So, Novgorod, what can I say? It is one of Russia’s oldest towns, it has lots and lots of churches, some big bells, and some of the cheapest cocktails I have ever encountered!
Novgorod was our stop off on the road to Moscow. Traffic was dreadful, we got pulled over lots by the coppers wanting “fines”, the road was in that typical Russian state of repair which I classed earlier as kidney jarring.
Novgorod though, is quite an ok town. We did a walking tour with a local guide who certainly knew lots but certainly wasn’t someone who had us hanging on her every word. Afterwards, rather than go back to the hotel and wait for dinner we decided to go for a coffee at a place that she recommended. A group of us had quite a good cup of coffee in this little restaurant type place. And then we saw the cocktail menu……and then we saw the prices……..
GO RUSSIA!!!!
Needless to say we arrived a little late for dinner and people were wondering why we were so merry after ‘going for a coffee’. We filled them in on our find and not long after dinner there was about 15 of us back at the ‘coffee place’. The poor waitresses! A little while into the night we had 2 young men approach us. One of them had quite obviously had a few to many and his mate was kind of just tagging along from what we could tell. He had absolutely dreadful English and decided he wanted to be our friend- a big group of girls he obviously thought we were all dying to be with him. We said that we were just having a few drinks and very politely to bugger off and stop annoying us. He wouldn’t go away. No matter what we said. He obviously didn’t understand everything we were saying and decided he wanted to stay. In the end we had to get one of the waitresses to yell at him in Russian and his mate to physically drag him away, twice, before he stayed away. Russian men are very forward- and optimistic.
Well it got to closing time and those of us who were left decided it was about time to go back to the bar at the hotel (we got asked nicely to leave). On the walk back another young man decided he wanted to be our friend. This guy was dreadful. He was annoying, borderline aggressive, and certainly was not someone I would want to meet walking alone. He would not go away. We told him nicely, then not so nicely to go away, we weren’t interested and that we were married (wear a ring when travelling in Russia girls- big travel tip). Of course none of us were wearing anything remotely like a wedding ring and he just wouldn’t go away. He spoke a bit of English and just kept nagging and following us. We nearly scared him off when Lindsay the Canadian started yelling at him in French, but that only lasted a little while and he went right back to following us. This finally culminated in him finally getting the message when we just kept walking quickly, not making eye contact with him, and putting our heads down and just walking. This approach resulted in a tirade of crazy angry verbal abuse from the irritating guy. Something along the lines of :
“f you you bitches”
“you f’ing sluts , I’ll f you and your f’ing husbands up the a-hole” (this one I didn’t understand- language differences I guess! Hmmm…. Maybe he was bi?)
I was very glad when we escaped and very glad that I didn’t meet him alone.
Next day off to Moscow!
