I’m not a fan of round robins (prefer my robins slim. wahey!) and I have quite a fair old bit of news and a lot of people I’d like to keep up with so if you want to see how I’m getting on in Moscow then you can just tap into this here blog. I’ll also use it to vent my moaning and grumpiness into virtual space so watch out for that. I dunno how much will be worth writing about when I get into a routine but here’s my news for now anyway. It’s turned out fairly long so go to the loo before you start and get settled with a cup of tea somewhere comfortable, otherwise you probably won’t make it through to the end. Or just quit now and skip to the bottom for my address and send me a postcard.

Birch Trees and Leaden Skies – my arrival in Moscow

I left London feeling tired and very emotionally fragile. I was sitting in front of the emergency exit on the plane which meant my seat couldn’t recline, and I slumpy hunchy dosed for the three hours here from Heathrow. We arrived over verdant forests, silvery lakes and little dilapidated dachas (country cottages), shafts of sunlight beaming down through a layer of cloud. I clapped for the pilot along with the Russians, for touching down successfully without crashing. I unclicked my back and neck and emerged into a crowded airport. Got through passports and baggage etc no problem, and took a bus to the nearest metro. Took absolutely ages stuck in traffic. The metro is big and dark and fast and loud but I spotted one carriage with a massive bunch of balloons in it, which was nice.

I arrived at the main building of Moscow State University, (MGU or “em gay oo”) around 8.30ish. I found a couple of old grannies in a seventies style office in charge of my accommodation. They spent about two hours trying to find my papers by looking at the same ones over and over again and then getting distracted by other people coming in (I was witness to the workings of some hilarious bureaucracy) and telling me that I don’t exist. Eventually they found them in the next door office, and I got my piece of paper with my room number and a stamp and went through to sector D. I arrived in sector D. There’s a little security man sitting by the entrance who you have to show your pass to – the one who it was on Monday I met again in another sector today while I hunted for a fridge and he is my favourite security man so far. I got my keys and clean sheets (a relief) and a small towel off the granny who’s in charge of looking after my block, went along to room 128 at the end of the corridor on the left, and turned the key in the lock…

Mark’s Russian Chagpad

My room is part of a shared set. We have an outer door into the corridor, with a small, box-like toilet on the right and shower-with-sink on the left, and straight ahead 2 bedroom doors. The one on the left opens into a room with one window and one bed, which is inhabited by Toshi, a 34-year-old Japanese man, who greeted me on my arrival in flawless Russian. The door on the right leads into my bedroom. It has two tiny cot-like beds in it with two high sets of shelves with little desks dividing it down the middle. It has one small wardrobe built into the wall and two windows, one over each bed. The best description for the condition I found it all in is probably “grim as”. Toshi had arrived a day before me and bought little sponges and cloths and some washing up liquid and was already going at cleaning the shower room. The whole place was beset with dust and human hair (long and dark from the head, short dark and curly from elsewhere) (i.e. pubes! yuk!). The shower is mouldy pretty much everywhere and I fear for my lungs. The loo is smelly. There’s a thick layer of grime over everything and there was loads of dust. The curtains are minging. The paint and wallpaper are peely. There are dead cockroaches everywhere and some alive ones too, including coming out of the tap in the sink, and the sink doesn’t drain too well so if you have the tap running you get doubly attacked by dead cockroaches pouring down from above and welling up from below. In addition, Toshi has dried blood splattered on his wall (he’s scrubbing away at it valiantly as I type this up). It’s been really lucky to have Toshi as a neighbour though for buying this cleaning stuff. While he was cleaning the bathroom I gave the whole place a sweep with a straw brush I got from the granny down the corridor. Then I found a dried out old mop but when I wet it it gave off a terrible stink and reminded me of Medusa’s hair so I aborted the mopping operation sharpish and rinsed it out as well as I could and left it by the loo to fester. After I’d done all that, and beaten dust off my three cushions that make up a slightly too short mattress as well as I could, and also realised that I’d forgotten drinking water and my toothbrush (d’oh!), I was pretty worn out and went to bed for a fitful sleep, losing my blanket and getting chilly and dreaming of Richmond park in the sunshine with as much food and water and cuddles as you could want.

Since then me and my room have been getting along better. Last night when I got back from town I put up the map of The Russian Federation that I found in my room before and also my map of Iran, and I’ve put out some of my stuff on my newly dusted and de-cockroached shelves and generally feel more settled. Inspired by Toshi I cleaned my two big windows today, which made a massive difference as, like everything else, they were pretty grimey. It’s remarkable any light was coming in from outside at all before. It’s still gloomy down here on the ground floor, especially when even outside it’s gloomy, but now at least it feels gloomy on my own terms.

Also, Toshi bought a shower curtain today! So that’s good although he was really annoyed that it’s about an inch too short so the floor will get wet anyway. We plan to customise it by sticking plastic bags on the bottom (my idea) or just lowering the bar (his, better, idea).

Dokumenti

My first day in Moscow was spent mostly standing in queues. I queued at room 5 for my bit of paper to confirm I live here, then queued at room 16 for them to calculate how much I should pay to live here, then queued at room 15 to pay for living here, then queued at room 5 to show them the piece of paper that said I’d paid to live here. In each queue you have to be pretty sharp because there will inevitably be actually three queues for different things and a list at the front of names of people queuing who’ve wandered off. I was a bit slow off the mark on the first queue and so even though I was there at opening at 10am I was only 94^th on the piece of paper and got into the office just before they broke for lunch at 1.

While I was waiting I wandered around in the big university building. It has it’s own little overpriced shops of pretty much everything, and I went up to the top floor (twenty something) to look at the museum and the view. The museum was closed and they wouldn’t let me look at the view so all I got was popped ears that wouldn’t unpop for ages. The university building is probably a bit bigger than Cambridge University Library and pimped out like an opera house. It’s one of seven similarly hefty Stalinist wedding cake buildings dotted around Moscow.

After all those queues I had to go in to town to get registered at my faculty, which is just next to the famous Moscow Kremlin.

They were really friendly, and it was from them that I’d been instructed to ask about changing room by the unfriendly people at the main building where I’d been all day. When I did ask they said that our faculty only get given these dingy rooms but I might not have a roommate after all (a relief for me) and if they can find anything better for me then they’ll let me know. In the meantime I’m settling in nicely with my wee Scottish roomie Glen McFiddich who has just turned up for the sake of a comic cameo appearance on this blog:

And I’ve only paid until 1^st October so may find a room in a flat somewhere or something.

In Russia you have to register within three days of arriving in any city. I got my registration forms from my faculty but all the actual regisration happens back here in main building. By that time it was already 4.45pm, and the registration office back here closes at 5 and has Wednesday off. So I can’t register until day four and, like last year when I was in Russia and the same thing happened, I unfortunately end up leaving myself vulnerable and open to getting ‘fined’ by every predatory policeman sharp enough/greedy enough to spot the disparity between the dates in my documents.

Finding a fridge (fail)

Today I went off to try and find a fridge. So far I’ve seen two groups of students in different parts of the building staggering along under fridges. There were a few adverts for selling fridges and kettles and I phoned the numbers but got no answer. I asked the security man and he sent me across to the opposite block. My fave friendly security man from when I arrived was there and we had a good chat and he recommended going to floor 18 on blocks V and B and just working my way through the kitchens and down the stairs and as soon as I saw a spare fridge taking it because “it probably wouldn’t belong to anyone”. Nice. I took his advice but got bored after trailing around the fridgeless block V. The only fridges I saw (2 fairly antique and broken looking ones) had aggressive looking messages selotaped onto them like “don’t touch or I’ll kill you”.

Freshers’ Day

Today, being the 1^st of September, was also the first day of all schools and universities around Russia and as such the solemn celebration of Knowledge Day. This meant that there were loads of excited freshers hilariously glammed up crowded in the marble halls of the central part of the main building. There was a military brass band, posh food, speeches, and also some sporting and musical events but I was busy looking for a fridge and also feeling a bit ill (got fresher’s flu) so didn’t go. There are also posters around for clubs to join, some look quite good, there’s lots of theatre stuff, ball room dancing, writing groups which could be great for my Russian. I’m most tempted to participate as an international representative on the judging panel for Miss Moscow State University 2010 (missmsu.ru) mwuhaha.

The Weather

The weather is rather chilly and has been between about 10 and 14 degrees Centrigrade since I got here. There was a little bit of sun at one point on Monday evening and on Tuesday evening, and today we’ve had pretty constant rain. I tried to go shopping this evening and got totally soaked in a freezing cold version of a tropical downpour with thunderclaps that set off car alarms. I turned back pretty quickly.

Fortunately I’m not alone

I’ve already mentioned my Japanese neighbour and my Scottish room mate. My best friend from school is also living here until the end of the month so we met for a beer and some fried potatoes and meat in a smokey bar yesterday evening since I was in the centre of town. I also used to live here in the nineties so we went to have a look at my old house, and that means I have friends here from that time which is nice. It will be good once classes start as well because I’ll have a reason to hang around with Russian students and get into a routine and not be speaking English. Also my goodly wifey from Cambridge Luigi is coming for two months, she looks a bit like this

There's a bunch of Cambridge people and Russian people and stuff around.

What I’m actually doing here

I’m going to be studying Persian at the Institute of Asian and African studies which is part of Moscow university, because I’m on my third year abroad from studying Russian and Persian at Cambridge.

POST me a postcard!

Here is my postal address – I’ll let you know if it changes but it will probably be this at least until 1^st October. No idea whether anything would ever reach me but it would be really really nice if it did.

БРИНКЛИ, М. Э. / MARK BRINKLEY

RUSSIA

МОСКВА 119234

УЛ. ЛЕНИНСКИЕ ГОРЫ

ДОМ 1 (ГЛАВНОЕ ЗДАНИЕ МГУ)

КОРПУС Д

RUSSIA

Lots of love,

Mark