Ukrainian border. As with all the other border-crossing shenanigans we’ve had all would have gone smoothly if I (Ben) had sorted out international insurance properly. But since leaving Slovenia we’ve been effectively uninsured and so border officials have been a little wary of letting us enter the country. However, we tried our usual tactic of playing dumb and with a little bit of creative story-telling they eventually let us in.
After some jokes trying to work out what all the signs in cyrillic were pointing to (L’viv for example is spelt: лвов) we rolled off the road and parked up in a field for the night. Next day we made it to L’viv, the main city in western Ukraine. Tourism isn’t very big here and as a result there were no backpacking hostels to stay in with the usual collection of British, Aussies and Canadians to share travel tips and beers with. So instead we found a soviet-era hotel to stay at for 5 quid a night.
Although L’viv was visually very nice, there wasn’t much to do other than see yet more churches.
Because I’m lazy and can’t be bothered to write in sentences (just been on a long train journey into Belarus and am v tired) some observations about Ukraine…
-Almost all Ukrainians girls here massively overdo it with the makeup and the vast majority also wear uncomfortable-looking (presumably “fashionable”?) knee-length boots and black. Seems to work for the Ukrainian guys!
-The streets are hugely busy at all times of day and queues for the buses and trams are massive.
-A tram ride costs 5pence
-A (good) beer costs maximum 50pence
-Petrol/diesel is 40p/litre
-A meal costs a quid
Am sure I could think of more interesting things to say another time, but this will have to do for now!
Filed under: van
Word has it that both Northern and Southern mum’s are concerned about our diet so I’ve written an eating schedule to reassure all those who might be worried, and enlighten those who are interested as to how many interesting ingredients you can add to curry.
Breakfast – usually starts with someone getting an arm out of their sleeping bag and putting the kettle on. After that the question is coffee or tea? This should be a given however Ben bought a coffee grinder in Mostar (Bosnia) and Will is struggling to find decent milk. After this we discuss what type of tea to have, then when everyone has woken up we have a fairly fast and nutritious meal of either muesli and yogurt and honey, or bread and jam and honey. When its cold and we can be arsed we have porridge. There is a compulsory Serbian apple before lunch is allowed.
Lunch – often bread, cheese and an apple followed by bread, jam and an apple. In the more eastern part of our trip we are becoming quite partial to stopping at truck stops where there is cheap and good grub if you can decipher the menu. Its usually meat.
Dinner – to quote Nick, our most recent guest, “this is the healthiest I’ve ever eaten.” Some regular favourites are:
- Risotto – established after Balthazar and Josie showed us the way in Switzerland, we stocked up with 5kg of aborio rice in Italy. You can add anything to risotto, the best yet was Cauliflower and Parsley with parmesan.
- Curry – mummysouth curry powder + Harissa from Bosnia + one or more of the following: Potato, marrow liberated from wildish romanian fields, any tinned ready meal from Carrefour, any root vegetable, tinned beans or lentils, cream, any type of sausage, peanuts, raisins etc.
- Pasta – the emergency is with pesto but this is less popular now we can’t find good cheese. Mostly tomato based sauces with seasonable vegetables, you can get 2kg of red peppers for 70p in serbia, or an aubergine for 10p in Romania. The flavouring varies from mixed herbs to balsamic and chilli.
- Casserole – well we’ve only done this once, in Croatia, but it was bloody good and lasted two meals! Still not quite sure what the meat was as we couldn’t read the lable, it was quite tender and had little fat and definitely wasn’t pork.
- Couscous – see pasta and add chilli or Harissa.
- Eating out – this is becoming better and cheaper and better the further we go! The menu is always fun so we usually request local recommendations. Buffets or where you can see what you are choosing are safer but less exciting.
Supper – the day is finished off with tea or wine or beer and occasionally some chocolate then we forget to fill the kettle and fall asleep. How civilised!
