My Russian adventure started September
2010! The unknown, the secretiveness of
this city pulled me towards it. Since I can remember I have always been
interested to find out what actually goes on behind the “iron curtain”. I
grabbed at the chance to work and live in Moscow and couldn’t wait to start my
adventure.
I soon found out that Moscow is a city of superlatives. It boasts
the most billionaires, the most expensive cups of coffee, at £4 a cup this is
definitely true, and the most churches located in one city! It is also been voted the most unfriendly
city in the world, although I have to disagree with that last statement. The
more I get to know the Russians, the more I realize they are actually friendly
and helpful.
Not prepared for KONKOVA
I knew that I was going to be living in an
old soviet flat but was still very shocked when I actually walked into my flat.
The apartment complex looks like it should have been demolished years ago. It
is one of 5 identical apartment blocks all a row. It’s going to be easy to get
lost was one of my first thoughts. As predicted during that first week I tried
to enter the wrong apartment block a couple of times!
My flat looked like something out of a
horrible 60’s movie - brown wallpaper and some squishy orange stuff that covers
the doors and the cupboards. The toilet was wallpapered in some yellow and blue
50’s motive that gave you a headache every time you had to go in there. I had
no kettle or microwave and my fridge wasn’t working.
I definitely needed a cup of coffee to
cheer me up and so my first buying adventure in Moscow started. I walked to the nearest
grocery store which was about 15min away and bought some coffee and what I
thought was milk and sugar. Seeing as nothing has any English written on it I
had to trust that I was deciphering the pictures correctly. Nobody in the store
spoke any English so I couldn’t even ask for help.
Got
home, boiled some water in a pot on the stove and discovered that I bought salt
and some sour yogurt stuff. So I headed back to the store, this time I found
some sugar in a clear plastic bag and bought some new “milk”. Back in the flat
I proceeded to make myself another cup of coffee. I soon discovered that yet
again I did not buy milk, this time it was something strawberry flavoured. I
really did not understand, I picked the white carton with a cow on, you would
have thought that it would have been milk.
By this time I really needed some coffee so
I took the cup of black coffee and walked all the way to the store with it,
then continued to ask the clerk to help me. I took her to the milk isle and
then pointed at the cartons and asked which one I could pour into my coffee,
she did laugh at me but at least helped me out. Third time lucky I guess. Must
add that after the milk incident whenever I came into the store the clerk was
standing close buy to help me, which I admit helped a lot since my Russian was
nearly non existent at that time and trying to decipher what a product is from
pictures does not always work.
I quickly made an effort to learn the
Russian alphabet and some basic words so things got a little bit easier after
my first failed shopping experience.
