Our russian friends

I don’t feel like this blog has been telling the full story of the people we have met here in Russia. With the stories we have I know that when we get back and tell you all the details you won’t believe us, so here a little run down of the lovely to the scary!
Firstly the Panovs, this family are genuinely the nicest people on earth, but if we spend too much more time with them we will die from over eating! Every time they place huge plates of food in front of us demanding eat eat! I am also quite worried about the volume of vodka involved on tomorrow’s goodbye drinks! I may return to England very very inebriated.
Now the bars. As some of you may be aware I (Scott by the way) am not the quietest person on the planet, particularly when fueled by alcohol. This has resulted in a lot of people talking to us in bars, some have been very dull, one old lady who bore a striking resemblance to camilla Parker Bowles who was intent on having her way with one of us, either one she wasn’t fussy! This led to us learning Russia’s very worst swear word, which we had to vow never to use again, and promptly forgot! Luckily I videoed it for future reference!
Finally let me tell you a little more about the giant, didn’t believe us? Check out the photo, and I’m on tip toe. He came over to sit with us, then in his booming voice demanded that we sing to him by slamming his hand on the table and shouting YOU SING. Picture if you will mike and I crying with laughter (or perhaps fear) singing my heart will go on to a massive Russian who clearly loves every second! Then he demanded we dance, tell all the girls (or VOMAN as he preferred) that he was English. Seriously dude, it’s gonna take more than a couple of drunk blokes to convince them you’re English.
And then last night we met a couple of self professed football hooligans with a heartfelt hatred of the USA, check out the tattoo. They loved us however, and much beer was consumed in celebration of the fact that we were not getting stabbed! Yey!
So off into Moscow to see who else we can meet. Bye! S.

Ladies and gentlemen, Alexi the Giant!

We made a new friend last night. Alexi is a 23 year old psychology teacher at St Petersburg university. He supports the local football team, loves Queen and the Beatles. He also loves to dance. Did I forget to mention that he’s a giant? We found all this out because we couldn’t refuse when a seven foot Russian asks to sit with you. At his request, we also accepted that Stalin was the winner of world war II and we sang a medley of British sings for his. Like I said, you don’t say no to a giant.

Despite our initial apprehension, Alexi turned out to be a gentle giant and a truely nice guy.

We’re now all packed up and ready to head back to Moscow tonight.

Scott says what?

Ok, I have not really been pulling my weight as far as this blog is concerned, so here is my tuppence worth. St Petersburg is very cool, we have a local just around the corner from our mansion of a hostel,where a couple of “early nights” have turned into 3 am epics. Sweet. We have truly lived the dream here, visiting cool little restaurants and bars like tonights hunting lodge, where we ate wild boar and bear! Both were served with broth, potato and (surprise surprise) vodka! St petersburg is slightly strange, everyone here says that it is the European city of russia, but for us it seems more like the Russia we expected. Very few people in Moscow spoke English, but no-one here does, tho it does mean that our Russian is improving. We totally rule at Reading cryllic, tho truth be told we look very special standing in the street slowly Reading the sign for an optician (optik). Right, time for another beer in the mansion!

Scott says

Thankfully the incredibly drunken blog I wrote last night didn’t load, so I have some dignity left! Suffice to say, after many pints and little food it didn’t make a whole lot of sense! Today was very very cool, was so nice to see all the panovs again, and slava was very patient with us as we wandered around this incrdible city. We saw Lenin today, he’s not well. Then after more sights went to the panov’s house for dinner and a stupid amount of vodka! 2
whole bottles between three of us! Oof! Then got totally lost coming home. Was clearly mike’s fault. Nuff said. Laters taters!