Moscow Nightlife

Moscow is famous for its unrestrained and unlimited nightlife – at least this is what my city guide told me. Therefore, I was really excited to go out for the first time with some friends in the inner city. First of all, however, I had to tell my host family that I will be away over night and asked them not to lock the bar of the door of the flat. Because in that case it’s impossible to open the door from outside. I also told them that I won’t come home before 7 o’clock in the morning, because the first Metros are driving at 6 o’clock in the morning. I really can’t understand why huge cities like New York, London, Tokyo, Moscow and so on do not have a Metro which drives non stop. At least every hour at night would be fine.
Anyway, I met my friends at a Metro station in the inner city, but they all had to wait for me because I couldn’t find them, because there were two platforms and I was waiting on one of the platforms while the others stood at the other platform. Problematically, my mobile phone isn’t working properly. When I call someone or someone calls me, I can hear him or her, but he or she can’t hear me. Therefore, it took us some time to find each other. We didn’t directly go to the club but walked around a bit to find some place to drink and to eat. But we only found a small kiosk where we bought some bear and chocolate cookies. Some drunk guy came to us and told us his life story and something about his wife. But I didn’t really listen and we were all soon really annoyed.
At 1 o’clock we went to the club Propaganda. We were 6 people (3 girls, 3 boys). One girl, which had been in Sankt Petersburg the last year told us that doormen don’t like it when you go to a club in a big group. Therefore, we went to the club in pairs. Oh, I forgot to mention that every club has doormen, who are usually really strict on the looks. So one should always be dressed fancily - meaning leather shoes for men and high heels for women. Our club, however, wasn’t such a strict high fashion club, and the entrance was for free. We were dancing for some hours, until we thought that we might go to another club, which wasn’t too far away. However, the doormen at this new club noticed that we were a group and didn’t let us in. It was the first time ever that I wasn’t allowed into a club. Then a strange old man approached us and told us that he knows a great club nearby where we can come in without problems. So we walked for 20 minutes to the next club. BUT they didn’t let us in. This man told us that he knows still another club. This time we had to walk even longer to discover that we weren’t allowed entrance to the club another time. Pretty disappointed we went back to Propaganda until the first Metro drove. A friend of mine and I went to a little bar close by to eat something. At 6 o’clock we all drove back home. The door to the flat wasn’t locked with the bar so I was able to lay in bed at 7’clock.

Speech, Babushka and Dancing Lesson

Last Friday had been a very busy and exciting day. First I went to the People’s Chamber of the Russian Federation, which discussed the whole day about civil services, volunteer work and the role of foreign volunteers in Russia. This is a highly discussed topic in Russia and therefore it was interesting to see the different opinions of organisations. One of the organisations I’m working for in Moscow is called Sostradanje, which supports victims of the Nazi and Stalin dictatorship and takes care of the household of these very old people. My job in the People’s Chamber was to hold a speech on my experiences so far in Russia, what I think could be improved concerning volunteer work, and what I want to achieve with my volunteering. I had to hold this speech in Russian. And I was totally shocked when I heard that the organisation wanted me to hold this speech, because my Russian still isn’t the best. But I had no other choice, it needed to be done. So I prepared this speech and the employees of Sostradanje corrected my Russian. As you can see on the picture, quite a lot of people were present when I had to hold the speech, and I’m really not the best public speaker. As you can imagine I was really nervous. After waiting for 6 other speeches to end, it was my turn. I told them that it was my first speech in Russian and that I was really nervous. They all smiled. And then I held the speech. It wasn’t too bad. I had practiced it hundreds of times beforehand. I still made some mistakes when pronouncing some words, but everyone clapped and I felt relieved when it was over. Afterwards there was a huge buffet and I was actually eating the whole time instead of speaking with other people.

In the afternoon I went to my Babushka (Grandmother) for the first time. The employees of Sostradanje call their clients Babushka and Dedushka (Grandfather). She is already 86 and a Russio-German. But she only knows 6 German words, which is good, because this way I have to speak Russian. She really can’t walk well anymore, but she lives in the 4th floor without an elevator. I can’t see how she manages to go down all these stairs when she wants to go outside. Furthermore, as all of the pensioners in Russia, she doesn’t get a high pension. I’m going to visit her every Friday and help cleaning her flat, buying products and most importantly talk to her, because these old people are often very alone.

In the evening I had my first dancing lesson in Moscow. I started to like dancing so much during the preperation camp before my year abroad in Hirschluch, where I took a dancing workshop.

First Day at Work

Today I had my first day at work and I was really nervous. I woke up at 7:30 in the morning and also my host father checked whether I was awake. I guess he was just wondering why I wasn’t awake yet, because I had told him the night before that I will get up at 7. But I just love sleeping too much.
At 8 o’clock I took the old trolley to the station. The streets were already full of cars, so it took me a little bit longer to arrive at the Metro station. Also the Metro was crowded, which meant that I had to stand for the next 25 of minutes. Apparently this wasn’t the Rush Hour yet, because Russians tend to go to work later (10 o’clock) and finish work late (7 o’clock). I only got to know the real Moscovian Rush Hour on my way back. I arrived at the Holocaust Centre 10 minutes early and thus walked along the River Moskva for 15 minutes.
The Center is located within a building in which also the Conservatorium of Moscow rents its rooms. Therefore, there are always young people around and it’s always noisy. Only the Austrian volunteer Cornelius was already in the Center when I arrived. We talked for a while and he showed me around. At 10 o’clock my boss also arrived and said hello. I was still nervous, because I heard so many bad stories about him. But actually he didn’t seem to be that bad. Then, Cornelius and I discussed what we wanted to do in the coming year. We planned on improving the website of the Center and also write wikipedia articles about it. My chocolate present sadly didn’t really get attention at first.
Our boss gave us the task to write a letter to a fund which usually gives the Center financial aid. But in the last years the Center has always used the same text in their application for the funds. One should usually tell the fund what was achieved in the last year and what the plans are for the upcoming year. The lady which sent the mail to the Center seemed to be quite angry that the Center had always used the same sentences and therefore asked several questions. It was our job to find the answers. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds, because even our boss didn’t state exactly in the reports what they did in 2010 and were planning to do in 2011. I wrote down some sentences and my boss added new ones. But his English was so bad that it took me ages to rewrite what he had written. Until the letter was finished I already worked two hours more than I should have. But after work the whole Holocaust Center team drank wine and ate my beloved chocolate and other sweets and talked about this and that. Cornelius and I had dinner after work and then I went home again. However, I stood in a traffic jam with my trolley bus for more than 30 minutes. But overall it had been a nice day.

The picture shows the Lomonossov University in the evening.

First Days in Moscow

Hello my friends,

on Wednesday I left Germany and flew to Moscow together with 5 other volunteers. We landed at Moscow-Vnukovo, where our country coordinator waited for us. I'm so happy I got through the passport control, because the staff always looks so grimmy and mean. We took the train (Electritshka) to one of Moscow's train stations and then took the Metro to another train station.

It really is an experience to use the Moscovian Metro, because many of its stations are pompously decorated and always crowded. Walking down stairs, taking escelators, waiting for the next Metro to come, squeezing through the crowd is especially stressful and exhausting when you carry more than 20 kilos of luggage and 10 kilos of hand luggage. Once we arrived we met the head of one of the organisations where I'm going to work. She took me to the northern end of Moscow where I will live in the next couple of months.

So I had to take the Metro again and after a 20 minute ride we had to take an old trollybus which brought us to my place, where my family was already waiting for me. My host family is from Armenia and consists of father, mother and son. They are really nice and always wanted to help. They showed my around the flat and my room. They only speak Russian which is of course a good thing, however I'm not sure whether I understood everything correctly. And it was often very embarrassing when I wanted to say something and it took me ages to find one word. Hopefully, my Russian will become better soon.

I spent my first evening eating a Ukrainian/Russian soop and talking to my host father. He asked me whether I liked Martini and then took a 1 liter bottle of Martini Bianco out of the fridge which we emptied together with his son on the same evening. I already felt drunk after 2 glasses but he continously filled my glass. Along the way we watched bad Russian soap operas. At ten o'clock I was finally fully drunk and I had to go to bed. On the next morning I went to Moscow to meet my country coordinator. She brought me to the Human Rights organisation Memorial where I met the other volunteer in Moscow. We filled out our registration form and went to the post office to be registrated. Now I'm officially and legally in Moscow.

After that we went to my work place - the Holocuast Centre and Fond. Most people were on holidays, but an Austrian volunteer who is already working there showed me around. My country coordinator told me that the boss of the centre is a little bit difficult and often choleric. Up to now he only liked Russian-Germans and one girl, which was an organisation genius. Hopefully, he will like me nonetheless. My first working day will be on Monday. I will bribe them on Monday with a box of chocolates, so they need to like me. Up to then I really want to go to the city centre, which I haven't seen yet. Maybe this is why I don't think that Moscow is really beautiful.

If you have any questions, just write a comment or send me an e-mail.

Only a few hours left

Privet :DDDDDD

I'm still in Germany, but on Wednesday I'm going to take my flight from Berlin to Moscow. I'm really excited and nervous and at the same time totally scared. As you might have seen, I've changed the name of the blog, which was of course necessary. The idea behind this blog, however, won't change. I'll keep you posted on the most important stuff happening to me in Moscow in the next year. I know that I'm not the best and most reliable writer when it comes to blogs, but I will try my best.

In the last one and a half weeks I spent my time in a tiny little youth hostel or rather a youth centre/park 30 minutes from Berlin where we were prepared for our year abroad.

I alrealy know some facts about my life in Moscow. I will live in a flat with a family from north caucasus and the flat is reeeaaaallly far away from the city centre. And even worse, it's 30 minutes away from the next Metro station. I hope that this family will at least have Internet, so I won't be fully isolated :P

I keep you posted once I arrived in my flat

Till