After feeling rather jealous of people who went to exotic places (eg. Lake Baikal) in their reading week, my friend Katherine and I decided that we too wanted to go away! I don’t really know why I chose Archangelsk, but it seemed further enough away to be an adventure! Soon after making this decision, I met a girl called Elizabeth. She is a Peruvian girl who moved to Russia, on her own, when she was about 15. Coincidently, she had moved to Archangelsk from Peru to study. She lived there for about 5 years and in that time, married a Russian and had a child with him. She moved to Moscow a couple of months ago and now studies here. Anyway, so she decided to come along with Katherine and I to visit her husband. She also brought along her 4 year old son... this I did not find out until we were booking out train tickets!So the train journey was just under 24 hours, so we packed lots of supplies to keep us going. It was quite an eventful journey. Artur, Elizabeth’s little boy was very, very annoying at times and I think by the end of the journey most people in our carriage wanted to strangle him! But it was fun anyway and we made friends with a bloke in the neighbouring booth. We had lots of beer and then went to bed! After arriving at 6 in the morning in Archangelsk, we went to one of Elizabeth's friends’ flat for a bit of a rest and some breakfast. We then went to go and find a place for Katherine and I to stay. Elizabeth knew of an ‘общежитие’, which is communal living apartment blocks, usually where students live. There is always a grumpy babushka whose sole job is to sit in an office monitoring who goes in and out and trying to make life as difficult as they can for everyone! So after encountering the grumpy bab, we dumped out bags in our room, which was very cosy indeed, very self sufficient, and for only £7 a night! We decided that as we were all a bit knackered, the best plan of action would be to go and sit in a ‘banya’ for a couple of hours and get rid of all the train grime. Now this was an experience! I had never been to a banya before, but knew pretty much what to expect! So, a banya is made up of two rooms, one wet room and then the actual sauna room. In the wet room there are loads of buckets which you fill up with water to cool down after the sauna and then later you scrub, soap, moisturise... when you are finished. So, we walk into the changing room and are confronted by about 10 babushkas of varying shapes and sizes, though mainly short and fat, all of them naked, hot and red! So, we follow suite and get ourselves ready, none of us had a towel and really had no idea of banya etiquette! We got our buckets and had a bit of a splash about and then went into the banya. The women in there kept telling us what to do and what not to do and there were some real bitches, but we also spoke to some really nice ladies who were very excited to meet some young foreigners! So it went like that for the hour or so we were there: sauna, pour a bucket of water on yourself, sauna, bucket... then once you are all sauna’d out, then come the birch twigs! Basically, you leave some twigs to soften and then when you are ready, you just whip one another with them! Its a lot of fun, and also feels amazing. At one point, I was lying down on a bench in the sauna being whipped by a very small, naked, plump little babushka! Amazing! After the whipping, you give yourself a good wash and rub down. When we came out, I felt like a new woman, I felt so clean and so refreshed and ready for anything! It was brilliant!
We then went for some incredibly cheap food and for a walk around the town centre. It gets dark up there at about 3.00 pm and only really gets light at about 10.00 am. So by this point it was already dark. We walked along the river bank, which at this point had already frozen. There were lots of people cross-country skiing and instead of prams, people push their kids around in sledges! That evening, we went to a friend of Elizabeth’s for dinner. At first she seemed nice and normal, but then as time passed, we both realised that she was completely mental! She was 50 and only had a couple of teeth and I have my suspicions that she was an alcoholic! She was really lovely and sweet to us, but she was just a bit mental!
The next day started as a bit of a disaster, as we had planned to meet Elizabeth at 9.30, though by 11 when we still hadn’t heard anything from her we decided to make our own way into town. Amazingly though, she spotted us from the bus and we managed to meet up! We got another bus to this small place outside of the city called ‘Mali Kareli’ where there is a tourist village which has loads of wooden architecture. It was really incredibly beautiful, the wooden houses against the background of the snowy woods was just really lovely. But again, we were constricted by the lack of light! I managed to take quite a lot of photos though before it got too dark though. I just began to get a bit worried of getting lost in the forest! After a couple of hours walking in the winter wonderland, we came back to the room and chilled out for a bit, had some tea and watched Russian cartoons! We went back to Vera’s again for dinner and then decided to experience Archangelsk nightlife. We persuaded Vera to come out with us, this was perhaps a mistake! She disappeared into her room to get changed and about 10 mins later, we heard cries for help. We all bundled into her bedroom to find her on her back with nothing but tights and a bra on trying to squeeze her leg into a pair of too-small purple suede heeled boots! We all had to help her encase her legs in these boots, which was a very funny, if a bit of a disturbing experience! She then put on a full length black evening gown and was good to go! Anyway, it was a fun evening and the club lived up to all my expectations. It was the same as the club in Kazan and Yaroslavl!
The next day, again after a ropey start, we decided to visit the island where Elizabeth and her husband had lived. It was the best part of the trip, we had to cross the frozen river to get to this island and it was just the most incredible thing. The river was frozen, so this little tug boat makes its way through the ice pushing it all apart. It was amazing, I felt like I was on the titanic! You just look around you at all this frozen expanse and it just makes you appreciate the great force of nature! (sorry, that was a bit much!!) Anyway, so about 20 mins later, absolutely frozen, we get to this island and there is just nothing there! You look left, right and straight on and there is just nothing but snowy nothingness! So, I started wondering where the hell we were going to warm up! We walk for a few minutes and start to see small wooden houses and buildings. These houses are the only thing there, why people live there I have no clue. After popping in briefly at Elizabeth’s husbands house, we went to a banya again! This one was very much the same, but with a lot more banya bitches than the other one. I think because it was more rural, they wanted everything done just so! After the banya, we got back on the boat and got a taxi back to Vera’s where we had left our rucksacks. After a quick dinner we headed for the station. It was a very emotional parting (for Vera that is!), but to be honest, Katherine and I were quite glad to be getting away from her! The journey home was pretty uneventful, the ladies in our carriage were learning English and doing their homework, so from time to time would ask us how to say things!
So that’s that... defiantly an experience!
We got back to Moscow and the following day the temperature dropped to minus 27, so a lovely welcome back present for us!
