In Kemerovo, not far from Novosibirsk I made my first longer stop. I was in a contact with Lena, private english teacher, to visit her for a week or two and practice some english language with her students. However more about this later.
Kemerovo is the capitol of Kuzbass, which is a coal mining hearth of Russia. As a result I was again expecting industrial city. Dirty, sunken in smog and smoke...
And again I was surprised. When I arrived to the city center and look around I realized that it is very green and natural. Actually it's good organized. All industrial complexes were built in the western part and living quarters on the east.
They are very proud of their mining tradition in Kuzbass. Every year in August one city in the region is the centre of celebration called The day of the miner (in russian miner = shakhtyor). This year it will be Kemerovo. They are also proud of the statue of shakhtyor (photo below left). There is a light beating in his chest.
On the right, everyday view on the streets. Ever since I arrived to Russia I don't remember to see many fat people. With exception of belarusian trucker Kolya, but he doesn't count :)
Well, the downside of traveling in Russia is registration. If you stop at some place for more than 7 days, you have to register at local migration office (photo below on the left). In Slovenia we say our bureaucracy is awful. But nothing in comparison with Russia :) When you enter you find a waiting room full of Uzbeks, Tadjiks, Turkmens... They come to Russia to work not so reputable jobs, because of unemployment rates in their countries. So you wait for half an hour just to get the form you have to fill. After that you wait for an hour and a half to get a ticket with number, so you can enter the queue. After half of an hour your number lights up and you can go to the attendant. Registration is then done in 15 minutes or so. Waiting room was full, but I think I knew every person when I left :)
Main reason of my Kemerovo visit was teaching and practicing english with students in private school (photo below on the right). Lena, the teacher, invited me in a return for accomodation and food. It was an excelent experience, although with not so much work as expected. School year was going to an end.
And because there was not so much work teaching, there was more time for socializing :) Lena's family (husband Yevgeny and daughters Adelina and Amalia) accepted me very nice..
Anyway it's not a problem to teach english for food and accomodation in Siberia. But if you want to earn vodka, you have to take the shovel in your hands :) Now I can say I dug my first siberian hole :) Helped also constructing the best toilete on dacha. Dacha is a summer house. Most of Russians rather live in blocks of flats not far away from their works. And for weekends they go to their dacha. Almost every one has it's own and is very proud of it :) However, this philosophy produces total traffic jams out of the cities on friday evenings and the other way on sunday.
Soon my Russian part of trip will be finished but I havent wrote anything about local gastronomy. So, soups on milion different ways are typical for russian cuisine. Below is the the fish soup Uha (left) and Borsh (right). Even further below are Pelmeny. Not really traditional but I have to mention it because it's very common to find it on russian tables. On the last photo is Pirog. This a pastery filled with different fillings. In my case, onion and eggs.
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