I phoned the Natwest Bank today to make arrangements to pay off my credit card automatically and I feel relieved it’s now sorted. I called from a payphone in the echoey hallway of my hostel building and took great pride in telling the clerk in London that “I’m calling from Moscow” as if I was an international businessman or a spy. He didn’t react at all and I may as well have said I was calling from East Grinstead.
I went to the park that Mary had suggested – the underage tour guide of my first day – it’s where the All-Russian Exhibition Centre is. I got completely lost there and was in agony with my knees again from very early on in the day – this does not bode well. The park was very weird. It’s a truly massive area, so massive as to be unmanageable and it seems like they’ve given up and left it to decay but at one time it must have been magnificent. The enormous area is criss-crossed by many roads and there are huge ‘follies’ everywhere but miles apart. They each represent a region of the former Soviet Union, a stereotype of each place, sentimental and garish – a Siberian log cabin here, a Balkan cottage there. Each one is a bar or a restaurant but almost everything is closed today and by the looks of it has been for some time. Everything here is dirty and neglected, the pavements are broken and all is deserted. I found an empty fairground too – depressing places at the best of times – but imagine one with no customers, with bored, dour looking attendants in colourful uniforms guarding rides that spin with empty seats. Over crackly speakers saccharine pop music is played constantly. This is not the Russian Federation, I am now in the Soviet Union.
I got pretty lost in the park and felt quite depressed, lonely and close to tears but I kept reminding myself that even these moments are a part of the journey. Even the main exhibition centre was really shabby and run-down. Today Russia is a depressing place to be and I feel sorry for them all. It seems to me that most people here are drinking most of the time. I see teenage girls with cans of beer in their hands and fags on at ten in the morning. I’ve seen lots of puke on the pavements and yesterday two men were sleeping it off on the subway train. They were stinking and snoring and hogging two whole seats in the rush hour much to people’s mixed and amusement and disgust.
I’ve been moved to another room and I’m now sharing with John (a PhD student studying soviet public art) Austin (an arrogant young, blond, bearded Yank) and Sean (a soft spoken Irish guy who’s travelling from Moscow to India by train).
I wrote my first update email today and far from being the literary masterpiece I had promised everyone I found it a bit of a chore. It seems that once I’ve written down my thoughts and experiences in this diary, I don’t much feel like doing it all over again, I feel like I’m labouring the point by creating an email summary of what I’m up to.
I went to the park that Mary had suggested – the underage tour guide of my first day – it’s where the All-Russian Exhibition Centre is. I got completely lost there and was in agony with my knees again from very early on in the day – this does not bode well. The park was very weird. It’s a truly massive area, so massive as to be unmanageable and it seems like they’ve given up and left it to decay but at one time it must have been magnificent. The enormous area is criss-crossed by many roads and there are huge ‘follies’ everywhere but miles apart. They each represent a region of the former Soviet Union, a stereotype of each place, sentimental and garish – a Siberian log cabin here, a Balkan cottage there. Each one is a bar or a restaurant but almost everything is closed today and by the looks of it has been for some time. Everything here is dirty and neglected, the pavements are broken and all is deserted. I found an empty fairground too – depressing places at the best of times – but imagine one with no customers, with bored, dour looking attendants in colourful uniforms guarding rides that spin with empty seats. Over crackly speakers saccharine pop music is played constantly. This is not the Russian Federation, I am now in the Soviet Union.
I got pretty lost in the park and felt quite depressed, lonely and close to tears but I kept reminding myself that even these moments are a part of the journey. Even the main exhibition centre was really shabby and run-down. Today Russia is a depressing place to be and I feel sorry for them all. It seems to me that most people here are drinking most of the time. I see teenage girls with cans of beer in their hands and fags on at ten in the morning. I’ve seen lots of puke on the pavements and yesterday two men were sleeping it off on the subway train. They were stinking and snoring and hogging two whole seats in the rush hour much to people’s mixed and amusement and disgust.
I’ve been moved to another room and I’m now sharing with John (a PhD student studying soviet public art) Austin (an arrogant young, blond, bearded Yank) and Sean (a soft spoken Irish guy who’s travelling from Moscow to India by train).
I wrote my first update email today and far from being the literary masterpiece I had promised everyone I found it a bit of a chore. It seems that once I’ve written down my thoughts and experiences in this diary, I don’t much feel like doing it all over again, I feel like I’m labouring the point by creating an email summary of what I’m up to.
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