On Monday in the afternoon i went to Auchan which is "Ashan" here. There is a free bus going there from Geologicheskaya metro station (could be called "Tsirk" also) which is 20 mins walk from the student dorm. The "program" lasted for 4 hours at least, as getting there and back were 1-1 hour each, and finding the suitable items lasted for extremely long. That's partly because i did not know exactly what do i want, party because i wanted extraordinary things.
The most important things what i wanted to buy were football accessories. More specificly, on Friday there is going to be the great derby of Ekaterinburg :), the «INTER» Chapayeva - «VIZ-Sinara» Ekaterinburg match, in the factory district called "Uralmash" (Chepayeva is our street, INTER refers for international, VIZ-Sinara is a real team). As this is the most important game of INTER ever (and the only one), we have to look nice, so we needed t-shirts and permanent marker. I finally managed to find t-shirts for 80 rubles (2e) each, and parmanent marker for maybe 10 rubles, we will play in light blue, and at the end of the game we exchange the t-shirts. The opponent also plans to get some t-shirts, maybe with the Sinara factory logo, or with Uralmash logo. The whole INTER staff including head coach Julia is very silent about the match, but according to some leaked information the lineup will be the following (with first names): Marie (FR, captain), Atakhan (TR), András, Csaba (both HU), Vassilis (GR), Shan (US). Match starts at 21:30 Ekaterinburg time, on Friday. Police announced that preparations for the match are going according to schedule, to all spectators safe conditions will be provided. None of the big European channels broadcast it, maybe because it is in Asia.
On Tuesday, there was International food evening. The idea of this is that everybody cooks something what is common in their home country. My motto about this is always "not to change in winning team", so i cooked Hungarian fish soup yet again, and yet again it was a "great success" :), just like to whole event. Austrians and Marie (FR) cooked very delecious cakes, Vassilis (GR) made greek salad approx. in a time of a one-station metro ride, András had pálinka and wasn't afraid of using it, Christian (IT) and Shan (US) bought some national alcohols, the organizers (namely Dasha and Julia) bought Christian's national food, pizza. They were thinking about cooking a Russian dish but finally they aim to provide a respectable contrast to their performance done this evening, on the Russian food evening, next week (long complicated sentence, good luck for understanding).
Despite some names are missing from above listings (they did not cook anything), almost everybody took part in the event, and everybody enjoyed it, maybe except for Atakhan who arrived with and elegant, southern style 5 hours delay (and found only Vassilis and me, drinking tea).
On Wednesday nothing very interesting happened (NB: the events being interesting in real life are not always interesting for the blog, and also, i can sometimes write pretty extensively about something which was completely uninteresting when it actually happened). After classes, we went to Nevyansk icon museum (not in Nevyansk, in the centre), that was pretty interesting but not for the blog. After museum, 7 of us went to a quite long walk in the city, the weather was perfect for it.
Next post is about the match and about some other things which are either similar to or very different from the match.
Special section about economy
Let's make it clear in the very beginning that i haven't ever studies economy or finances, and i don't expect you dear reader to have some basic education in this field either. This is not a scientific writing about Russian economy, and i strongly discourage you dear reader from making serious conclusions after reading this. I will just tell you the impressions what i see on the street, nothing more.
Despite Ukraine, here there are mostly mid-class cars on the street. The composition of car categories is similar to the one in streets of Budapest, just the brands are different. A significant proportion of them is domestic (i told u about CIS), their names end with "az" (Avtomobil Zavod). Also, there are more Lada-s on the road then in Hungary, especially from the newer models. And there are Volgas also, what u can only found in the Museum of Transportation in Budapest (they are newer models here). The roads in Ekaterinburg are generally one level worse then those in Budapest, and the levels worse then in Western European cities, but at least one level better then in Ukraine. Outside the city there are highways, but they are not classical highways as the junctions are usually only one-way (there is no possibility to leave the road on it's left side), and in the middle of the road there are some turning palces. So for a left-side exit you might have to go a few more kilometres until a turning point and then come back on the other side. Also, there are some traffic lights sometimes (rarely). The public transport here in Ekaterinburg consists of one metro line with 9 stations (vehicles are from Mitichi of course), tram lines with Tatra trams, trolleybus lines with old trolleybuses (there are a few of them in Budapest as well, "i don't know what"AZ). Most of the autobuses are Ikarus from Hungary. When i think about it i have some kind of ambivalent feelings. Yana (our host in Kazan) told me that for some years it was even widespread to use Ikarus as a verb for taking the bus in Kazan, where most of the buses are still Ikarus also. It's so nice that a) Ikarus was so powerful once, when these buses (series 300 i think) were produced b) many Russian cities bought buses from us, Hungarians. But on the other hand, i am a bit sad that: a) Ikarus practically died b) Who are now those people in the world, who would buy so many autobuses or anything else from us, if we made them. Not Russia, for sure, now they have other friends. Not Western Europe for sure, we never have been friends. Not our neighbors for sure, we prefer to "play" diplomatic war with them, over cooperating in anything. But let's just be happy that 4000kms from Hungary i can take an Ikarus every day. :)
The railway is modern, the vehicles are fast (there is no speed limit like almost everywhere in Ukraine). The stations are very nice.
About the globalization: near Moskovky trakt, at "Megamall", there is Ikea, Auchan, OBI and Metro. In the city center, there is a huge shopping center near us, it's called Greenwich (or sthg similar). Inside, there is Stockmann, Seppala, and i don't have to mention H&M, C&A, New Yorker and many others. So basically you can find all the big chains.
For food, the world famous Ramstor doesn't exists (good to mention, i will ask somebody what happened to it, and let u know dear reader), there is Megamarkt, Auchan and some small ones. The price level is similar to the Hungarian (much lower then Western European). A blin costs around 80-120 rubles in fast food restaurants.
I close the section with one special info about economy: in Kazan i started to count that this is probably the most distant OTP Bank from the center in Budapest, but there is also many in Ekaterinburg and according to András there is also one in Irkutsk, so i stopped counting the kilometres.
