Hop, skip and a jump.

Winter is very much upon us here and, while I sometimes have problems speaking after the lower half of my face has become numb from being in the cold for a minute too long, I still prefer cold and snow to the constant grey and rain that we have become used to in the UK. The white of the snow brightens everything up around it and the light of a morning winter sun is blindingly beautiful (and just blinding in some cases).

However, it seems that Moscow is far behind many other cities in Russia where temperatures have been around -15°c and less for over a month now. And the great distances between main Russian cities mean that one can easily forget that there is life in Russia outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Ekaterinburg. Take Krasnoyarsk, for example. In Krasnoyarsk Krai (a federal region equivalent in size to ten UK's), it is a 4½-hour flight from Moscow or, as my father made sure to inform me, an 82-hour drive from our house in England, yet still only half-way across Russia. As my mother reported back, after her trip, it is a charming place full of culture and history where people are blissfully ignorant of life in the capital, where the regional minister for culture is hoping to be the one to build the city's first McDonald's and where people will happily take a couple days off to drive the 806km (500 miles) to their nearest Ikea in the "neighbouring" (their word not mine) city of Novosibirsk.
I was also delighted to hear that they have recycling. Unfortunately not the same can be said for Moscow and St. Petersburg where a small group of twenty-somethings seems to be fighting a losing battle against a generation of Soviet Russians (including my grandfather) who don't understand that throwing something away doesn't mean that it just disappears into thin air... Currently my mother resorts to taking a suitcase full of recycling back to the UK with her every time she goes back.

On a recent trip to Tallinn, I felt the true effects of living in snow-bedevilled countries as my direct flight was cancelled due to an incoming snowstorm. I managed to convince the girl at the service desk to put me on a flight via Helsinki instead to make it in time for the evening's concert. [For my Canadian friends who were asking - Tallinn is the capital of Estonia and Helsinki is the capital of Finland, both in north-east Europe.]

Through the winter months, before take-off, every plane needs to be "de-iced". On first hearing that this was the cause for our 40-minute delay, I was quite unsure as to what exactly this entailed. As the plane turned towards the runway and I got a better view, I realised we were part of a long queue of planes all awaiting the same fate as two big trucks worked their way down the line, spraying every part of the planes with their magic solution - an experience that brought me back to the excitement of dad suggesting getting a car wash on the way home from the shops and sitting in the car as the unstoppable thunder of brushes came towards you (and always wondering what would happen if you open the window...even just a touch).

My connecting flight from Helsinki to Tallinn proved to be the ultimate Nordic experience.  Sporting our thick winter coats and furry hoods, everyone resembled eskimos as we walked out to our small propeller plane*, trying to distinguish it from the surrounding blizzard. Admittedly, it was somewhat disconcerting not being able to see anything apart from a thick blanket of white for the whole journey and only realising you had arrived when you felt the plane touch-down at the other end. The bird-song playing in the toilets on arrival certainly helped to calm any excitement from the journey, if slightly off-putting as I generally prefer to go inside rather than out. It was interesting to compare the Russian and European airport security checks, i.e. anything goes vs. nothing goes. I got water and juice bottles through on the way there without even taking my liquids out of my bag and I was made to check my bag on the way back as almond and cashew butters have been known to be quite dangerous items to take on flights...

In Tallinn and, therefore, in Europe, I was caught off-guard by the number of Russians that seemed to surround me everywhere I went - I had left Moscow to have a break from them! The Soviet market we found with thousands of relics reflecting a different time and way of life reminds you that although Estonia has done its best to be "european" and "western", many Russians living there still hold on to their Russian roots and past as a strong part of their identity. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral** - the Russian orthodox church on top of the hill overlooking the city is a beautiful, poignant symbol of exactly that, and as I walked by I had strong memories of my mother taking my brother and I there as kids. I was pleasantly surprised by how small the city is with a maximum ten-minute walk to any location and not the minimum 45 minutes that I'm used to and so I made sure to use all this time I saved during the day to stock up on enough good food to keep me going till I'm home for Christmas. Russia still hasn't picked up on the freshly-cooked food and good quality fruit and vegetables trend unfortunately - well, that is affordable for a music student at least - so I have to rely on care packages from my lovely father and a few days away to stock up my reserves.

Another sign of good security and safety efficiency in Russia can be observed in the fire drill we had in academy one day. It reminded me of the musicians on the Titanic who refuse to leave the sinking ship and are determined to play right until the very end. My classmates were determined not to miss the beginning of our ear-training lesson and various percussionists and wind-players practising in the surrounding corridors were absolutely resolved in perfecting their dominant seventh arpeggios before even considering leaving the premises, all the while ignoring the announcement and fire alarm blaring from the speakers. It was a whole 20 minutes before a security guard came around to tell everyone to go outside asking, "Can't you hear the fire alarm?" and people started to slowly shuffle down the stairs gazing longingly at the last page of the Mozart sonata they didn't quite get to finish.

Hope you are looking forward to the holidays as much as I am,

Lots of love,

A xx


*this may or may not be the correct technical term

** For anyone interested in a very brief Russian history lesson: Alexander was a prominent prince who ruled over Novgorod (the location for the original Kremlin years before Moscow), Kiev and Vladimir during the mid-13th century. (For more info, please ask Google.)

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

First-night dinner views as I stock up on vitamins at a delicious new vegan restaurant. 

Sneaky shot in the Soviet market (where they wanted to charge 1€ a picture)

Feeling like I'm in Goodbye, Lenin! (one of my favourite films)

Just before being blown away by Angela Hewitt making magic with her fingers

Moscow Mule.

1st September. 1st day of a new term at a new academy with new people with the first lecture scheduled for my year group at 12pm. Of course I missed it. I basically missed the first day. Thanks to delays in Frankfurt that meant I missed my connecting flight and arrived to academy straight from the airport with my small suitcase in hand (of course my checked luggage hadn't made it to Russia with me) and made it to the piano department a few minutes before closing time. Good start, Masha, good start.

The first couple of weeks were spent trying to figure out how I could minimise the time I was wasting as I tried to piece together the non-existent organisational system the institution seems to function under. It's interesting that Russians appear to have straight-forward/cut-the-crap and get-stuff-done attitude and yet everything is very difficult and complicated to actually get done. Where one email with all the necessary information to all students in the department would suffice, here they seem to have opted for the 'let's see how much the students can figure out/guess for themselves' method. It's a real test of whether you belong there....I suppose. With documents taking days to be ready, the piano department office deciding to close during the first week of term, and two weeks without language or harmony lessons because no one seemed to know which groups people were in let alone who was teaching them, it was all just the icing on a multi-layer cake.

Maybe we are spoilt on the UK or maybe that's where our tuition fees are going, but British universities do at least seem to be more than happy to supply all necessary information to new students in order to make sure everyone knows where they need to be and when. The academy in general feels behind in terms of being a modern-day institution where students are actively studying. Russians love tradition and I'm all for some aspects of tradition myself, for example, the exclusive tour new students are given of Elena Fabianova Gnesina, our founder's, apartment. However, I can't help feeling that things like the teacher typing up questions she wants us to answer for the following lesson and printing a copy for each of us would make sense in order to not waste 30 minutes of precious lesson time writing out the questions as she dictates and another 15 while she figures out how to work the CD player.

There is a standardised educational system for all students, which means that we also have History, Psychology and IT on our schedules in addition to basic music subjects. I did initially get excited about IT, thinking I would become a photoshop warrior in no time at all. Surprise, surprise (or increasingly less so as the case may be), all was not what it seemed. IT in Russian is literally "modern computer science" (современная информатика - sov-re-men-aya in-for-mat-ika). I found it quite ironic that they feel the need to put the word 'modern' in there at all considering that nothing about the lesson or the room is modern by any stretch of the imagination. Old computers, a demo version of an old software that doesn't save your work, and a teacher in a similar state. A classic Soviet reminiscer, Putin-lover, and foreigner-hater - especially Asians and Americans: "American students are less clever so they wouldn't remember everything I said today, but you all will, of course," and "No point speaking to Asians in Russian, they barely understand English. They really need separate lessons and more of them." <-- coming from one of the most technologically advanced countries...
He also never ceases to remind us of his never-ending breadth of experience, qualifications, achievements and knowledge as well as ownership of all the Apple products with "Of course, I already know all this" and "Of course, I already have the new version at home" being regularly-preferred catchphrases.

He commented that "Russian students are the poorest in the world." I am no expert but use of the superlative, based on stories I have heard about students in South America and other Asian countries, might not be completeley accurate. However, I do appreciate that buying a laptop for Russians on an average salary can cost more than a month's wages. This makes quite the change coming from Bristol, where everyone seems to own a Macbook pro or equivalent, quite apparent. [I think I might be the only one here so I try to keep it on the lowdown.] People generally seem to have tablets a lot more than laptops as, I am assuming, it is a cheaper, more practical compromise. Where I am used to half the class typing furiously on laptops as the teacher shares his/her fountain of knowledge, notes here are always taken with a pen and paper during lesson times, with one exception. There was no hiding who's who in our lecture with have with the sound engineers, who were all taking notes on their tablets while some pianists didn't even have a piece of paper with them. Ooops.

I found it interesting that our IT teacher also felt the need to actually ask people to refrain from answering calls during the lesson - something that would never even be considered in the UK. It shows the kind of culture Russian society seems to have turned into over the last few years at an alarming rate. I would say that the phone culture here far surpasses the phone culture in Europe or in Canada. [I have mentioned it before but I am continuing to feel its effects more and more.]

Nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing will stop a Russian answering their phone when it rings. My piano teacher is very high up the list for guiltiest culprit - texting while I play and leaving the room on several occasions to answer calls just as Sonata no. 5, Mvt.1 by Beethoven is about to reach the recapitulation. My harmony teacher has no qualms about leaving the perfect cadence unresolved, clashing with the key of her ringtone as she strolls across the classroom to pick up the phone. A well-known Russian director I went to see giving a masterclass with multiple TV cameras pointed at him stop mid-sentence as he answered to let the other person know that he "can't talk right now" because he's "giving a masterclass". A well-known Russian actor giving a press conference about a new film festival also made quite the scene up opening his flip phone as he picked up to let his caller know he was a bit busy. And the never ceasing phone conversations during film screenings. I must be missing something. Either Russian phones don't have the 'missed call' function or they don't have 'silent mode'. I can honestly think of no other explanation for this kind of behaviour.

I was warned that life in Moscow would be tough - especially after living in St. Petersburg. I rarely get ill and when I do it doesn't usually last for more than a couple of days. Second week in Moscow, I got ill and I'm still recovering. No amount of lemon, ginger and honey or grated onion* seems to be helping. This could explain the elements of the Russian character that can appear, at times, quite tough and brutal. It's the only way to get through the winter, that's for sure. 

Although, the way people are treated on their birthday makes quite the contrast - as I learnt from the flood of messages that showered the first person in our year to have a birthday. Whereas in the UK, your birthday is an opportunity for your friends to get you as drunk as possible and/or dares to embarrass you or at least keep you in the spotlight all day. Russian birthdays are the opportunity for people to wish you a year full of happiness, joy, success, health, ambition, good friendships, and love to name a few. I can't quite decide which option is better...

I know which one I'm hoping for on my next birthday. The number of 20/21-year-old students that are married or living with partners and engaged is making me feel, dare I say it, quite old and, immersed in such an environment, I can't help feeling that my time is running out. No matter how quickly society is developing here, it is definitely still embedded in the mentality as a very important step for young people as a sign of success and a priority in terms of 'reaching adulthood' and becoming independent (from your parents at least).

Long days means I have a least been able to appreciate how magical Moscow feels late at night. I definitely think the city comes alive with the beautiful multi-coloured lights and a lot less traffic. People walk around without the stress of the working day and the centre of the city feels transformed.

I was reminded of walking around Rome with my mum on our last day there over ten years ago now and I can clearly recall the sensation of endless beauty and possibility that awaited me as we wandered the streets taking in the history and architecture one last time. 

The transformation is similar to that of a snowfall. In England, life stops and cities becomes deserted - completely calm and tranquil. In Russia, it covers all the grime and dirt from the millions of car on the road. In both cases the cities become magical and timeless. 

How different life is on this side of the world,

Lots of love,

A xx

*my flatmate from St. Petersburg's foolproof preventative 

Dream soviet oven - 40-years-old and still works like a dream

Sometime staying late to practise isn't so bad

New pedestrianised area as Moscow finally tries to build a city for people and not for cars

Moscow city lights

There's no place like home.

Two months later and I have finally found the time to write a new post. Ironically, it is a time when I should be in a lecture but horrendous Moscow traffic made me ten minutes late (first lesson I have been late to this term) and the professor wouldn't let me in. [It is by far the most boring lecture but I still don't think the principle is right*] I have also decided to treat you to a two-part post to make up for the long summer break; even though nothing has been published, I still make notes on an almost daily basis of thoughts and observations that I would like to include in future posts so here is an attempt to make sense of some of them.

As always, the summer went by in a flash. It seems that the more I try to fit in, the quicker time passes and by the time I touchdown in Heathrow returning from Vancouver Island, the summer already seems nothing but a hazy, distant blur (and not an alcohol-induced blur I might add).

Arriving to Canada is always somewhat of a shock. As I waited for my luggage in Victoria, I heard one man comment on how renting a car from a well-known car rental company had been "the BEST decision that he had EVER made." I dread to think the kind of life he has lead if that really was the best decision he has ever made. Over the course of the following week, I realised that this seemed to be a common theme amongst other Canadians. A co-worker said that carrot cake being on the dessert menu that day was "the BEST thing that had EVER happened to her." Well, it's always good to appreciate the little things in life, there's no doubt about that. Although slightly over-the-top, it was quite a welcome change after months of serious, sad/angry-looking Russians.

As usual, I wasted no time being jet-lagged and quickly settled back into Canadian life; essentially being given never-ending garden chores by my dear mother. It is always lovely to have the family back together... Birthdays especially: turning 23 on the 23rd was celebrated with a bottle of prosecco on our local beach, which we polished off just in time for a police man to walk past (on a dog inspection) commenting that he hoped "it wasn't an alcoholic beverage in our plastic cups". "Of course not!" I replied with a slightly over-enthusiastic giggle. [Compared to life on the other side of the pond, Canada is much stricter about alcohol consumption with state-controlled liquor stores and two pieces of ID being required to buy alcohol and enter alcoholic-orientated establishments; if only the same could be said for other, more natural, herbal substances. Cough cough.]

Another part of our Canadian life is something, or rather, someone I received when I turned 9 on the 23rd. We have a very clever cat who goes by the name of Bluey, and who has been the main keeper of the house for the last 14 years - he moved in a couple weeks after we did. He always seems to overhear us booking his yearly vet appointment and always manages to embarrasses us by deciding not to come for food on the day of his appointment. This year we were ahead of the game and secretly arranged his appointment behind his back. On the day, a plan had been carefully evolved and by inviting him to "join us" for breakfast in the sunroom, we kept him well confined until it was time to go. Success! On the way back, we decided to take the more scenic route along the water. Thinking aloud, my dear mother commented that it was a shame Bluey has lived so close to the beach all his life, and yet, had never seen the ocean and might not get the chance before he left us. Next thing I know, we've stopped the car and made our way to the water's edge, clutching our poor, confused, terrified cat in our arms as we dip his paws in the chilly, salty water. He got his revenge by peeing on my mother's lap and throwing up all the way back home. At least that's one more thing he can check off his bucket list.

Seeing as both our parents had to take a break out of the summer to fly to various places for work, my brother and I decided that we were finally grown up enough to take a trip of our own. Having never really seen mainland Canada, we made Kelowna our chosen destination (out of a grand total of one option as our friends were there for a couple weeks and had invited us.) Bearing in mind that our vehicles are 22 and 23 years old, we felt that the 22-year-old would be more reliable for the mountainous drive. Mountainous to the extent that there were "runaways tracks" every few kilometres, which resembled dirt walls to restrain potential out-of-control trucks. Mountainous to the extent that our van had to be gently encouraged most of the way by playing Rachmaninoff and Mendelssohn piano concerts. And mountainous to the extent that you enter the freeway greeted by a sign saying '157 km till the next gas station', only to follow directly onto the next freeway after 157 km and be greeted by an almost identical sign saying '75km'. One might think it would be sensible to put the sign at the last gas station, BEFORE entering the freeway. But those sneaky Canadians do like to keep you on your toes. Ironically, we made a pit-stop in a small town called 'Hope' on the way. [My fuel tank light came on just as we were entering Kelowna...] Saying that, we made it there and back in one piece and there is no denying that the drive is absolutely breath-taking. 

Daily swims all summer, reading in the sun, evening card games and fresh food from the garden for lunch and dinner made me very appreciative indeed. My boss at work, when deciding where to go on holiday at the end of summer, very wisely said, 'I mean once you've seen British Columbia, you've seen it all, haven't you.'

And buying a Tim Hortons doughnut at the airport was the BEST decision I have EVER made.

Lots of love,

A xx

The beginning of the ultimate outdoor piano treasure hunt. 

Forty is a magic number.

The pleasure one gets from a dip in the ocean.

Too busy taking a picture and missed the ferry by three cars.

Once you've seen BC, you've seen it all. 

AirBnb views from Joe - who is writing a bass part for my brother to record his next album of 'wood' music.

Hornby-Islanders keep to a tight and rigorous schedule.

*I managed to catch him afterwards and explained why I thought it was unfair. He understood and accepted my points and didn't put me down as absent. 

Some things never change.

Although I would say that I am a fairly-experienced traveller, that still doesn’t seem to ever prevent my baggage from being overweight, and the threat of paying extra is always a very real worry at the check-in desk. I remember the day I bought my huge, bright purple suitcase, thinking it was wonderful that it was so big as it meant that I would always be able to bring everything I wanted with me…. What a silly mistake that was, and little did I know that at the time. Cue countless memories of dragging its heavy, large bottom behind me as I trudge through airports, train stations and cities just trying to find a place to rest my head. 

This summer was no different. Having stayed a extra week in St. Petersburg to enjoy the city as a tourist before joining my family in Canada, I was completely on my own as the unsympathetic lady at the check-in desk in St. Petersburg said there was no way I was getting on the plane with hand luggage that was twice the weight limit and checked baggage that was already too heavy unless I coughed up £60 worth of my hard-earned roubles. Neither my smile or explanations that I am a poor, travelling musician did anything to soften that well-known Russian scowl. I would not be beaten. Thinking quickly after a frustrated walk around the terminal, I came up with the solution of taking out my heaviest books and hiding them with a lovely-looking old lady (who was so early that she was still waiting for her check-in to open) before returning to the check-in desk and lying though a gritted smile that I had called my mum and she had turned around in the car to come back and take the books. The lady at the desk begrudgingly handed over my ticket and I made the plane with a few minutes to spare. [I thanked the old lady profusely and she looked on bewildered as I tried to cram everything back into my suitcase that would barely close].

Running out of money during my last week in St. Petersburg, I did a search for anything free I could do to fill my time. I enjoyed a wealth of free music festivals the city had to offer but was struck by the difference between what I was experiencing and previous experiences of festivals in the UK. Turns out that Russians don't dance. At all. I do and indeed I did, but even to the liveliest and funnest of music, spotting a tapping foot in the crowd was like searching for a needle in a haystack. They also don't drink or smoke. An outdoor festival in England seems to be a great excuse for people to enjoy beer or Pimm's in the sunshine, often with a cigarette in hand. There was not a drink or cigarette to be seen and the most wild drink available for sale was квас (kvas), a popular drink made out of rye bread and so low in alcohol (around 1%) that it is considered non-alcoholic. Although, this probably explains why they don't dance. 

I decided to spend a week in London catching up with old friends before returning to the west coast of Canada for the summer. Coming from the sad lack of multiculturalism in St. Petersburg (unless you count the swarms of tourists who appear to bath in the endless sunlight of ‘white nights’) I was particularly struck by the beauty of the array of languages and cultures one encounters day-to-day in London. I LOVE that the barman can be Spanish, while another one is Italian and the barista is French. Outside you can meet someone from Prague one minute and an Aussie the next. From the girl from Brussels who met an English boy and decided to stay, to the Italian girl in Pret (A Manger) who gave us sandwiches after closing time to Sheila Anne the Londoner who was born in Pakistan and had unbelievably quick wit. All working in London and all there to embrace the culture, learn the language and enjoy the wonderful choice of activity and opportunities the city has to offer.  Over-excited to finally be in the capital for a descent amount of time, my friend and I explored just about the entire city by foot but this didn't mean I was immune to the usual public transport predicament that tends to happen in cities I am less familiar with. Although not entirely my fault, I accompanied my friend to catch her bus up north - having carefully chosen the train times that would get us to the bus station with plenty of time to spare - and we arrived to the bus station without a hitch only to be informed that we were at the wrong bus station. Ironically, straight after a conversation we had had about growing up and maturing and becoming more sensible and organised. Turns out, some things never change - a cheerful note for the day before I turn 23 on the 23rd.

Happy Summering,

A xxx

'Realism' - an interesting take on modern day society

7am post-dancing walks with friends

The view that steals my heart every time

The iconic beach in the middle of St P that has changed since my mother was a child

And the view very close-up

London walks and London talks

Alcohol in breakfast products.

I had to do a Russian literature exam the other day. 

A terrifying prospect, but made somewhat easier by the fact that it was multiple choice and the word for a multiple-choice test in Russian is угадайка (oo-ga-da-i-ka) that derives from the verb угадать (oo-ga-dat) meaning 'to guess'. 
[So to all those at uni that used to moan about having to revise for multiple-choice tests....]  

Although I am reaching the end of my first academic year in Russia, having unexpectedly stayed 6 months longer than planned, cultural differences continue to shock and surprise me. I wonder how long you have to live somewhere before you become fully accustomed to the people and the place. 

On a recent late-night trip to a nearby shop with my flatmate, having stopped in the dairy aisle, I decided to take advantage of his presence by asking him to explain the unknown products there that I still hadn't managed to figure out. 'Kefir' is a pro-biotic, fermented thick milk drink [for first-timers it might seem like sour milk] that I had already been lucky enough to have the opportunity to try on a trip to Moscow with my mother during my early teenage years, however, a bottle between the milk and kefir caught my eye. 

"There's alcohol in that one..", my flatmate joked. 

Turns out it wasn't a joke. Hidden among the most innocent of breakfast products was a type of kefir with the addition of alcohol to really make sure you have a great start to the day. Good morning, Russia. Good morning indeed. 

Coming to the end of my stream of auditions, I have been left needing to make the choice between St. Petersburg and Moscow for my next academic year. People have warned me that moving to the capital after St. Petersburg wouldn’t be easy and the question is whether I’m ready for “real” Russia; those who don’t live in St. Petersburg often claim it isn’t really Russian as it is far too European. [<— Although I beg to differ and I would sometimes even argue that it is not European enough for my liking….but that’s personal taste of course.]

While St. Petersburg values the importance of a work-play balance, Moscow is work, work, work - the pace of life is cranked into full speed and you have no choice but to keep up. Although if you're lucky, you might be able to catch up on sleep during the 90 minutes it takes you to get anywhere around the enormous city (nearly twice the area of London).  

St. Petersburg is by no means small, yet I rarely feel the overwhelming sense of size, which greets you the moment your step outside your front door in Moscow. In St. Petersburg, the high-rises tend to be concentrated around metro stations outside of the centre, which allows me to live in my cosy central bubble without feeling the cluster-phobic effect of the millions living in the city around me. A city where I already have my favourite coffee places and where I can get to anywhere I need to go within 40-60 mins as a lot of the city is (technically) walkable. A city where I can suddenly decide to go to a concert or a play or meet a friend for dinner last-minute and where most restaurants and bars are affordable. Although it is very hard to overlook the weather. Especially when more than 3 hours of daylight during the winter months is optimistic. Prior to moving, everyone warned me about the cold - fine, you buy yourself a good coat - but no one warned me about the lack of sunlight and the huge effect this has on your energy levels. As mammals, my body definitely didn’t understand why it couldn’t just go into permanent hibernation for a couple of months. During the winter, I was never able to get up before 11:30am and I remember coming back from Moscow one morning at around 10am and being shocked that it was still pitch black outside.

Moscow is a city that just feels inherently “Russian” in the sense of size, power and majesty. There is just so much space and so many cars. And there are millions and millions of people (around 17 or 18 million). Towers are spread throughout the centre and complimented by the 10-lane roads that connect them, the space between them only emphasising the power and grandeur that they represent. While others cities tend to have high-rises and towers concentrated in one part of the city - often in the centre - with small roads between them giving you the feeling of being in a maze and with the buildings getting smaller as you get towards the suburbs, here it’s the other way around. 

This, undoubtedly, has an effect on the people living there. Living in Moscow is about working. Socialising seems to be a very much side-lined activity and hard to program outside of work considering the time it takes to get anywhere and the very loose ‘working day’ which can end anywhere between 5 and 11pm. Nice areas to walk around or meet friends for coffee or lunch are limited and are in any case often quite expensive. The slightly better climate means that the 7-day working week can continue, without question, all through the winter. Not a second to waste.  

So a choice needs to be made. Do I let myself get swept up in the rapidly-changing, constantly high pace of life in Moscow or do I stay in the comfort of a city that feels slightly closer to home.

[Or....do I just run away to Italy. A recent stopover there, after a concert in Germany, confirmed that true love never dies. After a brief moment of forgetting the word for ’sun’ and repeating the Russian word over and over again, my brain switched into gear and everything came flooding back. Eating three weeks worth of pasta, pizza and ice-cream accompanied by Aperol and Italian house wine over the few days just about managed to satisfy my cravings.]

For now, though, I going to take full advantage of 23-hour daylight with late-night bike rides, early morning walks followed by yoga and last-minute evening trips to the theatre and maybe the odd glass of wine on a rooftop. 

Winters are for sleeping and summers are for playing.

Lots of love,

Masha xxx

St. Petersburg's surprise summer storms - keeping you on your toes

Late-night, post-theatre river love

Midnight, white night, bike night

Middle of the night sunrise

Popping back to Berlin for a few days, keeping it real and keeping me sane.

Living in a city built for cars.

Feeling worse for wear, tired, damp and wedged between a rather large man and a window and with my phone out of battery, I had no option but to endure a twenty minute conversation about the bus we were on. What was the height of the ceiling? Had the bus been made in Russia or in Germany? Did it run on diesel, natural gas or petrol? Did any of the rods running along the ceiling have anything to do with its fuel efficiency? Did the colour of the bus have any correlation with the type of fuel it ran on? On and on he went and managed to drag three complete strangers into the conversation, which he had initially started with the conductor - this time a poor, young girl who clearly wanted nothing to do with it but seemed to have all the answers.

To be honest, any kind of travel in St. Petersburg or Moscow is eventful and not easy to say the least. I have already recounted my difficulties with the metro in Moscow, but the metro is one of a plethora of available options of "public" transport. Unfortunately, in St. Petersburg, there is a general mentality among older generations of 'if you have a car, you use it'. Following the Soviet Times, where owning a car was rare and involved paperwork and months of waiting, welcome to the ultimate time of 'if you've got it, flaunt it.' For a place with a huge amount of people living in it, the city is surprisingly unaccommodating to people! Many roads will have three or four lanes in each direction (car lanes - no bus lanes at all) while people, scooters, and bikes are left to battle it out on the pavement. Not a bike lane in sight in a city that is flat as a pancake. Ironic compared to mountainous Bristol where you find bikers on every corner, sweating up and down the hills in the sun and getting soaked in the rain, often probably questioning their decision to bike that day. Unfortunately, the amount of cars also seems to contribute to a sometimes unpleasant amount of dirt and pollution in the city caused by traffic jams throughout the day. Discovering an amazingly quiet part of the city on the east side of Vasilevsky Island, I realised how pleasant the clean air was and how I had gotten so used to the constant rumble of cars and dirt that I was stunned by the stillness and purity of the bay.

So, the logical option is to take a form of public transport, in order to reduce the number of cars on the road. Brace yourselves. Taking a bus involves a scarily high probability of being swarmed by baboushka's in a rush to get their favourite seat on the bus (I still wonder where all the dedoushka's are) before you get stuck in the traffic caused by no bus lanes and the huge number of cars. Taking a marshroutka (a mix between a bus and a taxi - a minivan that follows a certain route and will pick up and drop up passengers anywhere along that route) involves being confident enough in your knowledge of the city and the language that you know where to get off and can explain that to the driver, who is very rarely Russian himself.

The metro might seem like a viable option, with the guarantee of no traffic jams and a very frequent service but you need to add 10/15 minutes to every journey to allow for the seemingly endless escalator ride in order to reach a depth where it was safe to construct a metro in a city built on swamp land. My flatmate is a huge fan of trams and is often excited by the idea of taking his favourite old tram (often no.6), yet the trams don't offer viable routes through the centre and it is never really clear where I can actually get on.

Going slightly longer distances, such as that between St. Petersburg and Moscow, I often take the night train. The novelty soon wore off unlike the taste of the stale croissant, vacuum-packed salami and curdled yogurt that they serve you for breakfast. I accept that I will never understand the people who feel the need to set their alarms an hour and a half before arriving in order to waste time fussing around in the compartment, hugely reducing the already limited amount of sleep you can manage to get on the 8-hour journey; the best earplugs in the world won't block the snores some people manage to produce.

So I have taken to riding on a ex-flatmate's scooter around the city and I feel like superwomen. The best combination I could find between speed, ease and flexibility... I am worriedly awaiting the day she finds time to stop by and take it back...

Back in England for a week over Easter and I realised how much I miss driving - there is nothing like putting an old CD on full blast (I could only find Green Day and Britney in the car...shame) and driving around in the countryside without another car in sight.

The flight there left me with one question that I still haven't been able to answer: why is it so hard for people to stay seated until the seatbelt sign has been switched off?!

Transport worries aside - the city has transformed from the snow-covered wonderland it was a few months ago. White nights are arriving quicker than I thought and there is something quite magical about having the sun shining nearly 24 hours a day. Four in the morning looks very similar to eleven in the morning as well as eight at night and I am told every day, by friends and acquaintances alike, that the white nights are absolutely spectacular. I can't wait.

Lots of love,

A xx

The quiet spot I found

Writing a 'retro' letter to a friend using ink and a quill in the HUGE main old post office on Pechtamskaya

Chaki the Cat agrees that working is for winter time

Sundays don't exist in Russia.

The Big Melt. Back into my daily routine and my days are filled trying to avoid falling clumps of snow and icicles - especially after my mother was kind enough to scare me with a story of someone in Moscow getting killed by a falling icicle...

I realised that all the snow was actually covering a lot of grime and gunk around the city: I learnt this the hard way when I decided that it was time for the first outing on my scooter and arrived to meet my friend for coffee with the back of my legs covered in dirt. But this is a sign that the worst of the winter if over and is accompanied by rapidly increasing daylight hours, not only allow for more time to appreciate my surrounding environment but also mean I have started to come out of hibernation and really take advantage of everything going on in the city; mainly more trips to concerts at the St. Petersburg Philarmonia, which is in the centre of town and has something going on in both halls every day of the week. The Russians are known for playing classical music to a very high standard and the musicians I have met here and concerts I have been to are no exception, and having to get up at 6:30am in order to a secure a practise room - not out of pleasure I can assure you - as arriving later 7:15am means you are out of luck assures me that the next generation will be no different. On Sundays, I normally take the day off, however, last week I thought I would go in to conservatory for a couple hours in the afternoon just to play around. It's a Sunday, I thought. No one will be around on a Sunday, I thought. People will be at home relaxing, going for walks in the sunshine or drinking coffee with friends, I thought. How wrong I was. Just as busy as any other day - if not busier. Then I realised... everything is always open on a Sunday: shops are opens and transport runs with the regularity of any other day. Sundays simply don't exist in Russia.

In terms of composers' music being performed, the 'Greats' are played to an extremely level of precision and discipline, which is of course something to be commended. However, I have been more disappointed by the contemporary music, whether it be classical or popular, coming out of the city. There is a small community of people trying to create original, new music yet there seems to be a huge lack of an audience for it and any interest I have shown, during my lessons, in playing contemporary or modern music has generally been met with confusion and disinterest. A friend was playing in a concert of conservatory students' compositions at the Philarmonia and, still frustrated by the feeling of being too stuck in the past and full of curiosity and hope, I decided to go along. Most people will know and agree that student compositions can be a bit hit-and-miss, pushing some boundaries that aren't necessarily meant to be pushed. However, I was pleasantly surprised and filled with relief by how much I genuinely enjoyed the concert - even if the hall was half full and a number of people left far before the end.

I was particularly struck by the reactions to an electronic, sound design piece involving a string quartet hooked up to microphones and playing very minimal, soft sounds on their open strings, which were then projected into the hall. I was filled with anger as I watched people start to laugh, chat to each other, look at the time and consider having a toilet break. Such close-minded people who laugh at an artist who has the courage and audacity to do something original, interest and different in an otherwise quite stifled, restrained musical environment. Well the composer got people's attention, that's for sure. It reminded me of the reaction people originally had to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring the first time it was performed in Paris. Just don't be so rude!

Unfortunately, this conforms with a close-mindedness - particularly among the older generation but not completely absent among the younger generation - that I am increasingly coming across and can be hard to handle at times. The lack of multi-culturality that is so decisively present in European countries such as England and Germany and, so, the lack of exposure to other ways of doing things and other ways of thinking means that I find people generally more close-minded and more argumentative. Especially among the Soviet generation: all people had a similar quality of life and a steady daily routine in the place where they had always lived. How could they possibly know any different. This came up in conversation today with my flatmates; my flatmate having gone to visit his grandmother outside of the city centre and having been congratulated for having shaved his beard (not that it was particularly long prior to his visit). My other flatmate explained that, to his grandmother, it was a sign of laziness - in Soviet Russia, everybody would work from 8am - 6pm and then would have time in the evening...to shave, of course!

Surprise surprise, I am off to a concert at the Philarmonia...

Lots of love xxx

View from a practise room at 7am

Escape to the dacha round 1

The big hall of the Philarmonia

Escape to the dacha round 2

My new love - Soviet Russia interior design

Moscow welcomed me with open arms

Preparation vs Traveller's Instinct

No matter how many times I fly, I still get butterflies and that flutter of excitement as I walk through the gate to board the plane. Even just looking at the departures board puts a smile on my face - I could go anywhere.

People who know me well won't be surprised to hear that within my first seven hours in Düsseldorf, I managed to find a great little Italian restaurant (the head chef was, of course, Italian) where I could finally satisfy my craving for a big plate of spaghetti ai frutti di mare. It was delicious. To be fair, in a country known for its meat and chips, as a pescatarian, I was left with little choice... It was so good that I went back twice more during my three day trip. (Although the second time I was devastated to find out they take Saturdays off and resorted to calling my mum for consolation.) I did generally find Dusseldorf to be quite a business-orientated, commercial and industrial city, and this was reflected in the architecture, food, bars, and restaurants on offer - not hugely interesting, quite touristy and generally over-priced. A fellow pianist I met there convinced me to be brave the streets of Aldstadt - known as Germany's 'longest' bar - and join him for a beer on Saturday evening. Despite the stag parties and out-of-towners who had popped into town to gorge themselves on cheap beer and cheesy music, standing on the streets surrounded by Europeans (without a hat or scarf!) with 1,50€ beer in my hand reminded me of being on the streets of Porto last summer and brought a huge smile to my face as I remembered how much I love being in Europe.

This didn't last long.

The next day - a Sunday - and it was drizzling as I spent three hours walking around with a bag full of music trying to find an open cafe with wifi, having forgotten that in Europe everything is CLOSED on a Sunday!

[I have been spoilt with the 24-hour Spar on my doorstep and array of 24-hour bars and cafés in St. P.]

Three days of quaintly-coloured houses and excessively clean residential streets and I was ready to move on.... to Vienna. A city where a ticket to the opera (3€) cost me less than my matcha chai latte (3,20€); it really is the capital city of music and I, unexpectedly, fell completely in love. The city is beautiful, not too clean and not too dirty, not too big and not too small. I was aware of the history and culture in the city but I was expected the place to be much more dated and stuck in the past - more similar to historical rich cities I have visited in Italy. The history is without a doubt there yet the place feels very current, dynamic and vibrant. A very fine balance between history, present and future, which is normally hard to get right but felt effortless in Vienna with the mix of charming little cafes, shops, and bars.  Not in the mood to make friends at the hostel, I revelled in taking a few hours each day to just wander around even if, surprise surprise, I did get lost a few times, having to rely on GCSE German to try and find my way back. The fact that most street names don't fit onto one line on the road sign is surely a sign that they are just too long?!

Somewhat on the expensive side for my limited unemployed-self's budget, I ate most of my meals buying food from supermarkets and I was baffled that lots of food shops seemed to open at 7:40am - very specific. I guess they decided that 7:30am was just that little bit too early... and thus I was deprived of my croissant breakfast as I made my way to the airport on the third day for the next stop on my whistle-stop music conservatory tour. Feeling destitute without my croissant, I was faced with the sad truth that public transport wasn't my best friend in this city either - another one to add to my list. The strength needed to open train doors on the metro often resulted in squeezing through the tiny gap on one side I had managed to create or someone taking pity on me and opening them for me and making it look ridiculously easy. The transport issues didn't end there. Round 2 of Alex getting on the metro going in the wrong direction when I was already cutting it fine for my early morning flight to Hamburg resulted in arriving to the airport two minutes before check-in closed... Though without running or even breaking into sweat. All in good time. Actually - I'll give you a tip - it's the most efficient way to travel. You get the best choice of seats if the plane isn't full - a guaranteed full row of seats on every flight. And I went straight through security and straight through the gate. No messing around. Even had time to douse myself in Chanel on the way - a surefire way to make friends on the plane.

In Hamburg, I was depressingly reminded of the English winter I had tried to escape. Wind and Rain. Although this city felt the most down-to-earth and studenty of the places I had been to so far - not only due to the fact that it seemed perfectly acceptable to light up a joint with friends in a bar. Having made it to my 11am meeting, I realised that I had perhaps taken my habit of 'who needs to prepare - I can just follow my gut instinct' one step too far as I had absolutely no idea where my hostel was, no wifi and no map. Three hours of walking around and few pointless metro rides, while desperately hoping my gut traveller's instinct would steer me in the right direction and I managed to find a hotel who found and printed directions to my hostel (4km away - I wasn't even close).

Dancing and chatting with friends into the early hours meant I was still up to see the most beautiful sunrise and so I decided to wander down to the harbour for the fish market to try a local Fischbrötchen and to get a proper view. I sat on the harbour wall eating my fish sandwich while thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of over-enthusiastic fruit sellers trying to bestow their fruit baskets onto unwilling tourists, while other stall holders rushed around trying to save their produce from some unannounced high levels of seawater, consequential flooding and seagulls trying to scrounge anything that just out of their reach.

The spectacular sunrise aside, I admittedly didn't fall in love with the place as I had done in Vienna and the sound of Berlin Calling was too strong to ignore...so I packed my bags and paid the full 8€ for the 3-hour bus ride to Berlin - with a huge grin on my face the entire way.  Despite the excitement of visiting new places, it can also be tiring and difficult and there is nothing like returning to a place that you know and already love.

There is a growing worry that Berlin won't be the same place is it now in a few years times. The unbelievable freedom for self expression and the mix of cultures - facilitated by the relatively cheap cost of living and the sheer amount of space - that you find there is hard to encounter elsewhere. Yet, this has the potential to create a vicious cycle, which means that such a wonderful, enlivening place can also be its own worst enemy. As a place becomes for 'trendy' and popular, more people arrive, prices go up, and, ironically, the base of artistic (and often poorer) people who create the quirky culture and social 'buzz' can no longer afford to live there.

Thinking about this as I walked through the streets of Berlin on my way to meet friends, who had also moved to Berlin a couple years ago for that very reason, I began wondering about where the "energy" or "feeling" of a place comes from. To what extent do preconceptions play a part? Is it the difference between knowing about a place before you arrive and arriving completely blind on a whim? Or is it based on certain characteristics you already look for in any place you visit, regardless of any prior knowledge or understanding? How is it you can feel the energy of the place within a few days of being there? I will always try to give any new place a few days of exploration and open-mindedness and I like arriving without knowing too much in order to form my own impression, although a little bit of history and a quick glance at a map definitely helps to get my bearings. However, I am often quick to judge and I can normally tell pretty soon if it's the right place for me. All of which brings me to the conclusion that it's hugely based on the people. The people who create the way of life, who create the shops, bars, parks, museums, buildings, industry, music and art.

Not one to make life easy for myself, I was constantly on edge keeping an eye out for ticket inspectors on the metro in the hope of saving a few euros so that I could buy more cheese to take back to Russia. Without a local sim card and no way of contacting people I needed to meet, it was slightly frustrating to find that lots of places seemed to have gone against the trend of the last few years by no longer having wifi for customers to use and some places even banning laptops. Shock horror they want people to actually talk to each other...! But with my own set of keys to my friend's apartment, I felt completely at home...even knowing which exit to use getting out of the metro - a undeniable sign of a local.

And before I knew it, with my bag full of cheese and pesto, having got completely carried away in Lidl, I was back to Moscow where I strangely felt warmer than I did in Germany. (They tend to go overboard with indoor heating in Russia). A place where three people are needed to check tickets on a nearly empty train: two to block each end of the carriage while the third checks the tickets - for a train that you can only board by going through ticket barriers anyway. A place where the entrance to the metro is nowhere near the exit so that trying to get back into a station you came out of can be somewhat challenging. A place where people are running everywhere, trying to get as much done as possible, but where you realise you actually spend half your time in (and on) the metro. And finally back to St. Petersburg to find temperatures back to around 0°c, the ice on the canals and rivers starting to melt and our cat lying on my bed awaiting my return.


A xxx

Düsseldorf: the place of alien trees and book fridges

Spaghetti ai frutti di mare

Sunrise on Sunday morning in Hamburg

Flooding issues...

Vienna: the most awful green for a concert hall

Standard parking: kind of found a place, kind of in it...

How to learn Russian: take part in a cake-decorating masterclass....