Getting used to Russian winter
I’m slowly acclimatising to my new life in Russia.
Temperatures of -10c to -40c, cold icy winds, relentless snow and dangerous streets completely covered with inches of hard baked ice and snow, which make walking tiring difficult and dangerous. Looking out from my sweltering apartment window the weather often appears deceptively warm. On a couple of occasions I have left my extra fleece coat and longjohns at home and ventured out with merely standard English Arctic explorer survival clothing ie Goretex and Fleece coats, only to soon regret this as the icy winds froze my flesh and I started to shiver.
I havent done very much since arriving here. In the past I taught English here on-off for a couple of years, but the English teachers I worked with have all moved abroad so their English schools have closed down.
Another aspect of Russia that takes some getting used to is customer service. The attitude here in a lot of shops and offices is “the customer is always wrong” or “the customer can be simply ignored”.
After arrival I headed to the post office to register my visa. Not a simple task. The official line is that you get 3 business days after arrival to register. I arrived on a Friday so should have been OK to register up to the end of Wednesday. I went on a Monday morning.
Registration is very important as without it your host family can be fined and you might have problems getting another Russian visa in the future.
The miserable pig faced woman behind the counter tried to tell me that I was too late to register and that she couldnt help me anymore. She insisted that the arrival day counted as one of the 3 days and as they were open all weekend I was too late to register. She went back to reading her womens beauty magazine. I stood there with my Russian wife and thought of what to do next. We eventually managed to get a slightly more helpful post clerk to call the local OVIR office for advice. OVIR told them that it was fine to register my visa, so they grimly accepted defeat and did the necessary paperwork.
Yesterday was -36c. For an Englishman a temperature like this is ridiculous. I went for a walk and my glasses soon froze up with ice on the inside. The air at such a low temperature is wonderfully clear, the sky was bright and blue. Although the environment here is very harsh, I’m glad that I have had a chance to experience such weather.
Enjoyed the cisit to your blog, loks abit nippy(-36), Good luck with your life in Russia, Regards Rob and Mandy
It was one of those weird holiday weekends where Saturday was a work day, so the nasty PO lady had a grain (albeit a VERY small one) of truth. Still. Monday was NOT late.