Oh, those Russians...

Getting back to Krasnoyarsk was a bit of an ordeal. The flights went smoothly, but as soon as I got into the shiny (tiny) arrivals hall in Krasnoyarsk airport, things started getting a bit tricky. The woman selling bus tickets back into town was very grumpy indeed. After ten minutes of queuing, my interaction with her went like this:

‘Hello!’

… *Stares sternly*

‘I’d like a ticket to Krasnoyarsk please. And I’ve got luggage too, so I guess I have to pay a bit extra for that, right?’

*Growls incomprehensibly* on’hundrtwannysi rubles*

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.’

*Yells* 'IT’S ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX RUBLES!!'

‘Right. Thanks. Here you go.’

… ‘No change.’

‘Ah, I’m sorry. I’ve just arrived in the country. I mean. This is an airport.’

*Stares angrily*

‘I’ll pay by card.’

…’Nope.’

‘So what, I just can’t get a ticket because you don’t have any change?’

… *points at extortionately-priced café across the hall*

‘I see. Thank you so much.’

Then I had to buy an orange juice at a price so eye-watering it could almost have been London. When I had the change, I went back and bought a ticket. This time, the woman in the booth surpassed herself by saying zero words. But she may as well have snarled ‘velcome back to Rrussia, punk.’

The bus was a schlep too. It stopped at literally everywhere imaginable other than the district that my house is in. That took a grand total of two and a bit hours, and then I had to get ANOTHER bus to my house. Angery face. But as my second bus crawled through morning traffic, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of warmth towards Krasnoyarsk. When we went past the big glitzy glass tower opposite my office (which I’m pretty sure nobody actually works in, but it looks pwetty when they shine lights on it so it’s all good), I realised that I’d missed the city and its many quirks. Being in Armenia made me realise that life in Krasnoyarsk is a little bit harder than it is in Europe. Just the temperature and the darkness and the snow can drain your energy, and the city’s infrastructure isn’t really geared-up for pedestrians and commuters. Only three months in Krasnoyarsk can make two weeks in a youth hostel in Yerevan in December feel like an exotic and relaxing break. But at the same time, being away from Krasnoyarsk had been tricky in some ways. I was just getting into the New Year spirit, and in the above-zero temperatures of Yerevan, all that went away. And being away from friends like Kiril and Olga made me realise how much fun it is being around them. I even started missing French Club!

I had a quick nap and then headed into work. It was exactly the same as when I left. Uncanny. There was no more snow than there had been two weeks ago. It was no colder. The same people were sitting in the office, stoically tapping away at their laptops.

Over the next few days, a few more details about Armenia resurfaced in my utterly disorientated mind. Just funny little fragments of my trip which I haven’t talked about yet:

In the splendid (but rather homemade) Eduard Isabekyan Gallery, the one attendant was so delighted to have guests that she gave me and Tim a personal tour of the gallery. At the end, she showed us the catalogue. But her and Tim disagreed on where the emphasis should go in the word ‘catalogue’. She thought it should be ‘catalOgue’, and Tim was sure that it should be ‘catAlogue’. The attendant looked at me quizzically. Well how do they say it in English? She asked, in an unfortunate attempt to support her argument… ‘cAtalogue’, I whispered, slightly pained. They both rolled their eyes.

I was discussing the Philippines with two of the guys I met on our way to Khor Virap Monastery. One was from the Philippines, the other had been recently. Jimmy from my youth hostel had recently cooked me noodles, and they were brilliant. I decided that this meant Asian cuisine was good. So I asked my two travelling companions what the best food was in the Philippines.

‘Oh our delicacy is a boiled fertilised bird egg.’

‘Uh. Right. Does that mean… does that mean it has a baby chick inside it?’

‘Yeah, or an embryo.’

‘But… what do you do with the bones?’

‘They’re still so soft that you can eat them I guess.’

This was not what I expected, and I think that sentiment was visible, because the Australian guy who’d recently been to the Philippines said

‘Yeah some of the food there is unusual. I was actually going to try dog meat while I was over there, but then, you know, I’m a vegetarian.’

And finally, there was that moment in Moscow airport on my trip home when I realised I was back in Russia. Every single person going through security here had to have a body scan. Just as I was about to step into the scanner, the guy who’d gone through ahead of me was stopped as he walked out the other end. The guy monitoring the scanner tapped his breast pocket sternly. The man in front of me looked down at his feet despondently. Then he turned around, walked back through the scanner, barged me and everyone in the queue out of the way, and stood at the back of the hall, scowling. He took a small bottle of vodka out of his breast pocket. It was almost full. Still fuming, he unscrewed the top and downed the whole thing. Then he blinked and swayed back past the queue and through the scanner, smirking triumphantly at the security staff.