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.

In this weekend actually nothing was officially organized for us, but still we did many things. On Friday evening one organizer, Dasha, and her friends were going to banja (similar to Finnish sauna). They rented the place, and invited everyone from the course, with cost sharing. It was in the Uralmash district where the world famous Uralmash machine factory is, the took us there by cars. Although it was very expensive, the evening was great, we did bbq, everybody enjoyed it a lot, we almost missed the closing of the dormitory (1am). I left my mobile in the car ...

For saturday, the organizers, namely Julia suggested another activity, a festival in the suburbs of Yekat. I wanted to go, and in the banja others also said they come. But after the banja, and very long sleeps, most people changed their mind. Namely everybody but me. So i just went to the city to do shopping (like most people did), and pick my phone up (like nobod else did). But during the second activity, i was convinced by the organizers, namely Julia to come to the festival even if nobody else comes from us. And it was a really good idea to convince me (in 10 seconds approx.), i enjoyed it a lot and russian being the official language among them made it also challenging :) In the festival there were two interesting things apart from the good local bands (little bit in Jenni Vartiainen style): 1. it was in a winter sports center and we could explore it 2. NO ALCOHOL was allowed. I was a bit disappointed because of the second one, but then found out that it's very shameful to be disappointed because of this, when this is something very positive. Julia told me that it's not an exceptional festival, in all festivals now alcohol is not allowed. Again, like in the Kazan football match, i was amazed to see that young adults are queuing up for tea and mineral water in the middle of the festival. Maybe there are things what Hungary shouldn't copy from Russia (there are many of them), but this is not one of them for sure. I hope our politicians visit some festivals or football matches this summer in Russia (although i am not sure about that …). To be honest i have to say that the festival ticket was with re-entry and we drank a beer outside the festival in a bar. But we would have been fine without that also.

After the festival, wich ended at 22h due to being in a place without proper public light, we went to the other end of the city by marshrutka, to the flat of one of Julia's friends. He is also computer programmer, he is a nice guy. We were talking in Russlish. The party was nice, my profession was highly overrepresented, which sometimes means no good, but not this time. After buying some extremely disgusting food on the street and throwing it away (it was in original packing and expiration was in future, but still it's taste was awful, it was biscuit btw), i had to walk home to reach the dorm before 0100 when it closes. I departed at 0012 from near the Vakzal (Railway station), walked until 0030 to realize that i have almost no chance to make it, so then ran the remaining kilometres, until i reached the building at 0056, then walking to the main door by 0059, very tired after two weeks without any trainings. But i did it :) After getting in, for more then an hour i practiced my "favourite" late-night activity: made a tea and looked out the window. At some point i had fellow night-watchers as i did it in the kitchen.

On Sunday, we were planning to go trekking. For this, i have to tell u dear reader some preliminary info: the Ural mountains could be famous of the rare animals, the huge cliffs, the many rivers and lakes. But they aren't. Instead, they are famous of the heavy industry, the Uralmash and Khimmash factories, the UralWagon factory, the many-many coal and different other mines, and the very industrial cities. And one other thing: Yekat is the "capital of Urals", but as i told u dear reader about distances in Russia, so the nearest mountains are just "near", not "very near", they are about 300-400kms away. So Budapest could be the "capital of the Alps" :)

According to all this, it was quite a revolutionary idea to go hiking. And as in every revolution, there were counter-revolutionars :) Let me list them:
1. The trolleybus, which instead of going to the train station, came from there and took us to the other end of the city making us being late for the 9h elektrichka.
2. The Sverdlovsk oblast transport ticket automat, making us paying 7 euros instead of 2,5 by not giving change from my 1000ruble note
3. The thousands of mosquitoes in the forest where we ended up after the 45mins elektrichka ride in Iset (NCeTb).
4. The 10mins heavy rain catching us in a place without any roof of leaf cover.
5. The time zones (the elektrichka times are in Moscow time, we waited 2 hours at the station after the trekking)

But we managed to make the route what we wanted, the nature is very beautiful (we avoided the factories in this region), we climbed a small hill (400m) where nice stones we cool subjects of photos. At the end we arrived to a lake, which is the source of the river Iset. The nature is similar to Finland, the crowdedness of the trails was also (we met only 1 guy, he was in navy uniform …). The weather was perfect for hiking except for that 10 minute period. During the 2 hours wait kilometers long cargo trains and goats trying to be hit be the cargo trains unsuccessfully - entertained us, we had fun. Btw, finally we were 3 with Andras from HU and Shan from US. So the revolution won, what we "celebrated" by eating Leningradsky soup and some other typical russian dish on the Lenin square (there is a cheap self-service place for eating Russian dishes), after the very crowded elektrichka ride on the way back

Probably less interesting weekday follow this active weekend.

One of the big surprises of these days was that after asking 4 people on the street, a clear 3-1 result of the answered shown that we are in Asia, not in Europe. The one was probably drunk or not local. So Yekaterinburg is in Asia. Today we went to the border between Asia and Europe, which is 14kms from the city just not eastwards as we supposed, but westwards, on Moskovsky trakt. The monument is not so huge (surprisingly small given that we are in Russia), but - no surprise - they are planning an enormous one over the highway. So we should come back in '18 for the finishing of it.

I did my first - unsuccessful - intercontinental hitchhiking, from Asia to Europe, but nobody stopped. Anyway, i will remember for it :) (picture comes)

The lessons are not easy - the unilinguality makes them difficult, you (theoretically) cannot ask anything in english, which makes even asking something freaking difficult in some cases. But most people like this -modern- method, it's more interesting and it's probably fast (we will see at the end, how far we went).

I'm proceeding ok, just the word endings i almost never manage to find correctly, maybe later.

In the past days it was very difficult to get internet access, as in the university they don't give us access to computer rooms (the guy who is responsible for that is on holiday ... quite typical reason in Russia), and internet cafes are dying out as everybody has internet at home. There are only two internet cafes, but they are not on the way and they are expensive. Now we could get into a computer room with temporary accounts, hopefully this is not the only time for it.

In the weekend we will go on a trip to the countryside, it will probably be interesting. Also, probably there is going to be a football match between some locals and us, if we manage to organize it. As we are in Russia, we don't have many names to choose from: "Dinamo", "Zenit", "Spartak", "Lokomotiv", "CSKA", and approximately that's it :)

I also need internet to plan my way "home", which won't mean home in this case as (contrary to the original plans) i will go to Finland for an IT summer uni after this course. So the route will be Yekat-Moscow-Minsk-Vilnius-Tallinn-Helsinki-Vieruma:ki, not Yekat-Moscow-Minsk-Brest-Warsaw-Budapest. It needs a lot of planning as this route only exists in a form of a world map in my mind, not in form of timetables or even roads or rails. Also, i will have around 3 days to kill somewhere (if i don't want to stay in Moscow for so long, as i don't want), so if i find some cheap alternative (maybe Smolensk, or who knows).

We also wanted to go to do some hiking in the Urals, but there are two problems with it: the smaller is that it's an industrial region (Uralmash, ...), and it's not prepared for tourism. The bigger one is that despite the fact that Yekaterinburg is "the capital of Urals", the real mountains are (Russian say very near) very far from here, like 300-400kms. We can act like Russians and say that it's very near, but still we cannot go there for a day trip as we will sit more in the elektrichka then hike. So we have to find sthg out, probably for the next weekend, not this one.

Special section about distances:
In russia, the adjectives for distances are a bit different from what we use in Europe. In Europe, we say that Berlin is "far" from Budapest (1000kms). In Russia, Kazan is near Yekaterinburg (1100kms), it's just a train far (understand: the train does the trip in one night). In Europe, we say that Vienna is no so near to Budapest (240kms), and you can go by train or bus or car (or flight). In russia, Chelyabinsk is "very near" to Yekaterinburg (220kms), you don't even have to take a train ("just" elektrichka).

In Hungary, in Budapest if at 4pm you are thinking about what to do, you will most likely not find out to jump to Szolnok (100kms). In Russia, in Kazan at 4pm our host was thinking about where to drive, and finally we went to Siyazhsk, which was 90km from Kazan. And when we suggested to do it tomorrow, she said the magic "it's very near".

In Russia, Irkutsk is "far" from Kazan, you even need to pack food for the train ride (!) because it's 50 (!) hours. But it's ok to do it once a month (somebody said it who used to live there and is from Kazan, and sometimes visited back). In Europe, nobody takes the train for journeys longer then 24 hours.

In Russia, if you say you are going abroad, you will leave the CIS countries (RU, BY, UA, LV, LT, EE, ...). If somebody tells u that they have never been abroad (it can happen ...), then don't be surprised when they start talking about their holidays in Kiev or in Riga or even in Mongolia.

  Similar with the sizes of settlements: according to the english terminology, they only call settlements "cities" if they are over 1 million. Under one million, it's town, and under 100 000 it's village. Really. (and of course from "villages", people commute to the nearest "city")

Next post is probably about the trip to countryside.
 

On Tuesday morning the course really started. We had the first 2 pieces of 90 minutes russian language classes. The classes were unilingually (once i "invented" this word, i use it as well …) Russian, which made the first 20-30 mins unbelieveably hard, but then it was ok. In the group, there is an Austrian, a Turkish, a SShA (USA) and two Hungarians including me. The American guy sometimes breaks the unilinguallity, but we are all on a similar (very near to zero) level. The first session was about general things and colors, family, places. The second was about Yekaterinburg.

In the afternoon nothing actually happened, we went shopping, and we had a lengthy discussion about transport (the Lenin prospekt with the uni is 50 mins by walking, 30 by walking+bus, so it's not clear if it's worth taking the bus for 18 rubles (45 euro cents). We will most likely end up bussing in th morning and walking on the way back.

We did the shopping also, it is not clear if we went to the cheapest shop or not, but the prices are little bit below the Budapest average. Although eating in the street doesn't seem cheap at all, blin costs almost double of that in Izhevsk. So lunch is still an open question. Maybe we should commute to Izhevsk :)

The local beer is good, just like in Kazan, the difference is mostly about the number and the color of the bears: in Kazan one white, here 3 brown. Also, the all classic Baltika is available as well.

In the accommodation, i am in a critical phase. Now there is still relatively order in my place, but i have to be very careful now, otherwise in the weekend i will have to step over a rubbish tip.

We bought some Russian films, we watched one today, but there ws no English subtitle so very little was understandable.

As the organizers of the course are newbies, they forgot an essential part of all this kind of things: the international evening. So i started to organize, i hope i manage.

This post was a kind of boring a bit i guess, so i promise not to write tomorrow, and i will write about something which is not funny at all, but i try to make it that. Or somebody, e.g. the founder of the university. Or the distances in Russia (how people talk about them). And later i will wite a country-image builder post, where i will write only the nice or nothing (the post won't be empty …).

It was freaking hard to get up to catch the elektrichka on Sunday morning (departed 4:30, getting up at 3:00 after pub-tour until 2:00). But i managed, the only thing i forgot is to piss when i am near the station to some tree, because the ride is over 5 hours long and on elektrichkas there is no toilet. But before leaving Jana's flat i did piss, so it was just very hard to keep it until Izhevsk, not impossible.

In Izhevsk i locked my bags and wanted to play the typical tourist. But it failed very fast: in the train station there is no map, the center is kilometres away, and the sights (which i supposed, exist) are not marked. So the only thing i could do was to take a tram which's driver babushka answered "da" for the one-world question "centr?". It would have been very hard to recognize when do we reach the center, if one station did not have it in its name. There is a small hill with 3-4 nice churches, but mostly nothing else. I went to the lake, that's nice just like every lake, but this one is sorrounded by factories. I don't say i can't appreciate industrial towns, but i have seen many nicer industrial towns so far.

I ate blin, that was good. But mostly just walking around a park and killing the time. But finally - can't remember why - i put Izhevsk on my imaginal list of towns worth having a fridge magnet of, and bought one at the train station. Maybe bacause they are our relatives, or because that girl on the train was so happy to meet a Hungarian. So, viva la Udmurt - Hungarian friendship! (hosting football world cup together, maybe …)

The train ride to Yekaterinburg started nicely (the train was almost empty so i could sleep on two seats, even if it was not a normal platskart train), continued badly (an annoying fat babushka had the place next to mine), then became ok (i exchanged my place when a relative of the babushka got on and had a remote place), and ended quite nicely (i slept a lot, and made 3 teas for myself in the morning).

Upon arrival, being 4 hours late (between Izhevsk and Yekat there is 2 hours time difference, but not in the direction what i thought …) i went directly to the university, where some welcome instructions were given us, payed the fee, did the placement text (there will be only two groups (coz only 12 students), so for me it was not a question in which group i will be), result is tomorrow. There are some people who can speak russian just they want to improve. So most probably they will make one group up.

For the lunch we haven't tried the student canteen, but tomorrow we should, because the alternatives' value-price ratio is not so good.

In the afternoon, we had 3 hours walking sightseeing tour, it was a but too long, but nice. Yekat is a nice city (maybe second after Kazan so far), but i will probably write about it later.

The other people in the course are approx. my age, and the following nationalities: hu, gr, it, at, fr, rs, us, tr. They are all nice poeple, some of them are even more kind then the others (not so surprisingly …).

Only one very strange thing remain for today: the student dormitory. Now i really feel like a journalist, to who the best is shown but his job is to write about the mean. So: our accommodation is in a student dormitory, but its amazing: euro windows, clean, tidy, modern rooms, no unwanted animals, new furniture, new doors. So, we are either very lucky (0% change) or Masha and Julia (organizers) did a great job to get the best places for us in town. And in appreciation for their job, and because i haven't seen other "regular" rooms so far, i don't write how most rooms look like. And discourage you reader from imagining it without proper information available!

Tomorrow the teaching starts, next post is about this probably and about Yekat.

Technical info: i have russian sim card from now on until i am in Yekat (it's relative to Sverdlovsk oblast, anywhere else it's same expensive as using the Hungarian one), i will be mostly accassabile via this, and not the Hungarian. You can see the number on the left sidebar.

 First of all i have to say that Kazan, the republic of Tatarstan is the best place so far on my route, and has quite good chance of being the absolute best.

 First of all, sorry for being late. Also, todays post won't be so long, but tomorrow you will get a longer post of my stay in Kazan, the republic of Tatarstan.

I want to make it clear that these tatars have nothing to do with those tatars who have "visited" Hungary armed, they are from Mongolia. There tatars have never been there, maybe just for tourism.

The way to Kazan was nothing interesting, i could sleep well, i was with a family who did not speak english and i did not feel like suffering to break the language barrier, so we just slept.

I had to spend the first night in a hostel, today i am hosted by a couchsurfer. The hostel is actually the (not so modern and clean) flat of a girl living with her child, and a big room is the dormitory. But she was very helpful and it was nice to stay there. 

There was a dutch guy there, we went to buy Rubin - Anzhi tickets to Centralni Stadion, we paid 70 rubles each (around 1.70e maybe), so tomorrow we are gonna watch Roberto Carlos, Dzsudzsak Balazs and other stars :)

Today we went to a small island on the Volga (there is bridge, not by ferry), it was great but maybe i write more about it in the next post.

So all-Kazan post tomorrow. Stay tuned :)

Yesterday afternoon at 5pm the train ride to Kiev started quite horribly, it was about 35 C in the train (outside 28-30 maybe), and because its a border crossing train which goes hundreds of kilometres in Russian territory before the passport checking at the first station, opening the windows was strictly forbidden (penalty: 50 000 rubles, we asked to now if its worth ...  its not).

Later the temperature fell due to the outdated wooden "isolation" of the window, and interesting conversations started in the train (there is no relation probably). In my section there was a 50 year old war veteran who was going home from a veteran meeting in Kiev. No, he did not talk anything about afganistan or serbia, but about his own small lake south from moscow what he bought after retiring to do fishing there. I tought him to play italian cards but with mixed success due to langage barrier.

The other interesting conversation was with a cabin crew member. She was happy to: a) find somebody with who she can talk in English what she studies (its not easy in Russia) b) finding a "relative", because she is from the Udmurt Republic (she is udmurt), and udmurts are (according to her) finno-ugorics. So she is very close relative of mine ...

After arrival the former soldier helped me to buy ticket to Kazan at Kievskaja station. And here do the problems start: he had a long conversation with the lady at the ticket office, and finally bought a ticket for tonight (not tomorrow night, as we aggreed). He said all other trains are full for the next 3 days. To be honest i did not believe him. But by now i checked on the internet, and really. Just Kupe and Lux tickets are available (they are 3x-4x price), no Platskart. So he was right. So i have to leave moscow today at midnight, i arrive to kazan at 13h tomorrow, on platskart. Also,  checked and the Kazan - Yekaterinburg train is also full, but with Katja, my host here in Moscow (for 0 days now ...) has found a possibility for me: on sunday (very) early morning i can get to Izhevsk (which is the capital of the Udmurt Replublic by the way, but that doesn't matter now) by elektrichka, then spend the day there,  and take a train in the evening to arrive to Yekaterinburg at 5am. So that's the plan now. Tonight before departing to Kazan i will buy this Izhevsk-Yekaterinburg ticket, according to the internet there are still hundreds of places left (our "relatives" don't travel ... too bad :) ).

During the day we went to Kolomenskoje park, wich is on the side of the river Moscow and with many nice - tsar age - buildings. Now in the evening we plan to go cycling somewhere in the otskirts of moscow, and then i go to Kazansky vakzal.

The train to Kiev was surprise in multiple ways: it wasn't a "real train" (as it is considered in this region), because it did not have platskarts, but seats (like in europe usually ...). The other surprise was that it was going fast (100-120 km/h), and only had one stop on the Lviv/Kiev route, so it did the trip in 6 and a half hours (it's maybe between 400 and 500 kms, so it's good speed). The train was full of course (i was lucky to get ticket).

So at 13h i arrived to the huge Kiev train station, where it took 20 mins to find the metro station, but then i went straight to the hostel. The metro ticket was 2 UAH (20 euro cents), and the metro was extremely crowded, so with the big bag it was really uncomfy. And, as i have checked, the station is just 2kms away, so i guess i walk to the station today to avoid the big crowd.

Yesterday i did walking sightseeing, and the conculsions are: Kiev is much more developed then Lviv, but less friendly. The sights are mostly the huge churches, they are amazing. There are only orthodox ones.

There are some soviet monuments and buildings also, but not so many. The best is the "friendship" monument, on the bank of river Dnipro, on a hill (see picture).

Here the roads are all covered bz asphalt, but there is something else strange with them: the cars going on them. You don't have to see the traffic for long or be a car fanatic to notice: the composition of the cars in Kiev is very strange: approx. 40-50% of the cars is very old, lada samara or something similar. Also inculding police cars. Other 40-50% is very expensive, huge black car, mostly jeeps, Land Rovers, Chryslers, Audis and Mercedeses (see picture). And the "normal cars are almost totally missing: most of the very few normla cars are taxis.

Yesterday we went to a bar with other 7 people from the hostel (nationalities: dk, no, us, aus, ger, most of them on a huge, 1-2months trip), we had such fun. Taxi ride both ways with 3 beers costed 3 euros for me.

Today i went to chernobyl museum: it's impressive and interesting, it has to equally interesting parts: first is about the disaster, the second is about life after it.

Next to the hostel there is an underground shopping center called metrograd. It has 3 floors and its approx. 1km long under a main road in the center. (the metro is very deep so they don't interfere) I went there to eat today, national Ukrainian dish. I paid 2.20 euros, and got a lot of food but i don't say i would do it again. The drink, called "Kvas", is totally impossible to consume, it smells horribe and it's taste is even worse. I still feel in my mouth after consuming 5dl ice tea. The food was relatively ok, but not so delicious (see picture).

I am at the hostel and i go to the train station after writing this, in early morning i am in Moscow! I will have platskart so i expect to sleep well, i hope the border guards suffice my expectations (probably not, but let's see). Getting up at 6am (train arrives) will be awful anyway.

This morning my first thing after getting up and comfortably (in 1 hour) consuming my breakfast (included in the 7/euro hostel), i directly went to the train station, i wanted to get ticket to Kiev as soon as possible. As tram#1 is not running, the only way to do this (apart from walking, what i did on the way back) is the Marshrutka. Here it costs 2 hrivnya, maybe around 0.20 e.

It took hell long (90 mins) to buy these two tickets, so i just share you some "useful" information about Lviv railway station: the cassa-s marked as "international" don't sell any kind of tickets, but they speak english and let u know where to go if u want domestic ticket (like Lviv/Kiev) and where to go for international (to Moscow e.g.). The cassas marked with a big "I" don't speak english and don't sell any tickets, that's why no one is going there ...

All other cassas are either international or domestic, but it'n not written anywhere which one is which.

The Lviv Kiev was cheaper, the Kiev Moscow was much more exspensive then i expected, all together it's ok that i paid 60 euros for all this (10+50).

Some trains were fully booked, so my schedule changes a bit: tomorrow morning i go to Kiev (arrival at 13h), and the day after tomorrow afternoon i go to Moscow (arrival 6am). The problematic is more the second, i have to get up at 6 coz the train arrives, but anyway, it's ok. At least i could get this.
 

So Lviv sightseeing was restricted to today, it's a really beautiful town with a hill (lookout points) and many nice buildings, incl. both catholic and orthodox relegious ones. Everything is in walking distance from the hostel (except the train station, but i guess there won't be so many marshrutkas early morning so i count with walking tomorrow (40 mins).

Generally the town is not as undeveloped as the Charpathians area where cars younger then 20 years and road with asphalt had stgh common: they both don't exist there. Here the roads were once covered by asphalt or stones, and there are still remainers of it, and there are also huge black cars going on it. Businesses are very nature-friendly: they don't waste a lot of paper with paper work :)

But there are a lot of tourists, and the city center is very lively and nice. It was good to spend a day here.

So next tomorrow Kiev.

Yesterday was mostly spent by sitting on the train, but according to my plans there are no more daytime travels, or at least no more on the way to Yekaterinburg. I managed to chatch the 6km train from Zahony to Chop (accross the border), i read before the trip on the net that bribing the conductor is very common on this section. But i decided to buy a ticket. I asked the police guy where can i do it (the station building was beyond the police fence), he said: on the train. On the train the conductor just asked for 500 HUF and did not give me any ticket ...

The train ride accross the Charpathians was beautiful, and i had a lot of time to enjoy it coz we rarely reached 5`kms/h :) I did take some pictures but 1: they are not so good 2: there is no usb on this internetcafe computer. So i downloaded one from the same place.

After leaving the mountains the train showed me that it doesn't need mountains to go slowly ... but at least it was in time in Lviv. I had some difficulties with getting to the hostel because i only remembered the street name and that i have to go with tram #1. Tram #1 was not going, and without replacement. So i had a long walk (30mins) from a place where a random bus dropped me.

In the hostel there were only 2 german guys - en route from Beijing to Dresden by bike.

Next post is about Lviv, probably this evening, late.

The blog is on its way!

I plan to refresh every day until arrival to Yekaterinburg, then every 2-3 days, and on the way back every day again. There is going to be cultural and whatever kind of section, with photos!

Tomorrow at 7am I take a domestic IC train to Záhony where I hope to get a ticket to Chop and then a hopefully cheap (should be cheap) Ukrainian ticket to Lviv. I have a hostel reserved over there (that's probably the only place where i will stay in hostel). I will write my next (first real) post tomorrow evening from the hostel.

I am still at work and i haven't even started packaging, so a bit nervous but very excited: in perfect mood for a departure!