NIZHNIY NOVGOROD

This weekend was, you may be surprised to learn, yet another holiday weekend. 'Consitution Day' no less, which is quite funny considering the recent elections.

Julia and I took a trip to Nizhniy Novgorod (literally, 'lower new town' and not to be confused with Novgorod in the North of Russia), about 8 hours east of Moscow - a third of the way to the Urals. It's Russia's third largest city with well over a million inhabitants, and yet still able to prompt responses of 'what? where?' whenever you tell anybody. It used to be called Gorky under the Soviets, as it was the birthplace of the writer Maxim Gorky. Interestingly, he wasn't in favour of the city being renamed in his honour. Didn't stop the Soviets doing it though.

My more attentive readers may remember that I had attempted to go to NN previously, but was prevented by the fact that the train station staff weren't aware that the city changed its name ten years ago. For my part, I wasn't aware that the city had been called Gorky. This misunderstanding made buying tickets rather difficult.

This time round, however, the process was much simpler. I queued up. I asked for tickets. I was told 'Gorky nyet!', with no explanation. Rather perturbed, I joined a different queue. A passing woman told me to queue in queue number 15 instead. I queued in that queue. There I was told to join a different queue in an entirely different train station in a different part of Moscow, even though I was at the train station from where the trains to Nizhniy, I mean Gorky, departed. I went to the other train station. I queued again. I managed to procure the tickets. Easy.

Nizhniy is actually a really well laid-out and easily navigable city, built either side of the river Oka where it feeds into the Volga. However, arriving at 5.30am in the pitch black after a night on the train, with no map, no hotel reservation and a temperature of -5, would be a challenge for the most intrepid traveller. Julia and I did the only sensible thing: caught a bus and got off when most of the other people did. That was how we found the imaginitively titled 'Hotel Oka', so renowned that not even Lonely Planet mentions it. But they seemed quite pleased to see two foreigners at 6 in the morning. At least, they weren't actively obstructive and gave us a hotel room.

A little about the city. It seems by far the most prosperous place I've been to in Russia, though not in an overtly western way. Perhaps because it is far enough away from the influence of Moscow. There is a proper centre, with the city's bars and clubs along a main drag leading up to the Kremlin and the administrative buildings. Bizarrely, the entire length of this street is strung with speakers; perhaps in Soviet times they were used for propaganda but now they are used to subdue the population with 24 hour Ricky Martin.

Personally, I was happy because the locals didn't seem to bat an eyelid at my heavily accented Russian; not once were we accosted by 'Hey! You is English, yes! I know English good!' People just chatted, in Russian. It was really nice. Plus - and this was a huge shock - everbody was incredible friendly and helpful. The lady who tried to explain to us how to use a pedestrian crossing was probably taking it a bit too far, but her heart was in the right place.

The city's Kremlin is something special, a gigantic fortress overlooking the meeting of the two rivers and with a restaurant built into its ancient stone walls. The inside of the Kremlin is dotted with old military hardware, including the top of a submarine, artillery guns and Soviet tanks.

The only other thing I'd like to mention is that we had had to buy first class tickets for the return journey because of availability. I can tell you that the only difference between Russian first class and Russian second class train travel - apart from costing a third more - is that you get a packed lunch. Not even including caviare. But hey, because it costs more, no other bugger travels first class and you're pretty much guaranteed to get a cabin (if not a carriage) to yourself.

CHOICES

So we had the elections. The Pro-Putin United Russia party trounced everybody, as predicted. Putin's puppet national socialist 'Homeland' party stole enough votes away from the communists to give him the two-thirds support he needs to change the consititution. There's no longer any liberal representation in the Duma as both the liberal parties fell just under the required 5% threshold. Allegations of vote fixing and ballot stuffing are rife, both here and abroad, though here it's just coming from the communists, the only opposition with any teeth left. They've even been arguing the case for the liberals, their natural enemies.

But hey, nearly every Russian I've spoken to is pleased as punch. Their leader has more strength than ever; strength enough to push through any changes he wants. I don't think Russia really understands the role of a political opposition. Most of the Russians I come into contact with on a day to day basis are atypical of the nation as a whole: they're young, educated, westernised, and cosmopolitan. Yet nearly all of them voted for United Russia. Ask them why, and most parrot: "They're a strong party. A united Russia is a strong Russia." I tell you, it's seriously scary. I think that, if Putin has previously appeared as a very moderate leader, it is because he has been held in check by the remnants of Yeltsin's supporters, known as 'The Family'. This set of elections has seen The Family lose the last of its influence and power.

Putin now controls: the presidency, the Duma, the security forces (including the FSB), all television channels, and most printed media. He has enormous influency on the judiciary, and the Duma itself is a coalition of aggressive nationalists.

But at least I'm not in Amerika.

Well, I haven't written for a long time. That's because nothing much has happened.

We are becoming slightly more international at our company, having acquired people from Sweden, Lexumbourg and France recently. The average scarf-wearing ability has increased noticeably, mainly due to all the French girls.

The weather is strange. We haven't had a big snow fall so far this year, and all the snow that did fall has long melted by now. So it's the first week of December and the ground is still bare. We even had some rain a week ago!

I'm going back to England for the holidays, flying on the 22nd of December. I love British Airways. Although I was taken aback by the level of security in their Moscow sales office - one employee, one customer (me) and three armed security guards!

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I have a 'prestige' student. Not quite on the level of Natasha Yeltsin, but I teach the Russian under-17 gymnastics champion... now all I have to do is try not to lose her.

Well, that's all. I did tell you that nothing had happened!

ROBBIE

Also, I went to the big Moscow Robbie Williams gig on Sunday evening. The perfect way to round off a holiday weekend.

Well, I was treated to the sight of Robbie a) speaking quite a lot of Russian, b) Cossack dancing, c) parading around with a big Russian flag, and d), saying "Fu*ing hell, I'm in Russia" about ten times. Plus he had his dad with him.

I went with Julia, and being American she had almost no idea who Robbie was. "He looks like a boxer. Is he gay? Surely he's not a singer? How old is he? Did he really use to be in a boy band?" But hey, she liked it.

KALUGA HO

We've just had a three day holiday weekend. I'd like to tell you which holiday we were celebrating, but even the Russians here didn't exactly seem sure. Perhaps something to do with the constitution? Or the revolution? Or both?

Anyway, we decided to get out of Moscow for a day or two so four of us took the train down to Kaluga, about 200km south of Moscow. In my first year in Russia I was working in Kaluga region but never made it to the regional capital. So it has been an unfulfilled ambition - until now. Actually, another reason we went to Kaluga was that we could get there on the electric 'local' train, rather than the book-in-advance overnight trains which tend to be pretty full on holidays. The local trains also cost peanuts - about one pound fifty all the way to Kaluga.

So we arrived in Kaluga. A very old city, with almost no Soviet buildings. It was disconcerting not to see tower blocks everywhere. There are even some wooden houses left in the city centre.

We totally failed to find a hotel to stay in. All except two were full; of those two, one only had one room left, and the other refused to let us stay there when they found out we were foreign. Seriously. So we did what any self-respecting young people would do and stayed in a club until the morning. Actually we managed to get a table so we just sat, ate and drank the night away. We also got into trouble for playing cards, which is apparently *absolutely forbidden* in Russian clubs and bars. Didn't know that.

As we tried to leave the club, we got accosted by some drunk Russians who made us drink vodka with them. I don't know why I'm telling you this, as it barely counts as an anecdote any more. My flatmate poured his vodka into a potplant though, as it was either that or vomit on some strangers. Which would have been a better anecodote.

When we finally managed to leave the club, we had the brilliant and not entirely sober idea of finding a train to an entirely different provincial city. So we turned up at the station only to find no trains but a big, warm, clean bus with a 'MOSKVA' sign. It seemed like fate. So we returned home. That was our very brief trip away - 13 hours in Kaluga!

A SERIOUS POST?

Never! Actually, I was just wondering how much you were getting in the western media about the whole Yukos / Yabloko scandal that kicked off here recently. It's pretty big news over here, and what with the Duma elections in December it doesn't look like it's going to sort itself out any time soon.

It also means that Putin will have almost no opposition on any level. As much as I respect him as a leader, it's still pretty scary. He's got the media sewn up pretty tight too; there was a big crackdown after the Dubrovka theatre terrorism thing.

Oh. The scandal did hit the rouble briefly but then, annoyingly for me, the government acted to shore it up so the exchange rate is still pretty unfavourable. Bah. I'm still waiting for the sudden collapse that will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams. Or at least let me afford a new DVD player!

WAR - WHAT'S IT GOOD FOR?

Okay, so one more Jason-related incident.

On the Sunday, Jason's last full day in Moscow, I took him to that most typical and representative of Russian cultural events - the Napoleonic battle re-enactment.

This basically involved shivering in the snow on a hillside about 100km south of Moscow, while lots of very drunk Russian men pretended to be very drunk Russian or French soldiers. The re-enactment was to commemorate the battle of Maloyaroslavets in 1812, in which the Russians, after having previously and rather cunningly burnt down their own capital city, got trounced yet again by Napoleon. The battle was a bit of a pyrrhic victory for the French, though, and it forced them to run home east rather than carrying on pressing south to the warmer, sunnier bits of Russia. The wusses.

Actually, as Napoleonic battle re-enactments go, this one was a bit of a corker. Not only did they have horses, and big cannons that actually went bang, but they had also put up little wooden buildings to torch whenever they got too cold. I did pity the soldiers that 'died' in the first five minutes of the battle and who then had to lie in the snow for the next hour and a half...

Another particularly fine aspect of this event was the running commentary. Some bloke in a van at the top of the hill had loudspeakers and obviously thought he was a sports commentator: "And the French are coming up on the left , oh but that's a bold move by the Russian cavalry..." Well, it kept me amused.

Jason and I also met up with some friends of mine from my first year here in Russia (who had told me about the re-enactment), so Jason got to meet some real Russians and experience real Russian hospitality. This basically involved forcing him to drink strange, nameless and incredibly syrupy spirits. I'm sure he was very grateful for the whole day. But hey, what are friends for?

Well, my friend Jason has flown home now but I thought I'd write about a couple of the things we did when he was here. Sadly, he'll probably be reading this web log too so I'm unable to embellish the truth / slag him off / bluntly lie. Never mind.

FIRE

On Wednesday we went to a gig advertised in the paper. A local post-rock band (yes, there are such things in Russia), that I knew through one of my students, was supposed to be playing. Sounded good. So three of us went after work - myself, Jason, and the girl from Portland (Julia), who is into that sort of thing.

Unsurprisingly, the venue was underground. I say unsurprisingly because not only is a) every place in Moscow underground, but b) this particular place was called 'Bunker'. That sort of gave the game away. Actually it looked like a converted wine callar more than anything. But obviously with more alcohol in.

The first band were terrible. The second band was pretty good. The third band were also decent. None of them, however, were the advertised band that we had come to see. Small details like this aren't important in Russia.

By this time we'd missed the last metro. Julia didn't want to get a taxi back on her own, and had the not-too-brilliant idea of getting a taxi first to her place then back to mine, so we could drop her off. Sadly she lives in the opposite corner of Moscow, about 20km away: we're not that rich.

The only alternative (apart from leaving Julia when she wasn't looking, which I suggested but Jason - in a rare attack of gentlemanliness - vetoed) was to stay until the metro opened at about 5.30am. Having to work the next day, I wasn't strongly against this plan. So obviously that's what we did.

Earlier that evening Julia had seen somebody ordering a very stupid drink from the bar. You know what a flaming sambucha is, right? Well, this was the Russian equivalent. Instead of setting the drink alight, the bartender sets the bar alight and you have to reach in through the wall of flame, grab your drink, and down it before your sleeve ignites or your arm combusts.

Julia suddenly decided that she wanted to drink one of these. And that she wanted us to as well. Thus followed a very stupid conversation with the barman as we tried to explain that we wanted the 'drink with the fire... flame... burn!' He eventually got the idea. So there were the three of us lined up at the bar in this bunker. The bartender puts down our drinks, and pours some sort of flammable spirit along the length of the bar. He lights it. Woof! Wall of flame!

To be fair, the doctors say that the scars should fade over the next ten years or so. Okay, okay, I'm embellishing again. None of us were burnt. But I didn't feel too good teaching the next day. Jason blamed it on that final shot of tequila. Perhaps it was off or something.

GOLOD

The new Russian reality show: 'Golod', or 'Hunger'. It's basically Big Brother without any food. Who will be the first to starve?

Talking of starving, can anybody tell me what happened to David Blaine?

Anyway, Hunger starts in the first week of November so I'll let you know more when I've seen it. Not too tempted to apply myself though.

THOM AND ME

I've got a poster on my wall I want to tell you about. It's of Thom Yorke, the squinty-eyed, ugly lead singer from Radiohead. But in this particular picture he's been (deliberately and obviously) airbrushed to remove all his deformities. It's a sort of comment on image and media. Fair enough.

But the thing is this. Several people have said, in all seriousness, that the airbrushed Thom Yorke looks like me. I'm not entirely sure whether I'm happy about this. You look like a freak, James, but a normal-looking one. Ta.

Well, I haven't written for a while. That's because I've been having such an exciting time recently.

First, not only was our flat burgled (wow!), by someone with a key (ooh!), but then I had food poisoning (gasp!) and couldn't eat solids for a week (wow!). I have spent my free time either on the toilet (flush!), or in a police station giving statements, in Russian, in triplicate (blyn!). Now I have lost my voice (croak!).

Wonderful.

Seriously, it was fascinating to see the long arm of the Russian law fully unfurled. I think that the break-in at our flat must be the most exciting thing that has ever happened as far as the Northern Tushino police are concerned.

Not only were we interviewed by two inspectors (bad cop - bad cop style) but then no less than six officers came round to inspect the flat. We even had the official police photographer taking pictures of the crime scene. I was quite tempted to draw chalk outlines of the stolen electricals in my room to help with their investigations.

THE MUSIC SCENE IN PORTLAND, OREGON

...is not as good as Moscow's, apparently. That's what I've learnt this week.

I met a girl from Portland, an intern at my company, who has a very similar taste in music to me. Willfully obscure, in other words. She'd been asking me to take her to 'a show', as she called it, for a while. Obviously I don't like socialising with young, attractive, interesting women, but eventually I succumbed and took her to see my favourite Russian band, 'Zveri', play on Saturday.

After taking the tram in the wrong direction, (oops), we arrived at 8.55. The band, unbelievably, came on at 9 on the dot, without any support - so we had to desperately fight our way to the front throwing small teenage girls hither and thither. That was fun.

Zveri, meanwhile, came on with a troupe of dancing girls and spraying big magnums of champagne into the crowd. That might give you a good impression of the kind of show it was.

Apart from that, my favourite moment was the encore. The crowd was shouting 'Zveri, Zveri, Zveri!'. After a couple of minutes the band came back on, but instead of playing anything, just started chanting 'crowd, crowd, crowd!' Well, that made me laugh.

And actually, it was just nice to have a night out where nobody got arrested.

In other news.

The weather is very Autumnal at the moment - lots of wind and rain. I quite like it. It's not cold at least. But the central heating in the flats came on on the 1st of October, so it is quite tropical indoors at the moment. The mosquitoes seem to like it.

We also have no electricity at the moment. It went off last night. I did look in the fuse box in the hall this morning but decided not to poke around too much for fear of electricuting myself - the bare, loose (and probably live) wires put me off for some reason.

I have a new student, a 14-year old boy called Alexey. He's studying at Advanced level, for the CAE exam. That's pretty impressive for a 14-year old, and more so as English is his third language after Russian and French (he's Russian but goes to a specialist French school).

So I have Alexey twice a week for individual lessons, an hour at a time. That's okay and makes a change from teaching groups. Plus I've never prepared anyone for the CAE exam before, so it's something new for me too.

But he's not the brightest spark. We were talking about suffixes, especially the suffix '-ish' you can add to make new words like 'thirtyish' or 'brownish'. I asked Alexey for some more examples. He thought for a minute before coming up with 'tunafish'.

So we went back to the beginning, and I explained the general concept in more detail. Once more I asked him for some more examples. This time he came up with 'tunafishish'...

THE THIRD WAY - POSTSCRIPT

I forgot to tell you anything about the club I went to for my birthday, being too busy relating the story of my friends' incarceration. In fact it was much like the places I used to frequent in Nottingham - small, dirty, seedy, unpopular. And that was just the clientele.

The DJ in this place, for the whole evening, played only David Bowie and obscure French pop, in rotation. Either he was being willful or he had only two CDs; I suspect probably the latter.

This place also did food - small Russian sandwiches (bread with salami). I'm only mentioning this because my friend Rich is a fat bloater and managed to eat 10 of them. Sorry, but this has to be written down for posterity.

My flatmate - the new one - got dragged off onto the dancefloor by a middle-aged woman, to boogie to Bowie and obscure French pop. My flatmate - the old one - got cornered in the, er, corner, by a group of much more attractive young Russian ladies. He stayed behind when the rest of us went off to rescue my Russian friends.

A brilliant recent example of Russian efficiency by my company.

Last year we had a slight problem with security: several teachers had personal possessions stolen from the staffroom at central school, a room used only by teachers. In short, there was a tea-leaf amongst us! So over the summer Language Link installed a bank of brand-new lockers along one wall, one for each teacher. Problem solved.

Two days after their installation, one teacher accidentally realised that her key could open not only her locker but also the one next to it. Hang on a minute - and the one next to that. And the one above it. In fact, it could open all of them. No, it gets better - every key could open every single locker! Now that's what I call security.

I went down to tell adminstration. "Oh yes," the administrator said, "we knew. We were just hoping that no-one would realise."

I have one great student this year, Sergei. He's only about 13, and studies at Intermediate level as the only boy in a group of girls. He has such an evil sense of humour. For example: we were revising transport vocabulary, and the question came up, 'What do you keep in the boot of a car?' My other students said the usual - 'a spare tyre, luggage...'. When they were finished, Sergei paused before answering, 'A body. Excellent.' Then rubbed his hands together.

Or another example: we were practicing 2nd conditionals, and I asked, 'What would you do if you were President of Russia?' Again, my other students came up with the textbook answers: 'Help the poor, build orphanages, stop AIDS, blah blah blah.' Sergei again was the last to answer. 'I'd go to war. I'd invade Finland. Excellent.'

THE THIRD WAY

I was my birthday last week. When we've gone out recently it has been as a massive group of teachers and interns, most of whom are Americans and (perhaps unsurprisingly) very loud, so for my birthday I decided I wanted to do something a little less... conspicous.

So only seven of us went out; first for some food - to the now famous pie place - and then to a club. The seven of us were myself, strange bearded flatmates past and present, two other teacher friends, and two Russian friends from Obninsk, Sasha and Uri. These last guys had got the train down especially and were staying at my flat that night.

Halfway through the evening, everything was going smoothly. Always a bad sign. We left the pie cafe and made our way to the metro station nearest the club. The club itself, I should tell you, was an alternative/rock club called 'The Third Way'. The place came highly recommended but only one of us had ever been there before and wasn't sure of the way. So, outside the metro, we asked a couple of likely-looking alternative types for directions. They were also going to the club so we followed them.

It was a little farther from the metro than we had expected, so pretty soon my two small-bladdered Russian friends had ducked into an alley to relieved themselves. My friend Rich stayed behind to wait for them, and the other four of us made our way to the club. We got to the club okay, and waited for the others to catch us up. There was no sign of them.

Five minutes passed, and we were starting to get a little concerned. Suddenly an out-of-breath Rich came puffing up the road.

"Your friends! They've been arrested!" he gasped.
"Bloody hell, not again! What for this time?"
"Pissing in an alleyway!"
"But everybody does that..."
"Not when there are two policemen standing six feet away..."
"So where are they now?" I asked. Every other time someone has been 'arrested', they have had to pay a bribe (sorry, fine) and then are let off.
"I don't know," puffed Rich. "They were taken off in a police van..."

Of course, it probably didn't help that my friends had Obninsk, not Moscow papers, and that one of them was originally from the Caucasus.

What could we do? My friends were staying at my flat, but didn't have a key. I wasn't sure they had my mobile number either. We could have gone back to the flat to wait for them, but then decided that they would either 1) be released, and make their way to the club, if they could find it, or (more likely) 2) be stuck in a cell overnight.

So we did what all self-respecting friends would do when their guests had been arrested. We went into the club.

And we did actually had a good, if slightly guilty, time, until about 4am when I got a call on my mobile.

"We've been released!"
"Great. Where are you?"
"Outside your flat. Where the hell are you?"
"Bugger... we'll see you in about an hour..."

To cut a long story short, Sasha and Uri had been taken to the police station, where they had had to pay a fine of 100R each, all they could afford. After some time, they had been released. Only they'd been released at a police station nowhere near where I live or where the club was, at 3am, with no money. Which was very considerate.

Another successful night out then. God knows what would have happened had we been conspicous.

Perhaps I should tell you a little about my new flatmate. As I've already said, he is a Welshman called Gareth. He also went to Nottingham Uni, the same as me. So far so good (apart from the Welsh bit).

Less promising, perhaps, are his Craig David-style beard and his musical sheep thong that he not only wears around the flat (!) but also takes to parties. In fact, he has a variety of thongs and novelty clothes generally. This is a man whose proudest possession is his 'Nobody Knows I'm a Lesbian' t-shirt. Second perhaps is his Watch Out Children: Maniac' t-shirt.

Also, he's not actually called Gareth but Andrew, mutch in the same way my previous flatmate called himself Anthony even though his name was Ryan. So a pattern is emerging.

VICTORY PARK

I went on a nice outing on Saturday, to Victory Park in the far west of Moscow. It's the place where a lot of the city's parades, celebrations and demonstrations are held. There's a parade ground, the obligatory military museum or two, and some park (unsurprisingly).

The metro station to Victory Park is brand new - it only opened this year - and it's good to see that the city is still being creative in the design of the metro stations. Victory Park metro has all the usual marble as well as two fantastically shoddy murals, one to celebrate Hitler's defeat and the other to celebrate Napoleon's. Even though I thought it was a draw. Never mind.

Anyway, the mural of Napoleon has to be seen - he's surrounded by his cronies, with cannon balls scattered at his feet, but the artist got the proportions wrong and it looks like he's enjoying a fun game of ten-pin bowling. It's even better than the statue of Pin-head Peter in St. Petersburg.

Sad fact. The metro station is the deepest in the world (it was built underneath wetland), and so it also has the longest escalator in the world.

Another great thing about Victory Park on a Saturday is that it is a traditional place for wedding parties to come to have their photo taken. Actually, I couldn't move for brides when I was there. Must have seen at least a hundred. Bizarrely, there was a man with a falcon who let brides take their pictures with the bird for a few roubles. There's one for the photo album - 'me in my wedding dress with a falcon on my arm in the middle of the park'.

OBO MNYE

In case you are interested, I passed the teaching course I took over the summer. I tried quite hard to recruit some of my fellow trainees for Language Link in Russia, but strangely enough, they didn't really seem that keen. I can't understand it, but they preferred to go and teach in sunny, safe places like Spain. Strange people.

I also have a new mobile phone, Russian stylee. Well, it's actually my old phone with a Russian sim card which should work out cheaper. My Russian friend had to buy it for me because - in order to buy a sim card - you need to show some official documentation that gives your address. And the only acceptable form of documentation is of course, a passport. Have a look in your passport - does it have your address in? No? Didn't think so.

The silver lining of this is that I can make a load of prank calls and my friend gets arrested! Sweet.

Anyway, I can't tell you my new mobile number here for security reasons but you should have had an e-mail about it. If not, well, I would recommend you send me an SMS but that's not really possible is it? Go and hassle my mum or something. Only kidding mum!

THE SON OF BLOG

Yes, I'm back in Russia again. I probably should have told you a week ago, but you know how it is. We've got no internet at the school at the moment - it was taken away when our director realised that 90% of our traffic was to either mingers.com or hotornot.com. I almost wish I hadn't introduced the other teachers to these sites now. But hopefully this situation is only temporary.

GARETH MARK 2

I have a new flatmate - a Welshman called Gareth. I don't know, I travel a whole continent to get away from one Gareth only to end up living with another one! Seriously, my mum suggested he change his name (my flatmate, not my brother) to avoid confusion. He was surprisingly amenible to this, until my mum volunteered 'Henry', an unfortunate choice (apart from the obvious) as it is the name of his much loved and recently departed pet dog!

Still, Gareth is working alongside me at Skhodnenskaya and is also working in Mitino - basically what I was doing last year. They originally wanted to put him in Khimki, where Patrick Ketchum got shot at and Rich was savaged by Alsatians, so I think things have worked out for the best.

I really should have said this three weeks ago. Sorry.

Yes, I'm back in England at the moment, after a safe and uneventful blah blah blah. I'll be returning to Russia some time in the second week of September, all being well with visas and flights and so on.

I probably won't write much on here during the summer, unless something really interesting happens. But then, this is England.

Old friends: feel free to get in touch with me if you want to. Usual address, phone number etc.


James

Also, if anyone wants a copy of my new poetry pamphlet, 'Together and Elsewhere', which is split 50:50 with an American poet called Adam Mahiques, then let me know. I'll stick one in the post for you.

OH NO! I'VE LOST MY VISA!!!

Only kidding...

Today I accompanied a sick friend of mine, another teacher, to the doctor here. Luckily we have private medical insurance as part of our contract but she's a bit doctor-phobic and has spent the past month denying she is ill, despite a hacking cough, feeling faint, temperatures, all that sort of stuff. Anyway, I finally got her to see the doctor only for us to be told that she has bronchitis!

So then it took me a good two more hours to persuade her to take some time off work.... added to that, I had to help her pick up her prescription, take her to physio, and stop her passing out on the metro after too many drugs. So I've been a right regular boy scout today. Well, I've got nothing else to do. Apart from spend time in the internet cafe, natch.

Only six more days to go before I'm back in England...

Just spent most of the past week in Obninsk, not doing much really, getting bitten by mosquitos and blood-sucking flies, drinking vodka, sleeping. So that was all very pleasant. Kostya is still working on his album in the recording studio - four songs nearly completed now.

Actually outside Kiev Station in Moscow, just before I left for Obninsk, I got jumped on by about twenty five gypsy women. Well, when I say 'jumped on', I mean that I started to run when I saw what was happening, as a couple of friends of mine have had things stolen in the past by groups of gypsies.

So if you can, picture me legging it about 200 yards down a bus rank in crowded central Moscow, being chased by a small army of head-scarved, floral-dress wearing h\gypsy ladies, all crying out to me in several languages! It was like something from Benny Hill. I managed to outrun them, probably the first time I have ever outrun anybody in my whole life.

CAMP

Still slacking off, not doing much, not earning much.

I was offered so work, though - at the dreaded GULAG, I mean summer camp. Worse still, it was a 'Lord of the Rings' themed summer camp - lots of poncing about in tights waving swords while trying to teach the third conditional. Not even Solzhenitsyn had to go through that. So I turned it down. I only have two weeks left here anyway.

Helpfully, though, I did volunteer my flatmate for the camp. I think the Black Maria is coming for him any time now. Goodbye Anthony, have fun...

I might escape to Obninsk in the next day or two. There's rumour going round of a 'Harry Potter' themed gulag and I want to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.

Incidentally, talking of Obninsk. The girl who has been sent to the summer camp at Dubravushka has now decided that she hates it so much she is going to commute from Moscow every day! That's 100km there, another 100km back, on the pootling little electric train.

*

In the teachers' room today, under duress, I took some stupid personality test on a website called Thespark.com which told me that I was 34 per cent gay. I wouldn't mind but this makes me officially the gayest man in Language Link (including one staff member who is actually gay). The second test, just to add insult to injury, told me I was a woman.

I have, however, grown back my beard, which is both heterosexual and very masculine. It is not as ginger as last time. This is not saying much.

IT'S A HARD LIFE

I'm not really working at the moment, as all my regular classes have finished and Language Link haven't found anything else to give me yet. I'm sure they will. But then, I only have three more weeks until I fly back to England.

I do have a few private lessons which are tiding me over, keeping me busy. Thirty dollars an hour, that's not too shoddy. Sorry, I'm not boasting, I was just very surprised. I was thinking of asking for fifteen... I should set up business on my own really... well, I would probably need Russian citizenship... well, I guess I have to find a wife...

The weather here is quite poor. It's not cold, but it is rather wet. I think it's nicer in England at the moment. I don't know where the sun has got to this summer.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE

I'm coming back to Russia next year, by the way. I have signed a new contract for the next academic year starting in September. I'll be based solely in Schodnenskaya, so no more trips up to the wind tunnel that is Mitino.

Getting a contract involved me meeting the head honcho, our number one, the great leader, for the very first time... he's a hyperactive, sarcastic Jewish American, a sort of portly Quentin Tarantino figure, if you can imagine that. He said I looked Scottish.

Incidentally, a girl serving in a kiosk started speaking to me in French when she heard my foreign accent! That's a lot better than being mistaken for a German or an American...

Other plans. I'm taking a CELTA course over the summer in London, so I'll be a proper fully-qualified teacher. Well, it'll keep me out of trouble while I'm home anyway....

SUITS YOU

The latest development in Russian sartorial style: handbags for men.

Seriously. Every metro carriage seems to be filled with little leather-bag wielding mincers, straps strung jauntily over one shoulder. They go well with the pointy shoes though. And the denim waistcoats.

NIKITA ANECDOTE

I remembered an old anecdote about my 8-year-old student, Nikita, that is worth recording. If you recall, this is the student who brought a knife to class, as well as a scooter, lazer pens, and so on...

We had been studying 'The Village' - I had a big picture of a village and we were trying to name the buildings:

Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a church.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: Er, it's a graveyard.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a grave.

Ten minutes passed, and the group was in the middle of another activity - some grammar exercises I think. Suddenly Nikita starts intoning, in a very sinister Shining-type voice: "One grave... eleven graves.... fifty four graves..." He went up and up and up. Pretty soon he had reached a total of around nine hundred graves. Well, that freaked me out, I can tell you.

Everyone here is talking about the stupid American who was due to start working here at Language Link last week. He flew out to Moscow from the States only to be sent straight back home again at the airport - because he hadn't bothered getting a visa!

All he had was a plane ticket, as, and I quote, 'it's still Europe isn't it.' Now he is demanding that Language Link reimburse him for the money he wasted. Personally I don't think he'll get a cent.

*

More interestingly, a couple of Language Link employees showed up in the staff room at the central school the other day - having come to Moscow straight from finishing their contracts teaching engineers in a Siberian mine! That sounds like an interesting thing to do. And my contract is nearly up for renegotiation....

Don't worry, mum! I'm only joking.

But I've heard Belarus is nice.

Well, we have hot water in the flat again.

Sadly the weather has gone manky - the temperature for Moscow today is 5 - 8C. Of course, the heating is off for the summer in our block so it's freezing at night. Wish I hadn't taken all the insulation of the windows now.

I'm on probably my last week of teaching in Mitino now. I still don't know what I'll be doing after that. Probably not summer camp, as we have too many staff finishing regular teaching and not enough places at camp for them all. Well, that's good as I'd rather stick around in Moscow.

My friend Jamie has been sent to camp though - to Obninsk for two weeks! I gave her the lowdown before she went.

Forgot to say. Terrible news.

The kebab shop near my house has shut down.

Also, we are now on our 15th day without hot water in the flat.

So I haven't eaten or washed for over two weeks.

Found a great, if very strange, restaurant on Sunday night. Went there with three other teachers.

It's called the Simple Cafe (Or 'Simply a Cafe' it can also be translated as), in the China Town part of the city. It's under the ground, like everywhere decent in Moscow, through a seedy little doorway. From the outside it looks shut, or possibly shut down.

It's not simply a cafe, though. It's not even a cafe. It's a restaurant. Also (I hear you groaning), it's a karaoke restaurant. This made me laugh because the only two groups of people in the restaurant were a) me and my friends, who aren't that hot at singing in Russian, and b) a group of deaf people!

One of our party was a vegetarian, and wanted to know what she could safely eat on the menu. This led to a great conversation (all in Russian) with our waitress, reassuring me that this was indeed an authentic Russian restaurant:
Liz: I'm a vegetarian.
Waitress: What?
Liz: I'm a ve-ge-tar-ian.
Waitress: What?
Me (trying to be helpful, with my marginally better language skills): She doesn't eat meat.
Waitress: She doesn't eat meat?
Me: Right.
Waitress: What about fish?
Liz: No, no fish.
Waitress (pointing to page on menu): This, this is all meat. (Turns page) This is all meat. (Turns page) This is all meat. (Long pause) You can have a salad. You will have this salad.

Needless to say, the salad came a good twenty minutes before the other three (meat) dishes. I had pork with cheese, surprisingly tasty.

Oh. The other great thing about the restaurant was the special weekend beer prices: 18 roubles. Now, that's the same price as a bottle of beer from a kiosk, and 52 roubles cheaper than a beer from the club next door to Simply a Cafe.

BLEURGH

A horrible little anecdote for you.

I stepped onto a metro train last Thursday evening, heading into the centre to meet some friends for a drink. The middle third of the otherwise-busy carriage was empty, and for good reason - there was a big pool of greeny-yellow vomit spreading across the floor. Luckily, I managed to grab almost the last remaining seat in the 'clean' part of the carriage, although the stench of the sick still carried.

A couple of stops later, a little old lady with a younger man, probably her son, stepped onto the carriage. The old lady, seeing vacant seats, barged her way through to the middle in the typical manner of violent Russian grannies. Unfortunately, she didn't see the vomit. She stepped onto the vomit, slipped, and fell backwards *into* the vomit. Splash. Her son tried to catch her but failed, and nearly ended up on the floor as well. He did get hit by some of the splashback, though.

The carriage was in uproar - everyone trying not to laugh, or gag, as the old woman pulled herself up and tried to wipe the vomit from herself with the one little tissue she happened to have.

The term is drawing to an end and many of my classes have finished, or about to finish. Still don't know what I'll be doing after the end of next week.

I had my final lesson with my group of little kids last week. Nikita, the eight-year-old who has been tormenting me with kitchen implements and laser-pens all year, brought me a present - a hardback book of Winnie the Pooh stories in Russian! All is forgiven. He even signed it, in big scrawling capitals: "IT'S FOR YOU! TO JAMES! FROM NIKITA!"

And although he had promised to bring his new hamster in for the final lesson, that never happened.

So, my amusing anecdotes are out the way. Time for some general news.

Had a crazy week this week. I was phoned at midnight on Sunday by my administrator who was panicking because a teacher who had left on a short trip to the States before the holidays hadn't come back when she was supposed to. So I have been covering some of her classes this week. My timetable has been a mess, but this teacher is allegedly due back today so hopefully next week will be slightly calmer. Some of my own groups are coming to an end about now so my timetable is naturally easing off anyway. With any luck, I'll be down to 25 or 26 academic hours next week.

In other good news, we gave the insane cat back on Thursday. Finally. Incidentally, the teachers who had gone down to Sochi near the Turkish border for the holidays - a mixed party of English, Americans and Russians, including the girl who foisted the cat on us - had all, almost to a man, been arrested on the train on the way back for 'indecency'. Basically, the police pulled them from their beds and arrested them for not wearing trousers. Genius, eh? Who wears trousers when the sleeper trains are superheated? Anyway, the police refused to accept any bribes and one Russian girl, Marina, was forced into signing a confession - so it's probably not the last that they have heard of this incident. Though the police did threaten Ian the stereotypical northerner with writing to Bridlington Council about his behaviour! I bet he's quaking in his DMs.

Some of the teachers are starting to reach the end of their contracts and drift off now. I have my second leaving do to go to tonight, an Australian friend called Emma. Personally I am contracted to work through June and the start of July but I don't know what I'll be doing as the academic year will have finished. Luckily one of my groups want to continue studying throughout this period so it's unlikely that I'll be shipped off to summer camp. Mind you, even that could be interesting (as long as I don't end up back at Dubravushka!).

Remember my eight-year old student, Nikita, who likes to bring things - toys, weapons - to the classroom?

My administrator told me of the following short conversation that occurred between Nikita and his mum (his mum must have told my administrator).

Mum: So, Nikita. You've had four English teachers now. Wendy, Katie, David and James. Do you remember them all?
Nikita: Yes.
Mum: Which ones did you like the best?
Nikita: David... and James.
Mum: James? Why do you like James?
Nikita: He's not normal.

So there you have it. Even knife-toting eight-year olds think I'm strange.

REMONT

Remont. What is remont? Remont is the bane of my life here in Russia.

Let me explain. 'Remont' is a Russian word with no exact English equivalent - a dictionary will tell you that it translates as 'repairs' or 'reconstruction' or 'refurbishment' or something along these lines, but that's not quite accurate.

Remont can apply to shops, flats, amenities, services - anything really. Remont is when a Russian takes something that is working perfectly well, then pulls it to pieces just to make sure. Having reassured himself that it was in working order before he broke it, he will then spend the next couple of weeks putting it back together. With any luck, it will then work nearly as well as it did originally.

At the moment, I have no hot water in my flat. Neither have several thousand other people in my district. When I asked how long this will go on for, I was told - for May. The whole month! So what calamity has caused this situation? One word - remont. Apparently this happens every year. The water board stop the hot water, just to check that the hot water system, the pipes etc, are working properly. After all, they wouldn't want people to have problems with their hot water now would they?

Incidentally, remont can also apply to cities. St Petersburg is currently undergoing remont, which goes some way to explaining why we could get into some of the places we didn't get in to.

WEATHER

It's now +24 in Moscow! Yes, really scorching. All the trees are in full bloom as well. I'm not looking forward to going back to work next week if the heat keeps up. In some ways I prefer the cold. But it means I'll probably come back to England in the summer with a tan and confuse everyone who thinks that Russia is always cold and snowy.

St. Petersburg wasn't quite so warm but we still had a lot of sun. The trees haven't really started to bud there because it's so much farther north, but to make up for it we were getting sun-set at around midnight (and, disconcertingly, getting noticeably later each night). It's only a few weeks till the 'White Nights' phenomenon starts and the city has practically 24-hours of sunlight.

PIE SHOPS

Last night I discovered a great place in Moscow. It is called Proekt O.G.I. - 'The OGI Project', though in Russian it is a sort of pun on the word for 'pie'. It's a small basement bar-stroke-venue-stroke-bookshop-stroke-restaurant-stroke-gallery. It didn't really have much to do with pies. Even the restuarant bit didn't sell them.

We saw, or rather heard from behind a sea of heads, a Moldovan funk-punk band called WK? play. The beer was sooo cheap, and it wasn't crawling with ex-pats (only us, he-he). It's also in a nice part of the city (Chistiye Prudy, or 'Clean Ponds'), and right near a metro station - but well-hidden in a courtyard, so no passing trade. A really nice, friendly, enthusiastic crowd too.

I sometimes feel that all the really nice places in Moscow are in basements. In fact, I don't know a single decent place at street level or above. There's another place I like run by the Proekt OGI people, called Pirogi ('pies'), and that's also mostly underground. It does sell pies, though, among other things. It also has a bookshop. Bizarre. But I would recommend either of these places, should you ever be in Moscow (Pirogi is near Teatralnaya metro station).

Having just read my previous post about our trip to St. Petersburg, I have realised that it might seem somewhat critical. So I would like to add that I had a great time, and apart from the first day, when it pissed down, had great weather as well. Incidentally I spent that first rainy day with Kostya waiting for my family to arrive and following two traditionally Russian activities - drinking vodka, and watching a Jackie Chan film. These two activities go together surprisingly well.

The other great thing about the trip to Pete was that I wasn't at the flat in Moscow. This week we, that is, Anthony and I, have been cat-sitting for a teacher who has skipped off to Sochi for the holidays. And what a mad cat it is.


SOME FACTS ABOUT MARGARITA THE CAT

1) Named after Margarita from Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita' (a great novel by the way). In the book, Margarita hangs out with the devil. So it's quite an appropriate name for this cat.

2) Eats anything. Including, but not limited to - hair clippings, pot plants, coffee, and, once, an empty pack of condoms (not mine).

3) Loves water. Tries to fish clothes out of the bathtub when they are soaking. Jumps into the sink. Tries to join people on the toilet.

4) Does not sleep. Ever. Likes to sit on people's heads when they are sleeping, though.

5) Obsessed with a laser-pen. She will chase the little red dot for hours, without stopping. Actually, the batteries are dead now, as it was the only way we could find to stop her eating our property.

6) Uses the litter tray, but instead of scratching the litter, scratches the wall and the floor around the tray.


We can give the cat back on Sunday. That's if we haven't turned it into cat-shashlik by then.

A few people have complained that I haven't been updating the log very much recently. That is, of course, because I have been burning the candles at both ends, living the high life - the life of an international playboy - and so on. However, just for my fans, I will take a break from my hedonism to tell you about:


MY FAMILY TRIP TO ST PETERSBURG

So, I have had holidays all last week and spent most of that time in Saint Petersburg with my family. Perhaps not quite as eventful as last year's familial visit to Moscow, as no luggage went missing, no-one got pickpocketed, etc, etc. This year's trip was marked, however, by our total failure to get into almost anywhere we wanted to. In no particular order:

1) The Catherine Palace at Pushkin - open only for tour groups in the morning, shut for breaks all afternoon. The staff there obviously work very hard, to need breaks of two hours at a time.

2) The palace at Peterhof - we think it was open, but there was a ten-deep scrum, sorry, queue, to get in - and besides, the ticket office was - having a break. Even when it was open, the office refused to sell anyone a ticket. The fountains were on, though. Well, some of them. For about ten minutes.

3) The Lycee, Puskin's old school, coincidentally also at Pushkin. We did manage to get in here, but only to be shouted at by all ten of the babushkas (translation - irate Russian grannies) who work there. For various reasons:
- Going the wrong way round the building
- Loitering
- Hurrying
- Not being part of a group
- Getting in the way of a group
- Looking at things
- Leaving

4) The Hermitage. Gareth and Mei claim to have actually made it in here, but I don't believe them.

5) St. Isaacs. We didn't get in here, and I don't remember why. It was probably shut, or having a break, or being guarded by grannies.

6) The Church on Spilt Blood. See above.

7) The Jimi Hendrix 24 hour Blues Bar. It is closed at night, and in the mornings.

8) A bar with a big sign reading 'Open! Come in!' It was closed. They told us to go away.

9) It's not really a place, but the hydrofoil to Peterhof wasn't running either.

10) On one occasion, my hotel room, when the cleaner thought I was a burglar.

Hmm, my holiday starts on Thursday.

I made it through the stint at work on Saturday. Over the course of six hours, five people came in to be tested, of whom I tested a grand total of one. Which took me five minutes.

Have I mentioned the sudden and dramatic improvement in the weather? All the snow has melted, and it's getting up to about +15 in the day. Even at night it is only hovering around freezing.

This past winter in Russia was the most severe for a decade, according to the papers. As evidence of that, despite the recent sun, the riverboats are not running yet and the lakes are *still* frozen over. I wouldn't risk walking across them now, though Anthony said that the fishermen are still sitting out there on the ice, eskimo-stylee. Wonder if they ever catch anything in the Moscow waters?

My furby-loving 8 year-old brought a scooter to the lesson on Friday. I was quite tempted to mug him then sell it on at the Mitino dodgy goods market. But then, I thought, maybe he's carrying a blade.

Talking of 8 year-olds, the young learners workshop I mentioned earlier never happened. A good job really, as this week has been a bit mental. The only other full-time teacher at my centre, at least since the departure of Trevor the Canadian, has had to go back to the States for a couple of weeks because of a death in the family. It was all very sudden and sad.

As a result we are now seriously understaffed. Language Link have, however, quite helpfully been sending us some other random teachers to cover all the lessons that Anthony and I were unable to take on. My personal favourite random teacher is Ian the stereotypical northerner from Bridlington.

And Bridlington Ian had a great story to tell:

One of Ian's regular groups contains a very racist skinhead. After months of putting up with his small-mindedness and bigotry, Ian decided to take a little revenge. He told the student, quite innocently, that the verb 'to beat off' was a cool way to say 'to beat up'. Now the skinhead goes around telling anyone who understands, and I quote: "At weekends I like to go into the woods and beat off niggers." What a mental picture eh? Well, it made me laugh.

It's Saturday morning... and I'm at work! Yes! Our rota system has decreed that it is my turn to sit here in the central school at the weekend doing nothing. Someone has to be here in case any prospective students want to have their language level assessed.

I am 51 minutes into my six-hour stint so far and no-one has shown up. So this is thrilling. At least the internet is working, and there is one other teacher here with me. We also have a list of menial tasks to do, such as:
- clean the whiteboard
- put away the resource books
Er, actually, that's it. So we'll be hard-pushed to get it all done in time!

Briefly, went to a new church last Sunday. It was a New Frontiers International church - so like Bracknell Family Church, if you know it - in the far North East of Moscow, called Rosa. A bit of a trek from the metro but now the weather has suddenly and radically improved, it's not too much of a problem.

Someone from Bracknell Family Church came to preach here recently, which is how I found out about it, through a very pro-active friend.

Anyway, to help you get a picture. It's in a modern building with a large congregation. Russian language service. It even has an evening service which is quite handy... it might help my Russian improve anyway. The church seems quite active locally, and also friendly, so I think I will go here more often.

My knife-wielding 8 year-old has not yet brought any more weapons to the classroom, but we have had a singing furby, four laser-pens and something called a Bok-Rok. I'm not sure what it is or what it does, but we never had them when I was a kid.

I have just been co-erced into attending a Language Link 'young learners' workshop next week... should be barrels of fun. Actually, speaking of young learners, one of mine brought a stanley knife to the lesson yesterday. It went something a little like this:

8 year-old Nikita: James! I have knife!
Me: That's nice, Nikita. (he often makes outlandish claims - 'I have elephant! I am pink panther!')
Nikita: Look! (brandishes knife above head)
Me: Aargh!
Other students: Let's play game...
Me: Give me the knife, Nikita... (Nikita waves knife in my direction) No, no, the other end... (I disarm small child)

So, another potentially life-and-death situation brought under control by the cool-headed, quick-witted English teacher that I am. Workshops? I shouldn't be attending them, I should be running them.

As I write this, it's snowing. I'm really fed up with snow now, especially as it's well above freezing and shouldn't be snowing at all, it being April and everything. I even unsealed the balcony yesterday in the hope that it would persuade the weather to buck up, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Anyway. Went to Obninsk at the weekend, as a friend from last year, Eugene, had his birthday. In true Russian style it was celebrated round his flat where his parents prepared a three-course meal for twenty-five people. And I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen for the best part of a year, so that was really great.

An interesting bit of war-related trivia. Chechnyan representatives (they don't have a government as such), have actually come out strongly in favour of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. They're probably the only Muslim state to have done so, at least so enthusiastically.

Why, you may ask... simple. The Russian government are 'anti' the war, so the Chechnyans are just being contrary to irritate them. This seems to be how they decide all their policies. It's pretty understandable.

Sorry I haven't posted for a long time, but the internet connection at our central school has been down and I couldn't be bothered to go to an internet cafe. Actually, central Moscow has the largest internet cafe in the whole of Europe, it's more like an internet warehouse. But I still couldn't be bothered.

So I only had myself to blame, then, when I was confronted today with the message: 'You have 28 new e-mails'. Pah. Lesson learnt.

Waeather still unpleasant here. We had a couple more hours of snow yesterday, and it's fairly windy as well. Incidentally, I have decided that the town of Mitino, where I teach some of the time, was actually a secret Soviet experiment to build the world's biggest wind tunnel. I can confidently report that the experiment was a success.

Okay, I won't mention the war.

The weather here is surprisingly terrible. We had a full 24 hours of snow and now we have freezing winds and sub-zero temperatures. It's nearly April!

Started a new group of students this week, upper-intermediate level, which I inherited from our departed Canadian. The only phrasal verb they know is 'fuck off'...

My flatmate is convinced his new girlfriend is a spy. I think he may be right. So there is a general air of paranoia in our flat...

The first post for over a week, I'm sorry, our network has been down.

Last Saturday I went with a few other teachers to a club at Ulitsa 1905 Goda called Tochka, to celebrate, yes, St. Patricks Day. This is fast becoming a very important Russian holiday, though I'm not quite sure why.

Tochka is a big club that looks like a converted barn, though I'm sure it's not as you don't find many barns in central Moscow. And as with most Moscow clubs, it took us an hour to queue up to get in, another half an hour to put our coats in the cloak room, and then when we entered the club itself it was only half-full. Get a system, people.

Anyway. The main attraction of the evening was, and I quote, a number of 'Keltski Rock' bands playing. Keltski rock, if you are wondering, sounds a lot like the lead singer from Rammstein backed with the population of Summer Isle from the Wicker Man. Or death metal with fiddles, as you prefer.

Also, very bizarrely, ran into five of my old students from Obninsk. This is now the second time that this has happened, and while it does make me look very popular - every time I go clubbing I get jumped on by gangs of teenage girls, often literally - it is quite disconcerting. As was meeting a girl who went to uni with my brother, which I don't think has ever happened before.

It's snowing here, for the first time in two weeks. So it doesn't really feel like spring! At least it's not cold, somewhat above freezing.

Another four-day week... ho-hum.

Went to a party on Friday, hosted by Kostya and held in his one-bedroom flat. He managed to fit around 25 people in it which is quite impressive, as only eight people live in this flat usually! Yes, eight! Only!

Anyway, turned up late as I had been working in Mitino, while Kostya lives in Vykhino (check the map, it's a long way). Trust me, bursting in on a room of 25 Russians who have already been drinking for four hours, on a holiday weekend, is an interesting experience.

Woke up next to a fat, snoring Russian with no idea of where I was, or who he was, another interesting experience. The next thing I knew, some girl was offering me chocolates, something I still find quite inexplicable.

On Saturday went to a restaurant called Yolki-Palki, which is the Russian equivalent of a Harvester, if you can imagine such a thing. It's not at all bad, and they are popping up everywhere. Can't complain.

Sunday, Monday, did nothing. Knackered.

Another three-day weekend this weekend, as it's International Women's Day. All these days off are really disrupting my timetable... life is hard. But... International Women's Day - which other countries celebrate it? I'd love to know. Probably the Ukraine, and Georgia, and that's about it.

Talking of disrupted timetables, my groups are changing around a lot at the moment as Trevor the Canadian has gone back to Canada. Also Jamie is ill so it's only really me and Anthony holding down the fort in our little corner of Moscow.

Lots of adminy stuff too recently. We have just had a quality control exercise, which I seem to have made it through. And next week I'm getting observed, just to check I'm not a totally duff teacher. So if I'm back in England in a week's time you'll know why! No, I'm not too worried.

Found a great electronics market in the west of Moscow called Gorbushka. Actually, it was recommended to me but it really is colossal, 1200 little shops and stalls (it's indoors) full of pirate CDs and just random stuff. You can even buy English-language NMEs... well, I know this will interest precisely no-one, it doesn't even count as an anecdote but I felt I should write something.

Went to Yaroslavl this weekend, as it was Anthony's birthday, the day after pay-day, and we had Monday off (Men's Day).

Actually we had meant to go to Nizhy Novgorod but that didn't happen. Although the city has been called Nizhy Novgorod for a decade, no-one has told the Russian train network which still refers to it as Gorky, its old Soviet name. So what with that and Anthony getting temporarily detained by the police for having an out-of-date visa (not true, but at least this time it was a genuine mistake not an attempt to swindle money out of us), our chances of catching the Nizhy train were slim.

By the way, Anthony has since shaved off his beard so he looks slightly less like a Chechen terrorist. Hopefully this will reduce the number of times the police stop him - he's well into double figures now. The other day he stopped and asked a policeman for directions - big mistake. Can I see your papers? Are you carrying any knives? Could you accompany me to the police station? Could you pay me a bribe?

So, anyway, we caught the first coach out of Moscow, which, four and a half hours later, dropped us in Yaroslavl. Capital of, obviously, Yaroslavl region. Not bad for a random destination as it is a historic city (part of the 'Golden Ring', with almost no Soviet blocks of flats, and it's by the (currently frozen) river Volga. Plus provincial prices which saw us paying the equivalent of 7 quid per person per night for a hotel room. Maybe they were ripping us off for being foreigners, I don't know.

This was also the first mild weekend of the year, with the temperature reaching a positively tropical +3 degrees. Phew, better get the sun tan lotion.

Caught the train back. I think we bought the wrong tickets as we ended up on the sleeper train, in a little compartment, with our own beds. This for a four-hour train journey! A little excessive.

I forgot to mention that I went to an Anglican church here in Moscow the other Sunday. It might be interesting for some people to hear about that. If it's not for you, then don't read this entry!

I don't know what I was expecting. I had got the details from the internet so come Sunday morning I was walking round Moscow city centre with map in hand. I managed to find the turning I needed, into a quiet backstreet in an exclusive part of the city, only a stroll away from Red Square. I walked down the road for about five minutes, turned the corner, and suddenly was faced with this whopping great 19th century mock-gothic structure - like a parish church on steroids. Well, I certainly hadn't been expecting that.

Moscow as a city has relatively few genuine old churches, apart from in the Kremlin, because Stalin ordered a lot of them to be destroyed. But apparently this Anglican church was used as a recording studio during Communist times (good acoustics!), which was why it was spared. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the church building was (eventually) given back to the Church. It still needs a lot of reconstruction work as it has been neglected for a long time, but that is underway at least.

As for the service, it was quite a high church (formal) service, lots of incense and things. That's not necessarily bad, but it might take me some time to get used to. Don't get me wrong, it was a typical CofE service with all that that brings to mind. Most of all, it was great to take communion for the first time in over a month.

The congregation were mixed, the majority English and American, but also a high number of African people, and also Russian. The minister was English, but most of the rest of the church workers were Russian, I think. So that was interesting.

Oh yes - I also met my boss, sorry, DOS. She's based in Zelenograd which is a couple of hours to the north-west of Moscow on the train, which is why she isn't around very often. I think that's also a good thing. We have a monthly team meeting which alternates between Zelenograd and Moscow. So in about six weeks I'll have to make a trip to Zelengrad... well, that should be interesting.

Met a couple of new teachers - new in that they have been here less time than me. It's nice to know that I'm not the newbie any more. One of the new teachers is on work-study; he's called Hugh which is unfortunate as his name is only one dipthong away from the rudest word in the Russian language.

Also met a teacher who was at Uni with me in Nottingham. He was in the year below me so I didn't know him at all, but we were in halls at the same time and we know a few of the same people. It's a small world.

I have been given a new group to teach so I'm up to my contractual maximum now, of something-or-other astronomical hours. They are, incidentally, teenagers at FCE level. So quite capable.

Having a full schedule is a good thing as it means I won't get any of those early morning phone calls asking me to cover for an ill teacher in the other side of the city.

Coincidentally, I taught one of my new students at the summer camp in Obninsk last year! I don't remember her - they just bussed the kids in and out - but she remembers me.

One particular teacher, from England, was out on the town early last Saturday evening with a Russian friend. This English teacher could not speak Russian, but the Russian friend could speak English.

A policeman saw the couple walking down the street and promptly arrested the Englishman.

'Why are you arresting him?' the Russian friend asked the policeman with concern.

'He's drunk,' the policeman replied.

'No he's not, he's totally sober!' As indeed he was.

'What do you mean he's sober, he's so drunk he can't even speak!' And the policeman took him off to the station, fined him, let him go.

Yes, this is Russia.

SWEEPING GENERALISATION OF THE WEEK

There are two types of people in Moscow really. There are your stereotypical slavic Muscovites - tall, blond and hulking. But there is also a smaller, but growing, ethnic population from the Caucuses (excuse spelling).

I've noticed that the first group can be quite uncommunicative, while the second group are chatty as anything - at least to non-Russians like myself. At Planernaya we have an Azerbaijani kebab van man called George - now there's a tongue twister. But he gabbles away to me whenever he sees me...

Talking of Russian kebabs, they're really good. Called Shaurma, but they are just like our doners. But they're not swathed in chilli sauce like in England... they are really fresh with garlic mayonnaise, and I haven't had food poisoning once. Nice one, George.

Anyway, the Caucasian population of Moscow seem to be getting an increasing amount of grief from the Slavics, and especially the authorities. I think everyone assumes that if you are short and swarthy, you must be a Chechen terrorist... and you are guaranteed to get stopped by the police every time you use the metro. Even if all your papers are in order, there is a high chance that you will have to pay the police a small bribe at the least... that's if they're feeling magnanimous. Anyway, it must make life very difficult.

A new Russian Federation ruling and how it affects me.

If my passport is lost or stolen, I would have to leave Russia for up to four weeks while a new visa is issued... bad, huh?

Not really, as I would get to spend the time working for Language Link in either Talin or Prague. Oops, I think someone's just nicked my passport. Damn.

Or the new teacher who flew over from England to start his teaching position in Moscow, only to be told by Language Link that the position had fallen through and he was being relocated to Irkutsk, in Siberia.

No, it wasn't me either.

In the end LL found him a position in Korosovo, Moscow Region, which is where I heard the story. So it all worked out well...

Just wanted to mention the teacher who, travelling back home from a hard night out, decided to have a sit-down on a bench in the metro. He soon nodded off and awoke to find that some enterprising passer-by had quietly stolen his glasses...

No, it wasn't me by the way.

Talking of superiors, after nearly a month I still haven't met the (near-mythical) Rob Jensky, who is the great leader - sorry, Great Leader - of this whole Language Link Russia thing.

Everyone I've spoken to says he's quite a character, a real anecdote teller. The most popular anecdote seems to be about the time he was stranded in Israel and had to sell his motorbike to afford a plane ticket back to the States... although his Vietnam stories have quite a following too.

Actually, I'm quite looking forward to meeting him.

Okay, I've been wracking my brains for something else boring, oops I mean safe, oops I mean neutral, to tell you.

I should mention, I guess, that all the teachers here in Moscow are divided into teams of fifteen or so; each team is headed up by a Director of Studies, of which we have about half a dozen. My DOS is a Scottish lady called Joyce, but then I only found that out yesterday (things happen more slowly here). I haven't met her yet.

Actually, being out of contact with my DOS has been fortuitous because I haven't had to deal with team meetings, assessments, testing, all that serious work stuff. But I'm sure that will follow shortly.

My team is also in charge of putting together the newsletter that I quoted from the other day. It's edited by Jamie, in fact, who is one of the other two teachers based at Skhodnenskaya with me. (The third is a Canadian bloke called Trevor.)

No funny anecdotes today but I liked this article from the Missing Link, which is the Language Link teachers' occasional gossip rag. Well, I'll just give you an extract:

"A recent attempt by the Language Link males to engage in what one teacher referred to as 'the rugby match of the century' resulted in catastrophe as the entire team was chased off the field by Spartak 9-year-olds .... 'Those kids - they're mad,' remarked one frightened Brit who was involved in the face-off. 'They were glaring at us and snarling. I'm not sure I want to try again next time.'"

So it's colder again here, -16 the other night. I don't know what it is during the day, about -10 I think, maybe a bit colder... but the skies are clear and it's very bright, a few flurries of snow and that's all.

But I've noticed an unusual phenomenon with the weather - it gets strangely warmer in the middle of the night. I go to a club about 10pm and it's bloody freezing, but when I leave at 4 or 5am it isn't cold at all, not in the slightest. I can't explain this...

The actual groups that I teach vary enormously. I have a small group of adult beginners, a larger advanced group in their late teens and twenties, a group of 11 year olds, and several groups of teenagers of varying ages. So it's pretty mixed. The lessons are quite long - all my classes at Skhodneskaya are 3 academic hours. So they take quite a lot of planning. And keeping younger kids occupied for several hours on end is pretty difficult.

My earliest classes are at 3pm, which suits my body clock pretty well. On Mondays and Thursdays, I don't even start till 7pm. It's very strange - holded up throughout the city is an unncountable number of nocturnal, red-eyed, pale-skinned English teachers. We only come out at night...

So a little bit about my timetable. I realise that for most people reading this probably isn't very interesting, but every time I tell a good anecdote a certain member of my family has a panic attack...

Anyway. I have 24 hours of teaching a week at the moment. That's 24 'academic' hours, which works out as about 18 or 20 'astronomical' hours, and so I'm not quite sure how many real or 'English' hours I'm on at the moment. For those people who think I'm slacking off, don't forget I spend a lot of time planning lessons, travelling, doing administrative things, and so on.

My teaching is divided equally between two centres. 12 hours a week are at Skhodnenskaya, which I've already mentioned, and the other 12 are at Mitino. Mitino is about 20 minutes by bus to the north-west from me, just outside the Moscow ring road. So technically it's outside of Moscow but it's more built up than where I live, at Planernaya. I think Mitino is/was a separate town but it has been pretty much swallowed up by the Moscow sprawl.

FCE Group Oral Discussion
Topic: If you could meet one famous person, who would it be and why?

Student A: I would meet... Vladimir Putin... because he is our leader... he is a great man....
Student B: I would meet... Mike Tyson.... I want to ask him what ear tastes like...
Student C: Well, yeah, I'd like to meet Ian Brown but, no, most of all I guess I'd have to say Bobbie Gillespie - I've always been a big fan of the Scream, as I call them, and I want to interview him for my fanzine.

HOUND OF THE UNDERGROUND

Walking back from the central school to the metro yesterday, I was followed by a large, rather mangry, and probably rabid, stray dog. Howling, limping, dribbling - he was doing it all. And he was definitely following me - across a busy main road and then the tram line, and then down behind the shopping centre. Not very pleasant.

So I was quite relieved to make it into the metro and through the ticket barriers. Safe! But half-way down the very long and steep escalator I heard a definite howl - yes, the dog had followed me into the metro and was now riding the escalator on the step behind me. The other passengers started to give me funny looks... well, funnier than usual. How dare I being such a mutt onto the metro?

All was well, however. When we got to the bottom of the escalator he took a different train.

Progress: I am starting to get my own groups to teach now, all at Skhodnenskaya, instead of simply covering for other teachers. Having said that, I was sent over to Korolev again for the third, and final, time, on Tuesday. Anyway, I will write about my groups when I have met them all.

For now, I want to write a few words about my flat mate. Before coming to teach in Eastern Europe, first the Czech Republic and now Russia, he worked as researcher in the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico... quite a career change, I think!

Although American, he looks very slavic - big beard, long face. In fact, he looks like your archetypal Chechnyan terrorist. At least the police think so - they have stopped him on the metro and checked his ID nine times in three months. Or perhaps they are just after money.

As a flat mate, he has his good points and his bad points. In his favour, he is knowledgeable about everything from fluid dynamics to modernist poetry - and against him, well, he has a nasty fungal foot infection that won't shift. He's also a vegetarian which makes sharing cooking duties interesting. My repertoire of vegetarian meals is limited, but now growing.

So I've been here just over a week! My regular timetable should start on Monday - I have found out that I will be teaching at Skhodninskaya, which is one metro station down the line from where I am living. It's so close as to be walkable. That's great news, as Language Link did consider posting me to VDNKh, which is about 15 stops away on a different metro line.

It's still pretty mild here. There are puddles everywhere so I guess it is a little above freezing, at least in the day. Everything is dripping and slushy. It's not too pleasant! Of course, when it gets cold again everything will freeze over and the city will be like a skating rink.

On Thursday and Friday last week I was covering for an ill/absent teacher in a town called Korolev, which is about 40 minutes' train ride north of Moscow - on the train line to Yarsolavl. So that was quite a hike, but one of the regular teachers at that school, a bloke called Nick, was from Reading - and had been teaching there for five years. So he had a lot of stories to tell.

Just a quick post to say that I arrived okay after a surprisingly uneventful journey. I've settled into a new flat, haven't started teaching yet - apart from covering for a teacher who fell ill - and am feeling quite happy and adjusted.

We are just coming out of a cold spell. It's only about -2C today but on Saturday night it fell to -25 or so, the coldest I've ever experienced. So cold that your nosehairs freeze up after about a minute. In fact, I bought a 1.5litre bottle of 7-Up from a shop (not a kiosk) and it was frozen - a big bottle of ice.

The area I'm living in is called Planernaya, it's in the north-west. There's a metro station close by (the last one on the line - real suburbia!), a permanent market, a few shops and not much else! Oh, and a small supermarket about 10 minute's walk away.

The flat itself is two-bedroom, quite spacious really. No living room but one of the bedrooms is significantly bigger and doubles as a living room during the day. This is common Russian practice. We're on the first floor (2nd floor to Russians), we have a TV, a phone line, it's warm enough at night.

My flatmate is from New Mexico, he's been in Russia for three months but before that was teaching in the Czech Republic. We seem to be getting on quite well.

I have computer access at the main school, which is in central Moscow on the circle line (one change away, about 45 minutes from door to door). I will probably not be teaching there; instead, I think I will be posted to one of the 'schools' in the north of Moscow. Language Link have about 10 or so centres scattered around the city.

Managed to meet up with Kostya already; saw him to celebrate 'Old New Year' on the day before yesterday. He's living on the same metro line as me but the final stop in the opposite direction! So it's quite a long journey.

Well, I think that's enough for today!

MY LAST DAY IN ENGLAND...

This will probably be the last post for a few days, as I am flying out to Russia tomorrow and it might take me a while to find my feet. So I'll try to make this an interesting post. Actually, for interesting just read 'long' as I doubt I'm going to get much sleep tonight anyway.

Today then, I went down to the Consulate as planned (the trains were running - spot on!), and collected my visa. That wasn't quite so spot on, due to the new 'queuing' system they have with the turnstile-style gates and high-tech surveillance equipment that I must have told you about before. I won't go into boring details but the upshot was I had to queue in the cold for over an hour before the staff deigned to grant me admittance. And that was only after I resorted to pushing the intercom button every ten seconds for a good five minutes while simultaneously waving and grinning like a monkey at the CCTV. A risky tactic, I admit, but it paid off. And the standing around in the cold was good practise I admit.

Also did a lot of panicky last-minute shopping and photocopying today, and started packing (my room currently looks like a bomb's hit it; and yes, insert joke here). The only remaining task is to cram everything into my stinky suitcase, which I think I'll leave until tomorrow morning.

I had another e-mail from Denis, the secretary at Dubravushka, today. Only he isn't the secretary any more; the big news is he's left and is working for a free-ads paper in Obninsk. This is very *good* news, as the school used to work him like an ox - they knew that if they turfed him out, it would be national service for him. And trust me, you don't want to be in the Russian army. I guess Denis must have passed the age where he has to do service and so is now free to do what he wants. I hope he's happy in his new job. I really wish him well, and I'll try to keep in touch.

Forgot to mention yesterday that I managed to recover my scarf which I had left round a friend's house about three weeks previously. It's funny how little things take on great importance. but I have my scarf back now, to go with my hat collection (2 - the most hats I have ever owned in my life), and my newly purchased gloves. Winter? Bring it on!

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON TRAVELLING

Now, as it's the eve of my departure, I'd like to witter on for a little while about travelling. Although I've been to a reasonable number of places, mostly in Europe I admit, I've never actually done much proper travelling. I mean, I go to places - to visit them, or like now, to live and work - but I don't *travel*. That is, I've never done a Palin - a big, exploratory, adventurous journey. Me, I just hop on a plane, and hop off a few hours later. It takes less time to get to Moscow than it does to drive up to York. It doesn't seem right somehow!

But whenever I do go away, I always get the fear just beforehand. Right now, for example, as I'm writing this, I feel that going back to Russia is the stupidest thing I've ever done, and that I would be much better off applying for that 'bookseller's' job I saw advertised in Hammicks. I mean, it's cold and everything's disorganised (Russia, not Hammicks). I've even got the fear about teaching right now. What if this, and what if that... running through worst-case scenarios all the time. It's terrible. I've certainly got the fear about my Russian ability. And my accommodation... just everything. What if everyone dies when I'm away! What if the cat gets a cold! Actually, it's pretty stupid, and I should know better.

So I'm trying to push all that to the back of my mind. In 24 hours, I'll be so pumped I'll have forgotten all about the fear; in 48, with any luck, I'll have regained my equilibrium.

I've decided that going to live in other countries is a really bad thing. Once you've done it once, for the rest of your life and wherever you call home you will have friends in a different country. You will always want to live in two different places, and never will be able to. It's very disorientating. I suppose you could say the same thing just about moving from place to place within the same country, but somehow it's different.

For me, the worst thing about going away (the travelling part) is when you go through the check-in bit at the airport. Suddenly it's so definite, so final. It's like a whole country, a continent even, has dropped down between you and the people who have come to see you off. Even though there's still only metres between you.

And airports! I think everyone, or maybe just every Christian with an imagination, has their own conception of what Hell is like. Mine is a giant airport that you can never ever leave. And nothing ever happens. You just wait, and wait, and tanoys go off around you, and people come and go, but you are stuck there forever. On your own - and you have to watch your bags all the time. And it's a little too hot or a little too cold; just a little.

I tried to write a poem about that once, but it sort of mutated into a poem about a supermarket. I guess there are a lot of similarities between the two places!

Airports are hell for me;
Supermarkets are my purgatory.

I think I might have to work on the metre there! And sorry about being so depressing, I'm just trying to outwrite the fear. Actually, I should go and pretend to sleep.

The next time I write something in this weblog, I'll be back in Russia! How's that for a thought?!

And I've just read this (again on the BBC website): "There were 120 flights cancelled from Heathrow Airport to Europe due to the extreme conditions." It's kind of par for the course really. I go somewhere, or try to, and everything grinds to a halt. Last time I only went to Northampton and look what happened - the whole town was very nearly blown away by a huge freak storm. Ah well. But anyway, I hope my flight won't be cancelled.

Well, snow has been falling today in the Thames Valley - the most for nine years, apparently. On the plus side, it is helping me get geared up, psychologically, for Russia. Although I hope that the trains are running tomorrow morning as I need to go back to the Consulate and collect my visa. If there are no trains, I don't know how I'll get there. And if I can't get there, I can't fly on Friday. How ironic would that be - my trip to Russia sabotaged by English snow!

As for the weather in Russia at the moment, well. This is what the BBC website had to say: "More than 20,000 people across Russia have been left without heating as temperatures plunge to record lows. Russian news agencies report that thermometers plummeted to -37C in the Moscow suburbs overnight on Tuesday."

That's really reassuring.

Me to Kostya: 'My suitcase still stinks from your cat last year.'
Kostya to me: 'My flat still stinks from you last year.'

Touche.

It's Christmas in Russia today. I'm still in England, so it looks like I've missed out on my ambition of having two Christmasses this year...

I will be in Russia for Orthodox New Year, though, which must be coming up in the next week or so. However I don't think it is much of a substitute for missing Orthodox Christmas, as Russians just celebrate New Year when we do. No, I don't understand either. And I'm not quite sure what Russians do do on Orthodox New Year, go to church for about four hours probably. Whoop.

My flight tickets came today. Everything is still going to plan. This is surprising.

My suitcase still stinks from when Kostya's cat pissed in it last year. I've tried everything - soap, air-freshener, leaving it outside on a windy day - and it still stinks. I just hope it doesn't set the sniffer dogs off at Sheremitievo on Friday. 'I'm not smuggling drugs, honest, just a cat pissed in my suitcase... nice doggie...'

Also, in a flash of inspiration, I have decided what to call my book in progress (I have written a chapter and a half). Are you ready for it? My book will be called: 'This Is Russia' . Sounds innocuous enough, but I have come to hate these three words and all they symbolise! Well, it's a sort of love-hate thing. Let me explain. The phrase is a sort of mantra that Russians repeat (to me at least) whenever anything breaks down, blows up, fails to arrive, goes missing, causes mass death, and so on. It's sort of like when you were a kid and you would complain, 'that's not fair!' - and the adult would always respond with, 'life's not fair!' Well, 'this is Russia' is just a geographically specific synonym. In fact, I might change the name of my blog in its honour.

Flurries of snow, and temperatures down to minus 3. And I'm still in England! Well, I guess it will help me to acclimatise to the Russian winter, where temperatures are (according to the papers) yoyoing from minus 25 to minus 5 and back again. I seem to remember that happening last year.

Good news: got my flight tickets booked, for Friday afternoon. So I'm all set. I tell you what, my visa had better be ready on Thursday morning!

Not quite all set actually: need to go and buy some Marmite for Kostya. He has never had the stuff (not available in Obninsk! Funnily enough!), and, well, who am I to deny him such an experience?

OK, I've just sent an e-mail out telling everyone about the blog. Sadly, there's nothing much interesting to read here yet. Sorry, everyone. Oh, I can tell you about the TEFL book I picked up in the Waterstones in Reading today - it was about maintaining classroom discipline and had a great title: 'Getting The Buggers To Behave'. Well, it appealed to my juvenile mind. Actually, that's probably why I got on so well with the kids last year - I am one myself.

Was shown a newspaper article today with pictures of New Year celebrations from around the world. One was of fireworks exploding over a packed Red Square - with a byline that was something like, 'thousands of Russians braved temperatures of minus 25 to celebrate the New Year'... minus 25?! That's a bit excessive! When I was out in Russia last year we had one brief cold snap where the temperature fell, for a few days, down to about minus 20 and that was cold enough for me. Although having said that, I did miss the worst of the weather last winter because it happened to fall during the month or so round Christmas when I was back in England. And I think it was a very mild winter as well, by Russian standards. Still, the weather has a week to warm up for me!

Still on the New Year theme, I asked Kostya today (via SMS) what his own celebrations were like. I am sure he won't mind me repeating his response, which I think really illuminates the Russian attitude to partying: '...extremely awesome. I nearly got into a car accident, got drunk like shit... felt almost everything one could feel during an entire life!'

OK, so I've just found out that the blog doesn't support cyrillic text - hence the garble in the first line of my previous post. That's a shame, but then, it's a free service so I can't complain too much. Happy New Year, by the way, in Russian but with Roman characters is: S Novym Godom (pronounced sort of like SNOWveem GODam). Hope that helps.

Well, happy new year! Or, 'ñ Íîâûì ãîäîì!' as the Russians possibly say. I had a text from my old Obninsk friend Dima Leshinski, wishing me a happy new year - at 9 in the morning on New Year's Eve, waking me up! He obviously didn't have much faith in his ability to type later in the evening. A also had an e-mail from Denis Sharshikoff, the school secretary from Dubravushka, which was unexpected but nice. I will have to reply.