a place on railroad street

What a difference a few days make.  My host contact and her friends and family have been extremely gracious, going above and beyond the call of duty to make me feel at home.  With their help, it's been extremely easy to get situated in town.  It may have been aided by my international travel woes, but it took me all of three minutes to fall in love with Petrozavodsk.  It's a very nice little town, much smaller geographically than Tomsk (where I studied last summer), but I regard that as a plus because I can walk most anywhere.

The weather's been very good overall.  It rained on and off the first two days but it's been a very nice autumn temperature pretty consistently.  Yesterday I was invited to dinner at Tatiana's, and ate so much that I'm planning on having my next meal, say, October 3rd or so.  Maybe a light snack around the 20th, we'll play it by ear.  After touring the town's hotels (I had to move from my original hotel because the only rooms it had available after yesterday were the über-expensive suites), we went to see "Daughter of the Yakuza," a Russian comedy about a Japanese girl that gets lost in southern Russia and needs the help of a young prison escapee to outrun the various people chasing her for the reward on her head.  It was quite funny, and I followed the vast majority of the dialogue, which is encouraging (I find dubbed American films easier to follow than authentic Russian-language films).  Afterward, the four of us (me, Tatiana, Kolya, her significant other, and Kostya, their friend and comedian philosopher) went to grab a beer and Kostya regaled me with stories of ancient Novgorod and Kievan Rus'.  It was a genuinely good time.  Kostya and Kolya both have cars, which is a new thing for me when in Russia.  It's actually quite nice just to be able to zip around town, especially one as small as this with relatively uncrowded roads.

 

I had been getting increasingly worried about locating an apartment.  Tatiana, the saint that she is, had been making phone call after phone call and sending email after email scouring the city for available apartments.  Petrozavodsk, like the rest of Russia, is in the midst of a prolonged housing shortage, and since the vast majority of people still buy rather than rent apartments, it can be difficult to find one short-term.   She said she knew of two that would become available on the 12th, but that would mean a full week in a not-so-cheap hotel.  We were able to look at one today, however, and I was hoping that perhaps after the torment of the past week's travel the universe owed me one.

I got to the place about an hour early, it taking me much less time to walk there than I'd thought it would, so I surveyed the area.  It's just off one of the main thoroughfares, so there's plenty of grocers, cafes, and banks.  The immediate surrounding neighborhood is very peaceful and quiet, and best of all it's about a five minute walk to the university/central downtown region, so say goodbye to the bus!  At this point, I was already sold, and just crossing my fingers that the apartment was nice.  In Russia, the exterior of most buildings (except those that are extremely new) look more or less the same, and the quality of the apartments inside varies wildly depending on how much each owner wants to spend on them.

Turns out the universe did owe me, because the place is great.  I had assumed it would be a studio, but instead it's a one bedroom with a large combined living room/kitchen space.  Now let me tell you all the incredible perks it comes with:

• An actual bed (usually such an apartment will have a couch/futon type sleeper)
• A large and very cushy couch
• Refrigerator and standalone freezer
• Gas stove, oven, microwave
• A dishwasher(!)
• A washer(!)
• Internet(!)
• And, for good measure, a very large fish tank with live fish(?)

The fish thing isn't a joke, either, Darina (the girl who showed me the apartment) told me all their names.  I did ask that they be removed.  It's not that I don't like fish, it's just that I've never kept fish and thus know that I'd forget to feed them, and the last thing I want is to be responsible for the death of Leon Troutsky (Running Terrible Pun Count: 2).  While I know you're never supposed to go for the first place you see, I couldn't imagine finding a better place in a more advantageous location if I looked for a month.  Plus, there's a housing shortage on, man!  I've already got my key and will be moving my stuff in a bit as soon as Kolya can pick me up.  Thus, in but a few hours I'll be living on Ulitsa Zheleznodorozhnaya (Railroad Street).  I'm withholding the building number and apartment number because while I really love that you're reading my blog, the last thing I need is you showing up announced at my door hocking some new long-distance plan (my apologies to those readers who are not door-to-door salesmen, but you understand I need to play it safe here).  Girl scouts selling Thin Mints are acceptable, however.

I've got more new information, including some details on my actual teaching responsibilities, but this is already a ridiculous long post (and there's not even a poem this time), so I'll save it for tomorrow.  I need those daily hits for my ad revenue, see.  I knew you'd understand.