UPDATED: Saint Petersburg and Kazan (Tatarstan)

Today I'll update the few days spent in St Petersburg and Kazan.

And just in case anyone is wondering... I'm alive, I wasn't on the plane that crashed in Nepal. But I am in Nepal and it's raining (and raining and raining)... Which in a city like Kathmandu means it's muddy and I have soaked all my shoes... What better excuse to feed my shoe habit some might say, but this also means getting to the shoe shop and finding a good one... Ohh such problems... ;-)

So Saint Petersburg!

WOW - a beautiful city!!! It really is Venice of the North as I hope my 'inferior phone photos' will show.

I've been told today to start using a real camera again and this time the logic was that taking photos with my phone made me look like a Russian spy... Hmmm (that was supposed to push my anti-Russian button). But if you stand far back enough all the photos are clear and focused! :-)

But if you complain about my photos, take a look at the ones Nat took of me! :-P

I was a perfect subject - photogenic, beautiful and thin and yet she managed to make me look like this!! Sorry Nat! ;-)

So for those who don't know, Nat and D. were my housemates in Oxford and better parents to Frankie and Pushkin than I ever was. And Nat and D. are Russian and taught me all the Russian I know. My favourite Russian word being "zaja" (I was always away for the Cyrillic writing lessons), which I think means something like Schatzi in German - we're an international, poligot crowd here!). So Nat was the only human the half feral Frankie ever loved and Frankie even tolerated D. as long as he fed her dried Russian fish (no, I never qualified, I was the slave and pill

giver). And D. was the person that understood Pushkin though Pushkin never understood why D. kept asking: "In or out Pushkin, in or out?", when all Pushkin wanted to do was be

in between in and out... Pushkin's name was unintentionally Russian, for those who wonder. And to the current cat in whose house I'm living - Sasha is short for Alexander - coincidentally, the real Pushkin's first name... ;-)

Anyway, Nat is a St Pet local and so I met up with her on my free day. In a typical Russian style we had 3 or so bottles of alcohol - Russian Champagne of course. I realised (again) that I'm old(er) and cannot drink and recover as quickly as I used to. Nat is still young and she has lots of practice, especially being back in St Pet! ;-)

And on the photo, Nat turned out red - she must have been to a tanning salon recently... Which by the way, she tried to convince me (the ultimate sun hater and sun block user) that it was good for me to tan a little... Yeah right! :-P

More photos for those photo hungry...

We went on a boat trip (drinking champagne all along), had a dinner on a different boat and talked to D. who was somewhere else.

The boat where we had dinner was amazing! A little fairy tale land with star constellations painted on the ceiling. We sat under Hercules.

We both had an incredible wild mushroom soup. And I have to admit that every place since then, I ordered mushroom soup hoping I will get a similar one... But no.

And... My mum told me not to eat mushrooms in Russia since they absorb radiation more than other plants (is mushroom a plant?) but mum, I couldn't resist! I lived through Chernobyl and already absorbed too much. :-)

And last photo before I go for my massage here in Kathmandu... It's of the Orthodox cathedral in St Petersburg, taken by me from the boat. When I was looking at it later, I noticed how much the person on the bridge looks like me. No wonder people think I'm Russian! ;-)

Kazan, Tatarstan

(updating whenever I have time and there are no power cuts in Kathmandu).

Kazan is a very old city and so much nicer than Moscow was. My hotel was just across from the Kremlin, which is where the blue domed mosque was and some very old looking wood and stone towers (I did go looking around there early in the morning, but didn't hire an English speaking guide so can't tell you much about history).

Mushrooms in Kazan were good too! In the evening one other Aussie and myself went out to a restaurant which beat all records in how long it took them to bring us food. I only ordered mushroom plate and a typical Russian salad (Tatar salad to be precise - Nat never made that one but she made lots of other salads with beetroot and herrings!). But my dinner comrade decided to try horse steak and we thought they needed to catch the horse... When they eventually brought our food, they forgot the cutlery, so that was another 15min. Luckily my food was already cold so it couldn't get any colder... But apparently horse steak gets tough as its temperature drops. I even took a photo of my radioactive mushrooms - there were 5 types - but I can't find that photo!!!

I think we found out the reason for the food delay though...

After 10pm the waitress came in with a note explaining that after 10pm live music would be played and additional 100 roubles would be charged per person for that reason. So a band came and sang some 1980s covers and they were surprisingly good, though LOUD (but that's just me getting old...). And the best thing was: in a room that could have easily fit 200-300 people, there were about 10 people present (including us) and this one dancing couple on the massive dance floor, dancing, kissing and groping like the world didn't exist! That's what I call courage! ;-)

As almost a Russian speaker, I was also the group communicator and was given the task of ordering food, buying souvenirs, asking for directions, talking to scary looking officials like the airport x-ray machine operators - I was indispensable... Until my bubble was burst when one of the other Australians who also spoke Turkish, discovered that he could understand Tatar!! And Kazakh, Uzbek, Armenian... blah blah blah...