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Dear Russia,

I write to you today as a concerned lover of music. Whilst I am by no means a fan of Michael Jackson, even I hate what you've done to Billy Jean. I won't go into the club remixes of Numb and Boulevard of Broken Dreams because it makes me too angry. So, on behalf of music fans everywhere, stop it. Now.

Regards
Paul x

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Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Anyway, I realise I've been pretty bad at this whole blogging lark. It's a good thing I have no intention of making a career out of it.

Since I last wrote a piece, quite a lot has happened, not least significant of which is the fact that the snow has melted and spring has well and truly sprung. It's quite warm at the moment. (Despite this, the Russians insist on walking round in jumpers and coats.) It snowed pretty regularly up until the end of April, and it even snowed on my birthday. I also got pelted by horizontal rain that day. Russian weather is weird.

I've also had two reading weeks, during which I've been to St. Petersburg, Moscow (twice), Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod. I loved St. Petersburg. I didn't really like Moscow - don't get me wrong, it's a nice city, it's just a bit busy and expensive for my liking. Also, the buildings are hideous. I wasn't in Nizhny Novgorod long enough to really form an impression, but it seemed nice enough. Kazan is definitely my favourite place in Russia. The people there were (for the most part) really friendly, the food was nice and the weather was beautiful. I think it's fair to say the weather certainly helped with my assessment of the city. I'd speak more about the reading weeks, but it would take too long and I can't be bothered.

While we're on the topic of travelling, I will take the time to mention sleeper trains. In principle, they're a good idea. You can get on a train from Yaroslavl at about half ten in the evening and rock up in St. Petersburg at about midday the next day. Superb. Just don't expect much for your money. The beds, or shelves in Russian, are pretty basic. You get given a roll-up mattress and a pillow, some bed linen and a blanket. On our first journey, we caused the woman sat in the window bed a great deal of amusement as we tried, unsuccessfully, to make the beds. In the end, she offered her help and made the beds for us. If you're expecting to get much sleep, you will probably be disappointed. The trains are noisy and rock about in the night, meaning you get woken up fairly frequently, occasionally after dreams about earthquakes. If you're tall, you will be forced to sleep either with your legs hanging out of the end of the bed or in an uncomfortable curled-up position. If you're in the top bunk, you're probably in a better position for sticking your legs out of the end of the bed (as long as you're not on the window bed), but you'll have to go through the humiliation of trying to figure out how on earth you get up there first. Still, the trains get you where you want to go eventually, so I can't complain too much I suppose.

Today is 15 May, which means I have only 5 days of my year abroad left. Scary. Part of me wishes I had signed up for the 18 week course because I feel like I'm just getting in to the swing of things, and the extra five weeks would only help my Russian. The other, significantly larger part of me is rather relieved to be able to get back to England where food is normal, you don't need to worry about the aspect or prefixes of your verbs of motion and where my family is. On the subject of food, you'll be lucky to get anything that isn't buried under any combination of dill, salt, sour creme or oil.

So, what have I thought of Russia? Well, I wouldn't want to live here permanently. I didn't like the place to start with because of the weather. It was cold all the time, the weather was miserable and so were the average people on the street. As it started warming up, so did peoples' temperaments and my attitude towards the city. Yaroslavl is not a bad place to live by any means. It is, however, a little boring. If you're a fan of churches, you're laughing. The place is full of them. If, however, you find that after the first two or three churches it is intensely dull looking at slightly different buildings, all you're left with is the bars, coffee shops and partaking in the ancient Russian past-time of gulyating, or going for a stroll. All of that is fine, but even that gets dull after a while. That's not to say I dislike Yaroslavl. It's in a decent location for casual tourism during the reading weeks, eating out is relatively cheap and the people are happy to let you practice your Russian on them. It's just a little boring.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more I could write, but I'm going to leave it there because I'm bored of writing. I will hopefully be seeing some of you soon, so you can ask me more about Russia then.

Tschau