Today we have seen one more draw in the Russian Premier League, Rubin Kazan got 1-1 against Akmar from Perm. The weather was nice and sunny so we enjoyed it even though it was frustrating that our Rubin boys could not take care of their greater ball possession.
After the match we took a taxi to The temple of all religions outside Kazan. It is a fascinating story behind it.
It is soon time to go to our Moscow train now.
Since our apartment is conveniently located a 10 minute walk from the centre of the city centre, we started the day with some walking. After a few minutes of walking we found ourselves in Media markt and fortunately we could both enjoy electronics 🙂 We noticed a small Android notebook, Toshiba AC100, attractively priced at 5000 rubels and some other desireable features which could be used by Tanya when her other small Toshiba is too much.
In the evening we went to the Tatarstan national theatre and watched a performance called The ring (even though the ticket said My angels). Strangely enough they provided headphones with English translation (and Russian as well since the performance was in Tatar), a service you are not spoiled with in general at cinemas or similiar places. The performance was not bad and even though the English translation was far from good it was often understandable.
At eleven in the evening we went to Easter service in an orthodox church, Bogoyavlenya Gospodnya. It was difficult for both of us to understand what was said but it was nice to celebrate Easter with them.
It is Sunday lunch now and soon time to hit the road in order to show up for the football game, Rubin Kazan – Amkar. Tonight we will take the train back to Moscow.
We arrived Friday morning to the railway station in Kazan and started our sightseeing tour with breakfast at McDonald’s. After finding out that Rubin Kazan is playing Amkar on Sunday we bought tickets at the stadium. Then we went to Kremlin and had a look at Kol Sharif’s mosque and other prominent buildings in the Kremlin area.
After a full day of walking and sightseeing we were a bit tired and found shelter in an apartment in a scary house not too far from the city centre. That kind of house is not easy to find in Sweden or Switzerland but inside it looks okay.
It is now Saturday and the weather is not too bad. Greetings from Tanya and Jonas in Kazan.
After a day of work in Moscow we catched a night train to Kazan in order to go easter for Easter. We had booked “seat tickets” (not cupé, open landscape with benches) via the not so user friendly rzd website but were both able to sleep the whole night.
The view from the train is very “Russian”, fields, forest and not very nice looking houses. If this was a trip in the Swedish tv show “På spåret”, it would be difficult to guess without good leads since it looks like this in great parts of Russia. In combination with tea drinking with hot water from the samovar the vibes from the transsiberian trip 2009 is hard to avoid.
It is late April but spots of snow and ice is visible. According to the weather forecast there should be decent weather in Kazan and since I want to give spring a chance I have left a warm jacket in Moscow and winter shoes in Zurich.
I arrived to Moscow early this morning after leaving Zurich yesterday evening. Today we have both been working during the day and in the evening we took the metro to Sparrow Hills for a great night view over some central parts of Moscow. While in the area we took a closer look at Moscow State University which looks really nice from the outside.
Tomorrow there will be work as well and in the evening we will take a night train to Kazan where we will spend Easter.
Last weekend was mostly leisure oriented and this weekend mostly work oriented.
Tanya had some PhD related duties to carry out before she catched the train to St Petersburg yesterday (Sunday) evening. Since I am not skilled enough in the Russian language or international law I could not help with correcting the texts but printing and Microsoft Word skills is something I have in my possession 🙂
After printing close to 2000 pages on a small laser printer (not all at once since it got too hot after approximately 500 pages) at home and bookbinding them at a small print shop in central Moscow we have produced some decent copies of her PhD thesis. Hopefully Tanya will get an opportunity to defend it in the end of May.
Since she had a few hours of text editing on Saturday I could do work as well. With a decent internet connection, VPN and a Remote Desktop Connection to my workstation at the office it is working well.
On Sunday we did some wedding planning and among other things we produced a “seating plan draft”.
At the moment I am waiting at gate 42 at Sheremetyevo in Moscow in order to go to work in Zurich. The plan is to go back tomorrow and work from the “Moscow office” the rest of this Easter weekend. If time allows there will also be a weekend trip to Kazan which seems to be a city worth visiting.
Swedish:
Den här helgen var det den långa varianten som gällde, dvs fredag kväll (inte mitt i natten) till måndag morgon (inte mitt i natten), vilket är skönt för den kommande veckan. Då blir även lördagen och söndagen en aning mer rofyllda vilket inte är helt fel.
I lördags var vi en sväng i stan, satt bland annat och smidde planer på ett trevligt kafé på Tverskaya, inte så långt ifrån järnvägsstationen Belorussky. Igår var vi till Sasha och Ira samt på fotbollsmatch mellan Spartak Moskva och Ruud Gullits Terek Grozny på Luzhniki stadium. Arenan är tämligen rymlig och har plats för nästan 90 000 åskådare vilket gjorde att arenan kändes lite ödslig.
Vi var uppskattningsvis 10 000 åskådare och enligt uppgift från polisen så bevakades arrangemanget av 2 000 poliser och militärer. Det kändes nästan lite skrämmande med det massiva polisuppbådet men vi såg inget tecken på våldsamheter. Jämfört med en allsvensk match kändes även de fyra (!) säkerhetskontrollerna och visitationerna lite i överkant men det kanske fanns anledning när ett lag från Tjetjenien kommer till Moskva.
English:
This weekend I arrived to Moscow Friday evening instead of in the middle of the night. Same thing when I left today, I could wake up in the morning instead of in the middle of the night. Nice indeed.
Saturday we went to a cafe at Tverskaya and did some planning before we went home and had a nice and calm Saturday evening at home. On Sunday we went to Sasha’s and Ira’s place where Tanya had an English class with Sasha and I had a Russian class with Ira.
Sunday evening Tanya and I went to the great Luzhniki Stadium and watched a goal less draw between Spartak and Terek. I have never seen so many police men at a football game or passed so many security checks for a game. The game was not the best ever but in total it was a nice experience.
It is Monday evening and these travel days are long days so it is time for bed. Good night.
C Sports bjuder på en månad gratis (i samarbete med två andra aktörer) och nu när Allsvenskan dragit igång samt diverse ligor avgörs kan det ju va lite kul. Framförallt svensk sport kan va lurigt att hitta streamar på.
I och med att C Sports, liksom SVT Play för vissa program, försöker begränsa publiken till Sveriges gränser, behöver den som kopplar upp sig utomlands nyttja en VPN-anslutning till ett “svenskt” nät (exempelvis Relakks). Lite onödig begränsning kan man tycka när det är så lätt att kringgå men nåt måste de ju göra för att försöka uppfylla sina upphovsrättsavtal.
Det har varit en lång dag med tidig uppstigning i Moskva. Ingen större vits att vara uppe 24 timmar i sträck i onödan, därmed läggdags.
It is early Monday morning and time to go back to Zurich. I am waiting at gate 13 at Domodedovo and Lufthansa will try to bring me back via Munich. The layover in Munich is really tight but since I bought the tickets directly via their website they take responsibility for the whole trip.
Yesterday Tanya and I visited the Ostankino Tower which is the radio and tv tower in Moscow. The building is 540 meters high which earns it the titles “highest in Europe” and “4th in the world”. The viewing platform however is at “only” 337 meters, but that was enough to provide a stunning view over the surroundings.
As usual, the tourist attractions in Russia has some work to do in order to attract an international audience. One very obvious thing is that they should consider the fact that not everybody is fluent in Russian and therefore provide guided tours not only in Russian but also e.g. English. Another tip would be to increase the availability, currently you need to pass three different cashiers in order to obtain the ticket (after pre booking at their web site that is). After that there is a walk and a security check which makes the airport check look sloppy 🙂
Regarding airports, I must say Domodedovo is a smoother experience than Sheremetyevo. That is of course mainly due to a nicer means of transport in my case (which, again in my case, depends on location and when suitable flights take place). However, next weekend I will go via Sheremetyevo and the good thing with that is that I will arrive on Friday evening instead of Saturday morning.
Early today the Swedish hosting company Loopia sent an email about a nice campaign they were running. They were giving away 1000 one-year-subscriptions of Swedish domain names containing exotic Swedish characters (like å, ä or ö) for free.
Since Tanya and I have an event coming up in July I registered julibröllop.se. Currently it redirects to a simple web page with some basic information (in Swedish and English). I doubt that there will be time to actually produce a decent web site for the moment but there might show up something more.
