Home?
Are you looking forward to going home? I can’t count the number of times I was asked this question before leaving Russia, and every time I wondered whether to give the easy, non-committal answer or …
Christmas!
No stocking. No tree with tinsel. No roast dinner. Is this really Christmas? Not as I knew it, perhaps. Christmas was beautiful in Tomsk. Ice-skating on a lake at night, Christmas trees on every square …
One Hundred Days
It’s over. I have returned west. One hundred days in Russia comes hand in hand with one hundred stories to tell; and yet no hundred thousand words could do justice to the country and its …
A true Siberian?
This cold scares me. They call it мороз. The frost. A misleading turn of phrase: a week ago, if someone had asked me what frost meant, I would have described a silvery morning in …
Shock in short supply
Culture: the ways in which a group of people live, passed down through generations Shock: something sudden and violent Culture shock: the feeling of bewilderment, distress, confusion, anxiety or uncertainty experienced upon arrival into a …
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is bigger than Tomsk. It’s newer. Greyer. There’s a metro. On a Sunday at the beginning of October, we stood at Tomsk bus station, suitcases at our feet, snow falling lightly around us. We …
A cold country with a warm heart
I was sitting at a long table in the basement of a church, an hour outside of Tomsk, where we had just had breakfast. It was two weeks into term and I wasn’t feeling very …
Destination Baikal
Would you like to come on a journey with me? We will probably travel further into Russia than you or I have ever been. Destination: Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, in the biggest …
Tomsk
Welcome to Siberia, a remote wilderness where cold means -35°C… Initially, I thought, the stereotypes were true. I stepped off the plane at six o’clock in the morning (after a very bumpy landing), having arrived …
Anti-Café does not mean Anti-Hello
Softly spoken, now in English, now in Russian, he welcomes us, explains the concept: ‘It’s all about atmosphere. You can feel it.’ Here, there is unlimited tea and coffee, there’s toast and jam and biscuits, but that’s …