Last year in September I made a bet with my classmate Natasha. I told her that I’d be speaking Russian in 3 months. There was no situation of win or lose per-se, it was a playful bet, and I was all pumped up for it.
Fast forward 3 months, all I could say was:
здравствуйте, как дела, всё хорошо, отлично, пока пока
так…
проста
и я не собирался никуда с этим небольшим знанием
The last sentence was an exaggeration. I can say that now, but not back then.
***
So I lost the bet by a significant margin. I realised that it is way easier to learn to read and write, or type (more on that later) than to actually perform live communication in a language. Duh! common sense, I didn’t have to loose a bet to realise that much right?
Anyways, I have tried many different approaches to Russian, just to figure out how to start learning it! Yes, just to begin with the language in the first place. For me, it is not necessary to actually learn Russian. Our program at ITMO is in English language, buy me being a language enthusiast can’t make the mistake of letting this brilliant opportunity to slip away. I am surrounded by Russians, every once in a while I get the opportunity to talk to complete strangers, whether I am on bicycle and people mistake me for just another Russian мальчик (mal-chick, please don’t interpret in Spanish). Their enthusiasm wavers a somewhat when I could only reply in my broken bits of Russian.
***
Russian language: Motivation
Russian is from Slavic branch of Indo European languages. Even though it is one of the latest languages of the family, it is mysteriously unique but at the same time shares ancient congnates with Sanskrit, and the one of the most preserved languages in the IE (Indo-European) group, Lithuanian.
Instead of writing about it, I’d just share some links:
Russian people are surprised when they hear about this stuff, but for many Indians this is common knowledge. We know that Aryans came the central Eurasia (gross generalisation) but they share a lot of cultural similarities across the satum languages.
Not only that, but there are intresting Mythological one to one corresponding similarities between Vedic mythology and Norse mythology. The Norse God template seems like a derivation from Greek – Roman template, but it is functionally similar to the cousins Slavic – Lithuanian – Sanskrit template. More on this later. It’s too much to write about. But first, let me quickly comment upon gross division of IE languages.
Basically we have Hunden, Centum and Satum division of languages in IE group based on the number ‘hundred’.
Anglo-saxonic languages like German, English, Danish have hundred for 100.
Latin branch with French, Spanish, Italian etc. have cent for 100. Cien, ciento etc.
Satum branch with Slavic, Persian, and Hindustani have sau, shat for 100.
Not only that but these divisions also preserves some cultural similarities, and shared mythology. For example,
From Sanskrit, Dev – Pitr (God and father) -> Zeus – pater (Zeus father) -> Deu – pitar (Jupiter) going to Norse mythology as Thor. While in between the migration of these words, different adaptations have been made.
For example, my favorite… the transfer of goddess of knowledge, beauty, fertility etc. go from Saraswati to Ishtar to Ashtart to Aphrodite to Venus. All during the way merging together into one Goddess or separating into different Goddesses.
One culture similarity would be the celebrations during winter solstice. Since winter is a time of hardship, having endured it is a joyous celebrations. Check out the History_and_cultural_significance section on this Wiki page.
Perfect, so the world is more connected than it seems. We are all brothers and sisters under a veil of ignorance. And Samadhi and Bodhisattva are real concepts. But where does that leads me on the path of language acquisition.
For me, the mere idea of similarity with Sanskrit is tantalizing. Knowing that we have such a shared bond in form of words, and memes/ cultural phenomena (no pun intended), is refreshing and motivating.
However, having a connected background with some shared cognates is not guaranteed to produce language fluency. My biggest hindrance with Russian is lack of juicy stuff to watch. And by juicy stuff I mean, raw cultural experience though art. Being predominantly an introvert, cinema, music, comics, and video games are the number one most important source of language acquisition for me, and probably a lot of people like me.
Some of the best movies of the world happen to be Russian, however, it is past. Modern Russian movies are stuck in a loop of wars, and patriotic love. While as glorious as it sounds, I would be really interested in raw human emotions. Portrayal of a military power and all is fine by me, but having an elaborate vocabulary of war strategy is not helpful at all.
I mean look at Korean, and Japanese languages. A lot of people gain fluency by watching a ton of Korean drama and Japanese anime. A cultural feast intertwined with entertainment. While I tried to sequester material, I could only find interesting music. And I am not really intrested in music that have intelligence level of dumb Spanish reggaeton (Spanish has a lot of brilliant music, but Reggaton is just dumb lyrics on a lit beat). So how exactly do I approach the Russian language in this situation.
***
In general, I have a variety of ways to keep myself in an immersive environment.
1.) Before even coming to Russia I had downloaded Google translate with offline Russian langauge pack.
The first thing I did was written a lot of cyrillic. Today, I am able to write in cursive Russian as well. But the key fact is that I have written a lot. Sentence after sentence, even though I had a rough idea of what I am writing, but I still chose to draw the letters until they become engrained within my brain. This is the same approach I used when I was learning the Arabic Nastaliq script, which is used to write Persian and Urdu. The idea is that once you become familiar with the writing script, things become easier. And you don’t fear the language as much otherwise.
2.) I also use my favorite reference English 2.0 dictionary for quick one to one reference translation for words.
To be honest, I have tried a lot of different approaches just to find out what suits the best for Russian in this scenario. A fundamental realisation is that language learning is all about input. I make sure that foundationally I don’t get my basic syntaxes wrong.
I used the Michel Thomas method for Russian:
It gave me a quick flavour of the language.
For a reference grammar book I found two amazing books by the same author.
Finally, I am into standard translated sentences. For this I use 3000 reference sentences from Glossika.
So as I described earlier, after struggling a lot I found the above method useful for Russian. Since I don’t have movies to watch, I’d rather watch interviews, advertisements, music videos on Caption pop with Russian translations. I prefer to use only standard translations i.e. the translations provided by the video owner themselves. Additionally, captionpop can be used to view language instruction videos, where it is immensely helpful. Additionally, I make use of the google translate’s speech feature to listen to a rough pronounciation of the Russian sentences.
For me time is a constraint. I am only a hobbyist when it comes to languages, and primarily spend my time in Biology, and programming. This method is perfect for me to practice during study breaks, or general leisure time. Let’s see if this approach, which resonates with me well, is a success or failure in the end.
Typing in Russian
Since I don’t have the time and effort to get used to Russian keyboard layout. I have become a big fan of phonetic typing. It is the ability to render the phonetic sounds of one language to those in another language. In simple words, if I type Privet in English, it should be displayed as привет (Cyrillic).
Here is a post describing how to do this in Windows and Linux.
I don’t know when a phonetic keyboard for Russian will come out (that actually makes sense). In my case, I just use Phonetic Bulgarian along with Standard Russian keyboard. The phonetic Bulgarian has all the letters except ё (yo). For which I just quickly switch to Russian keyboard and press ? button. Then I switch back to Bulgarian keyboard and resume typing in Russian. The problem is that sometimes there might be spelling mistakes according to spell check, in this case, I just quickly paste a spelling in google translate, which displays to me a correct form. It’s a work around. But it’s not like I have to type in Russian all the time. 🙂
I will share my progress. Let’s see where this approach is heading towards.
йо бро! (yo bro!)
пхонетик руссиан то тхе го! (phonetic russian to the go!)
Saint Petersburg (SPB) is a city right out of fairy tales. It’s clean, presentable, and majestic. I mean just look at this!
Since I don’t usually get the time to write these kinds of posts. I will solely depend upon my memory to write down some of the most memorable experiences I had, as a student, as a person who has never stepped outside India for such a long time (about 10 months).
Memories are important, and must be cherished because eventually these sum up, and we try to find the best narrative to give meaning to our lives. No memory, no narrative. The good thing is, I use poetry as an tool for memory. During my stay, I captured how I felt in the moment by registering my thoughts in either English or Spanish. These help me remember everything like a FHD movie playing in my head preserving all the raw emotions, and senses involved.
First Few Days: The Giveaway, October 2 – 10, 2018
The intial days are the toughest, you come to a foreign land, not knowing how it will all work out, but it does. I arrived at SPB on 2nd of October. It was a good flight, the moment I exited the plane, I went straight for the baggage. I had brought few clothes, my bicycle, and my cabin bagpack with me. I hadn’t know at that time that we can do a Yandex taxi for 600 Rubles. I ended up spending 2400 Rubels or a private taxi outside the airport. This is the most expensive taxi I have ever taken. I asked the taxi driver to take me to ITMO guest house, somewhere near Petrogradskaya.
I used google translate to communicate. I remembered asking the driver an extraordinarily stupid question, “Is everyone rich here?”. He looked at me in surprise, took my permission to smoke a cigarette and asked me why I thought everyone was rich. I replied, “Well the city is so beautiful, and the taxi is so expensive.” He smiled a bit and politely communicated through translator telling me that, ‘it is all a show’. He spoke the words of wisdom. He dropped me off the guest house, returned me 100 Rubles from the initial 2500 Rub agreed upon fare, shook my hands and drove away. That’s my first memory of SPB.
Two days fast forward. October 4, 2018
I got to meet my classmates. I cannot write the entire description, because it was a rapid introduction session, with everyone firing their names. They are kind, and smart people. Well rooted in the ground. Just the kind I like. If I were to write about any person, describing exactly how they are from my eyes, I have to write probably a book. This involves continuous accumulation of data, which involves every single interaction, dialogue of memory of them. It’s too much, so I’d just skip.
My first class at ITMO was that of English, taken by none other than ma’am Yulia Ryabukhina, a young and vibrant professor. She had been teaching at ITMO longer than the oldest person in my class. That’s indeed very long. She was the head of language department. She said farewell to us after ITMO ceiling collapse. We were lucky to have studied as long as we could under her. After the class I had a very good reason to remember the names of our kind Ksuisha, and Natasha. Sedreh I already knew before even arriving to SPB.
I remembered entering the metro, I was with Natasha and Ksuisha. Sedreh already parted ways. We were supposed to change lines at Red-Green, Ploshad Vostannaya. When I was about to enter the metro cabin, a woman behind me warned me about a few men that were about to enter the metro after me. As soon as I entered the cabin, I reached for my pocket but one man blocked my hand. Another blocked my way, the third one took my wallet and ran away. This is how I got robbed for the first time in SPB, no, in my entire life. I ran after them, but they disappeared.
I lost a all my money, my ID card, my PAN card, my cherished Nepali coins, and my passion for public transport. Natasha and Ksuisha hurried back to me. They took me to the metro security, then to a nearby police station. And I registered my first police complaint. It was the first time I kept a wallet. I was terrified, because I had just lost all my money. Ksuisha and Natasha escorted me to the guest house. And did lend me a few bucks to go through next few days.
As per how I felt about the whole incident. I was just a bit surprised. Because I have been to New Delhi, and I have been pretty open, had ample of opportunities to get pick-pocketed, but it happened to me in SPB, which is kind of odd given that central SPB is one of the safest places. Thus, my initial experience of the city was not good. But as soon as I got my bicycle up and running. I forgot about all that jazz, and continued forth with my adventures.
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
Meeting a LOT of people form a LOT of different places
I was assigned dorm at Nabereznaya Reki, Karpovki. They say, you are lucky if you get his dorm. In my case, I got it because people at some faraway dorm in Alpeskiye peryouluk didn’t allow me to keep my bicycle. Anyways, there a was a bike stand in front of my dorm, that was kinda cool.
My room is 303, it has two three’s so I like that. My roommate was Japanese, Kohei Yamaura, for the first 6 months. And then SangHyeon Seo, a lit Korean guy. Charlie left us too soon (for another dormitory). I went with Kohei to Sushi-wok and Bap-jip with SanHyeon.
I with Kohei (right), I went to Sushi-wok for the first time 7 October, 2018
I with SangHyeon, we went to a Korean restaurant called Bap-jib, 21 February, 2019
My entire is filled with Spanish speakers, so that’s kinda home like situation for me. There is also a malay dude, Kirtivasan, there was an Indian bro Aditya Prakash, the Algerian guy Mohamed, the Iranian guys, the Kazakastani folks, Abu Gafar Bodai who just disappeared, the Chinese connection, wow, there are a lot of people to mention. The third floor is the most occupied one. One by one, I met them, got to know them, and they left. And so will I one day.
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
What is my program at ITMO like
ITMO is cool, but of course I can only speak about my program here. Because we are the first batch, the workload is kind of hectic. But I am not sure about other programs.
International Masters Programme students. [I hope there is no problem. I don’t know who clicked this photo. The person may contact me and claim credit]
Usually, at top universities; everything a student does actually counts. For example, we have to do assignments, midterm tasks, and pass exams. Sometimes we can get grades for the course we had taken, at others we will get a percentage, or Pass/ Fail. My own experience is that it is not easy to study here. By the time we finished the first semester, I saw a lot of familiar faces disappeared. I think it is wrong to assume that hard-work correlates with efficient education.
For me, the quality of education at ITMO is a novel experienced. Maybe someone who already is from top 500 universities better be able to compare, but for me, it is a rapid-fire dope education experience. It’s interesting that master’s students in Russia are treated like working professionals.
This is an excrept from my emotional baggage right after the end of the semester. I’ve embellished it to fit here:
All of a sudden we have three, four or even five deadlines approaching. As my guide, Yury Barbitoff from JetBrains aptly explained to me the concept of burning deadlines. You get so washed up in the workload that you eventually don’t even care what is happening around you. I experienced it first hand after noticing that I spent four days, still confusing the gap between those days as a single day. The only memories are wake up, work, sleep and repeat. I think, if the program is not organized, the student suffers, even if they’re brilliant students. An unorganised program is a series of uncomfortable experiences. It is not a question of good or bad, it is simply a wastage of time. Sedreh (my calssmate) oft told me about her frustration, other students complain among each other about the workload stress as well. I have had great experience in handling stress. Indian educational system is one of the most stressful in the world downright from the school, not because it’s good, but because of its competetive nature. Thus, workload is nothing I complain about even with having a lot of clashing deadlines.
As an extension, imagine working day and night on something that you can’t understand. It almost feels like you are wasting your time. I think the second most important thing after food is time. I have seen people spend a lot on time on doing something they don’t like. I think they are under the impression that they are immortals. Even though four days seemed like one, I learnt something important and useful. I suppose that’s the way things work out at top places. The way to solutions comes from accepting the fact that there is a problem.
The education here is practical, that is excpected. Again speaking about my own course, we don’t study useless stuff. It’s a trade-off between quality and quantity. I think that is a credit due to professors. They really know what they are going to teach, and how they are going to impart this knowledge. In our MS Bioinformatics and Systems Biology we were taught from lecturers who studied from Harvard, MIT, Max Planck etc. And in turn we get to choose excellent projects for our thesis. I like it. But I am wondering, what is the future of this program. Our MS is the first of it’s kind here, and we are the first batch. Only time will reveal.
My degree would basically be Applied Mathematics and Information Technology, and we are studying not just at ITMO but also Bioinformatics Institute (BI). So we get lectures by cool guys at JetBrains as well. Someone once told me that I have excellent skills of marketing, because I explained how tasty Indian food was. May be they’re right. But all I do good is put forth my honest sentiments. There are some things I like and some I don’t. It just so happens that the things I like about ITMO undermines the ones I don’t by a huge difference, in a positive way.
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
Making friends and all
Initially, like a common ritual in every university, the students come together, interact with each other. We had a tour through the center of SPB, we got to know about a lot of cool stuff, like why are the buildings in SPB nearly all of the same height (they can’t exceed the height of Peter and Paul fortress). I found a lot of Persian people here, so that’s another feeling of home. There is just too much to write! But… I can always post some links. This is a post by our leader Onis. Oh it just melts my heart!
Even outside of SPB I met and interacted with a lot of people. Even though I can’t write about all of them I want to tell about Pasha and Olga. We met one and the other and we have walked to different places since then. Pasha has a good sense of humor, he also invited me to his dacha. I would write all about it. There is also Vlad, he is a mathematician. I was surprised to find out that he has an interest in Hindi. That’s kinda dope, because I haven’t find many people interested in learning Hindi! One day I met with Ksuisha and Vlad and I cooked some tasty South Indian food for them. Also, I already told about my trip with Anton, Sergie, Guns, Nick, Irina, and Lisa to Elbrus.
As Indians we usually cherish spicy food. But mark my words, when Indian speak about spicies, there are two which actually make the food inedible for most people outside India, these are red pepper and cloves. And Indian people kind of over-do these two. If you remove the pepper and clove, Indian food becomes as tame as Georgian food.
Another complain I get a lot is the criticism Indian food gets for the amount of oil. I wouldn’t defend this one. Indeed, Indian food uses a significant amount of cooking oil, but the really unhealthy thing is clarified butter (or Ghee). Indian people eat is like Americans eating chicken. And we know excess of anything is bad. Ghee is just too delicious, and it is another reason why Indian food is so “Indian”.
I am Indian, so for me there are two kinds of foods in this world, Indian and Not-Indian. Just like every popular song in this world has at least one cover in Hindi and Spanish. Every popular dish in the world has an Indian equivalent. For example, Qutabi c cirom ulguni is just Paneer parantha (with considerable abount of chilly and baked in ghee) in disguise, which if filled with some meat becomes the Mexican tacos. Different ingredients result in different tastes. Russian food is kind of different, in that it is heavily meat based.
We have a lot of soups and breads in Russian food, similar to most of the European food. Also, people here enjoy plain tea, without any sugar or milk. And coffee here is unusually expensive. I guess that’s mostly a European influence. In India we usually don’t eat soup or bread, both of which are considered ‘breakfast kind of food’ or ‘incomplete food’.
I never thought I would say that, but one of the tastiest things I have had are Potatoes and Musrooms (which I ate at Pasha’s dacha), there are no spices at all, only some salt, and the potatoes were boiled. And you have one of the tastiest things in the world! For an Indian, that is almost unimaginable, because for us the tastiest food means a perfectly spiced dish (containing about 12-18 different spices, or at least 5 most essential ones [yes, I can name all of them]). Potatoes with Mushrooms was so tasty, that I didn’t even take a photograph. The another delicious stuff is a drink called Kvas, yumm yumm yumm.
Because I am kind of vegetarian, I can’t really comment upon the meat containing food. Interestingly, wherever I have been in SPB, the food is always expensive and never enough. Maybe because I am vegetarian, and my lifestyle is bit exhausting but still, for the same amount I can get more than enough food in India. Also, water is not free. There are racks of water bottles, and they sell! Which is kind of strange for me as an Indian, the only time I need to buy water is when I am traveling in buses.
Thankfully, I know a lot of stuff I can cook. In-fact cooking is one of my hobbies, it’s a relaxing activity. To cook Indian food is difficult, because I can’t find Ghee in Russia. Maybe there is, there are many Indian supermarkets. But I am too lazy to go there. There are three things I miss in Russia the most, Cardamoms, Ghee, and good milk. They are nowhere to be found. The prices of dry nuts are nuts! For example, I can get about 100 grams of roasted peanuts for 10 Rubles in India, here I have to pay 50. Also, tomatoes are Gucci here, over 200 per kg as opposed to 25-35 Rubles/ kg I used to pay in India. I think I can impress a Russian girl by presenting her 1 kilogram of Mangoes (I found Mango shake somewhere for 350 Rubles). It is difficult to be vegetarian in Russia. My friend Ksuisha is a vegan, with an extra statutory label of ‘no animal products’. I think it’s next to impossible for a vegan to survive in Russia. Luckily the only thing I don’t eat is meat so viva madre Rusa!
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
The Bike Thief, January 10-24
I rarely use metro, or any other public transport. I have never traveled on a Tram or Bus till now in Russia. Bike is the way to go for me. Here is an entire post dedicated to this experience. However I want to highlight a particular incident.
One early morning, I woke up and went to the supermarket. At around 10 AM when I returned, to my surprise my bicycle was gone. Turns out, that 5 in the morning at -15 degrees, someone stole my bike. The dorm admin had footage on CCTV. I found my Algerian friend as I went to the stairs, I asked him if he could help me with filing a complaint. Mohamed quickly finished with his business and got the number from admin office and called the police. He knows Russian, so he explained my situation. And we waited for the police to come.
I also explained my situation to Kirti, who was enjoying food and consoling me in my loss. I felt like loosing a part of me. Not to be too dramatic, but I was imagining myself to be walking long distances for the rest of my stay. I couldn’t bring myself to travel in metro. I realised just to what degree I hated any kind of transport. I guess I like biking because it keeps me involved, and it is entertaining.
When the police-officer came, I and Mohamed sat in his car and explained the whole situation. Every detail. It’s kind of strange that I don’t remember the exact day, but I just remembered that it would be a long wait for me. The officer filed my complaint in Russian, took a copy of my passport and told me to wait.
Much to my surprise, the same evening Mohamed rushed to my room. He showed me a video of a drunk woman and my Bike lying on the snow laden sidewalk. I was thrilled! We had to rush to the police station. When we reached there, because I had not proof of purchase with me, the officers instructed me to wait for one week before they’d release the bike. The thief was already apprehended, but we didn’t see her. A translator was called and my report was translated into English and presented to me. When asked the officers how they apprehended the thief. The officer told us that this woman was an expert and that she has stole many expensive bicycles around the region. In my case, she just happened to be a little drunk and near police station.
After one week I was called and my bicycle was handed over to me. When I went back to dorm, I requested the dorm admin to keep my bicycle inside for 1 week, as I hadn’t any lock for my bike. And thus, finally after January 24, I resumed biking again. Fast forward, one week, I received a call. I was instructed to be presented in the district court, where a hearing was organised. In my entire life, I had visited the police station for the first time in Russia, I can’t even tell you how Indian police stations look like. Likewise, for the court.
In mid of February, I took my bike and headed for the court where my case was held. I waited on the third floor of the building, outside a small office. I waited there for one hour and until my appointment time approached. At about 1 AM I entered the office and saw my first court! Quite unusual to be honest, there were only two benches, there were two sitting spaces, one for the lawyer and another for the assistant to the judge. And right corner of the door was where the judge sat. I also got to see the perpetrator of the theft. A tomboy woman, about 40 or so, she was a Ukrainian immigrant.
The judge started to read my case, she spoke Russian faster than Eminem’s Rap God. Within a few seconds she recited the entire case. And then she shouted out at the secretary, as a translator was not called for me. The judge asked me to wait outside again for an hour till the translator comes. I was really impressed with our judge, she had a strong personality and the just the perfect rage!
After an hour my translator came and the hearing resumed. They asked usual question to me, name, nationality etc. They asked whether my bicycle was returned to me, I explained that I came to court on my bicycle. And the first thing the surprised judge said was, ‘ne xolodna?’ (is it not cold?), I replied, ‘just alright’. They thought I was a bachelor student first year because of my age, (first year is usually preparatory in Russia, where students have to learn Russian language) but I was a masters, with course offerings in English. My translator explained to me that the woman also stole another man’s bike, she pointed out another person in the room. Apparently, he had a bike over 40K Rubles and the poor man didn’t get it back. In a sense, I was saved by the nape of the neck.
The woman had her reason. Primarily, she hadn’t money to pay for the apartment, which is kind of understandable, because apartment prices in SPB are quite ridiculous (not as ridiculous as Mumbai though). Finally, the judge asked me whether all my damages were done. I understood that if I’d ask about my lock and stuff, it would take me multiple rounds to the court. So I just said, all is good, and that there is nothing else I want from the convict. The judge ended the hearing, and I was told that I don’t need to come to court in the future.
I never imagined writing about police stations and courts. But it was kind of exciting in an unusual way. But interestingly, I was poppin’ about with my bicycle. All well that ends well.
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
Go Karting! March 31, 2019
I don’t know how to drive a four-wheeler, but when it was Anton’s birthday I took the opportunity to join the group for Go karting!
It’s not an accurate depiction but this was where we raced.
We got registered for the track, changed for the karting gear and at about 5 PM we were ready to rock the track! It was awesome! Just pedal, throttel and adrenaline! We raced in two groups, I was in the group of newbies, while Anton being a pro was racing against the group champs. I got 2nd place in my own group. :))
There are many more experiences, and they deserve their own post. Maybe I’ll find some time to write about them. 12 months in the city and there are only few places I know by name Petrogradskaya, Lomonosova, Kronversky, Bagovaya, Spasskaya, Chornaya Ryecha… I don’t even know why I know the last one. I am bad with names. I have just spatial map of some parts of SPB in my head, I know how to go to a Russian banya (yes! the banya!) from Petrogradskaya, or get my bicycle repaired, but some cool stuff etc.
It’s been quite some time. I hadn’t updated anything on the blog. But now, as I have my vacation, I feel like writing some posts. I start with bike adventures. :))
# About the featured image for this post: This image was taken in October 2018. I realised at that time, that what I see is actuall ITMO Kronversky campus. To me, it seems like a painting! :))
I flew from India for SPB (Saint-Petersberg) back in October of 2018. I’d write a few posts about how I like my stay at SPB. And nothing could be better than writing about one of my favourite things in the world, which is, bicycling. It’s an economical and healthy way of commuting for the sake of stating the obvious. In SPB there are also a few bike stands where you can rent bikes. I am not sure about the rent though. I sometimes joke that Billu from Diamond Comics is my inspiration for riding bicycle (LOL not really).
Billu ke karnaamey. (Billu’s mischiefs)
About La Fenix
Back when I was applying for university, I had a clear vision in my mind. I could imagine myself riding on a bicycle wherever I’d go. Also I didn’t want to buy a new bike because mine is already fancy-enough and excellent. Besides I had changed almost every part on my bike except the frame and rims. Mine is a red and black MTB from XDS called XDS Sundance 300.
I love my bike. I call it La Fenix, after the mythological creature Phoenix, which, when burnt, rises from its own ashes. The idea being, my bike’s frame is rugged, and even if everything breaks apart, I can rejoin it. It’s pretty dope for an economical bike. I brought it on April 14, 2017 (see the original photo). My bike has served me well during my stay at Jaipur. Till date it has proudly witnessed a temperature range of -28 (Saint Petersberg) to +44 degrees (Jaipur).
One hot summer in Jaipur. I usually cover my face for dust. To protect the eyes from strain, I use a UV resistant cheap glass. Also I am wearing sandals. The mask got me the name of ghost rider, and made me a local legend. I am waiting to see if they make a comic about a rider from village, who divided the road into two parts as he went through.
XDS Sundance 300
This was the first photo taken of the bike, it was from the day I brought it 14 Apr, 2017. Look at those shiny shoes LOL!
How to bring a bicycle from your country to Russia as a free baggage
The first step is to pack your bicycle into a bicycle carry case. I looked online, and oh my are those carry cases expensive! For this, I brought a cheap bicycle bagpack by Trek ‘N’ Ride MTB version.
Next I needed some bike tools. I admit that I went a bit too far by buying a Decthlon 500 Bike tool box. I brought it in Noida, UP at Decathlon showroom. It was an overkill. (Why?) Because all you need to disassemble a bicycle are Philips screwdrivers.
Finally, I made a ticket from Aeroflot that allowed me to carry upto 2 bags, 25 kg each and one 8 kg cabin backpack. I called the airlines and asked them in advance whether they can approve my bicycle. As expected, they only wanted my bike to be packed and baggage to weigh less than 25 kg. They need to be informed, once more, 32 hours before departure. I am grateful that my first flight experience wasn’t so bad. 🙂
And that’s how this adventure begin. [By the way, it was also my first time riding an airplane, from New Delhi to Moscow to SPB. I had a window seat, good food, and pain in the ear as the pale soars high above the sky (as the pressure drops).]
This was the first photo I took from the window seat of a plane. It’s New Delhi, but oh you can’t tell if you don’t know already.
Reassembling the bike. Funny enough, the only tool I needed were Philips screwdrivers.
Few tips about riding a bike in general
SPB is not entirely bike friendly, but it is enough so. Basically, the roads in the city are wide and you have to sometimes take your bicycle on the sidewalks. I have been told many times to be wary of Russian drivers, however, I have an experience of riding bikes on crazy Indian highways.
I am on a sidewalk. This is where pedestrians walk. Next to it is the main road, that is where the roadsters (not the Roadster car actually) shine. This photo was taken near Lomonsov bridge.
Riding through the park is a fantanstic experience. Specially when you notice the difference between autumn, winter, and summer.
Autumn 2018, at a park near Kronversky.
Winter, March 2019, near Petrogradskaya. What you see with frozen trees is actually a park.
Even if they shout at you, apologize. Because the pavement is for walking, and bicyclist are neither pedestrians, nor roadsters.
Every once in a while you might find people shouting at you. I rember how, once a babushka went crazy on my riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. It’s not a pleasent experience at all. But in general people are polite, they let you pass through. Just in case, remember the following phrase.
Простите! Я бедный человек, Я из <названия страны>, Я не знаю законов здесь.
‘Pro-s-tee-tye, Ya byedniy chilovek, Ya Iz (nazvaniye ctranie), Ya ni z-nayu zakonov ez-dis.”
[Sorry (polite), I am a poor person, I am (your country name), I am not aware of the laws here.”]
You might get shouted upon more (LOL). But it’s better than being impolite to kind people.
<<update December 5, 2019>> !NOTE: Don’t use this expression with friends too often. This is okay to be used as a first time joke. But this is considered impolite as it shows that you are not willing to spend money by yourself, or in another way implies that you don’t want to spend money on your friends at all. (A friend told me that.)
2.) Respect roadsters most of the times.
The thing is, in Russia, drivers go to prison if they hit a bicyclist. However, my professor Nikita Artymov once told me the horrible story of how he got hit by a car, while driving a bicycle, on a sidewalk! He spent 2 months in the hospital, and the driver got away because he knew the police. You have been warned.
Therefore, it’s important that you switch from road to sidewalks as per YOUR convinience. If there are too many pedestrians, switch to road, but if there aren’t, keep to sidewalks. While riding on a road you only have a 3 foot lining on the road-lane and the sidewalk pavement.
I once mistakingly hit the mirror of a car. The driver drove next to me and said something, but my Russian skills were horrible, so I just removed my mask and apologised in English. Once he saw me, he understood that I am a homeless guy, and let me pass.
One last thing, never cross the road divider. If you need to change lanes, go to the nearest traffic light. Wait for the pedestrian signal to turn green and then change the lanes.
3.) Search for a bike repair shop
My dormitory is in Petrogradskaya. When I took to Google maps, it showed me many repair shops. Most of them were ghost! It’s easy to get lost because of misinformation. People recommend using Yandex maps, but I can assure you that Google maps are enough, as long as you know exactly where you want to go.
Karochiye (long story short), I found two places, one in Mercury mall (end of the green line), and another 2 kilomiters before it on the same road is Veloaktive, decent shop, they get things done (Torfyanaya Doroga, 2, Sankt-Peterburg, Rusia, 197374).
4.) Keep with yourself a water bottle, always
Yep, there is no free water in Saint Petersburg. You’d end up donating your organs for water, if your not rich.
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
How to ride a bicycle at a cool temperature (-20 degree Centigrades)
Have you ever dreamed about riding a bicycle sub-zero. I wanted to make this post exactly to illuminate upon how to do that. Please not that the specific title should be, ‘how to ride a bicyle at a cool temperatures (pun) on the streets of Saint Petersburg‘ But it’s not cool (double pun).
Almost everyone I have met here, thinks I am kind of crazy to do that. But to be honest, I don’t like public transport at all. I’d expalin in some other post why. And besides, it’s more fun to ride in winter, because you don’t have as many pedestrians on the street.
Here is what we are going to use:
For the Bike
The one and only important thing for the Bike is to have Snow Tires.Basically, these are fancy tyres with spokes. The once I bought costed me around 5500 Rubles (about 5600 INR). That’s not a bad deal, because snow tyres can end up costing more than a cheap bike. The next option was a whooping 10,000 Rubles.
For the rider
Basically, to achieve this feet I always dressed like the following:
1.) I wore thermal underwears, and woolen innerwear.
2.) To top the innerwear, I’d wear a jeans and a full sleeve t-shirt.
This photo was taken during the beggining of November. I had already gotten into form for the bicycle.
3.) Finally, a heavy jacket. I asked for a jacket that could work upto -10.
All of this equipment is sufficient for upto -20 degrees.
The problem is keeping your feet and hands warm.
4.) For my feet, I used warm woolen socks with stylish winter boots.
5.) For my face I had a neck mask upto nose, a badnana for the head, covered with my helmet and hood of the jacket. Protecting your head is crucial.
6.) For my hands, I brought summer gloves for bicycling, and complemented them with an additional windproof gloves.
The reason is that if you use too heavy gloves, it will become difficult to manuver the bicycling. Speaking of maneuvering…
About driving technique
Between Petrogradskaya and Lomonosova is about 4 kilometers. Usually, this distance can be covered in 20 minutes on a bicycle, which ois faster than the metro. But on a winter day it could take upto 40 minutes, because of the speed and technique.
There are two important things to realise:
1.) It is easier to ride when their is heavy snow on the street as compared to thin ice sheets.
The reason is that on thin ice sheets you can’t risk to make smallest of turns. When you ride the bicycle on snow, even with snow tires, it’s important that you don’t become a stuntman and drive irrisponsibly. The only direction is forward, completely straight. If you have to turn either turn slowly or turn without making sharp rounds at moderate speed.
Usually, when I ride bike in summer on an Indian highway, my speed varies from 25 km/h to the fasterst 52 km/h. Here at SPB, I suggest whether it is winter or not, never exceed 25 km/h. In winters, my average speed was about 22 km/h (I have a btwin bike monitor).
2.) Watch out for icicles, always wear a helmet
Some people die from falling icicles. These are thin conical structures which are made from melting and refreezing of ice on rooftops. At times, icicles may fall and punch a hole in your head. Be wary!
3.) Don’t stop at one place for too long
Keep moving in the winter. The vigorous movements help to keep your body warm. If you stop, you will feel colder quickly. This is why it is sometimes easier to use a bicycle, because you are kind of running in the air. When you are on foot, you cannot run, as you may slip. For me, it is usually easier to ride a bike than actually walk on that slippery street.
4.) If you feel pain in your hands seek shelter
The longest I’ve been outside is about two and a half hours. After an hour, even with heavy protection, you’ll feel pain in hands. The easiest solution is to lock your bike to a pole and enter a cafe. You can have a coffee, but no one will look at you differently because you didn’t buy anything. It is common in SPB for pedestrians to enter premises to heat themselves up in winters. Just make sure to remove your coat/ jacket and helmet and properly dry your boots. It is a matter of courtesy! (Why?) The thing is, cleaning stuff in winters is difficult. People work really hard to make their place presentable and the snow on your coat (and boots) contribute to their hardship.
Taking care of your bike
Basically, I wasn’t allowed to put my bicycle inside dorm. No big deal. When I kept my bike outside, i’d use a small sheet to cover up my chain derailleurs. That’s all. My Fenix is firepower! :))
Anyways, when I went out of dorm, I’d pour water on the bike lock to defrost and slowly unlock it, if you are too harsh (as I was too, the first time), you can break the key. However, the water becomes cold easily. Let me share with you the full experience now.
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
First experience
One morning I had to give my Zachot (student grade-book) to my friend Boris. To do this, I took my bike and traveled to Lomonosova. I didn’t know the temperature was -20. So joyously I went to Lomonosova, and there I was in front of ITMO building at 8 in the morning.
I wanted to park my bicycle outside. And there I made a mistake. To unfreeze the lock, I took out my water bottle and poured some water on the lock. The water froze instantly along with my hands. I quickly defreezed my hands. Now I was stuck between whether I should go inside the university and leave my bike at risk or go to Marta 52 to the Boris’s place. So at 8:30 in the morn, I reached to Boris. I gave a few knocks on the window and he jumped form the bed, he looked outside with his sleepless eyes, and the Russian war-gaze, in anger and annoyance. But because it was me, he opened the doors and allowed me to warm up a little bit.
I gave my Zachot to Boris, while he was lecturing me about how crazy I am to ride so far in this weather. But how could I’ve known, it’s not like I’ve ever experienced such temperatures before. It turns out the temperature was actually -22. LOL!
Anyways, I rode back to my dorm. I emptied my water bottle and poured in some uncomfortably hot water and defrost my lock. It was such a memorable experience!
So that was that.
Second Experience
Now that I learnt from mistakes. Next time, during my visit to SPB bank, I took the water bottel, and instead of locking the bike, I just took the two ends and poured water on them. As the water froze, so did the lock. Then I used a handkerchief to cover this deed. It seemed like the bike was tightly locked while in-fact it was just a deceive. I went to the bank, spent an hour or so and came back to find my bike safe. I didn’t have too go through this crazy lock-unlock game.
This day I experienced -28 (feels like as opposed to the actual -22), the reason is that in some parts it can get colder as compared to others. It so happened that I was lost while trying to find the bank, and it’s risky to remove gloves and check maps. So I was just riding along the bike slowly, until I found the bank.
I don’t have photos, because I didn’t dare to take one. Besides, what difference does it make? It’s not like we can feel the temperatures in photographs (yet).
♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢ ____ ♢♢
Riding bicycle in SPB is totally worth it and recommended. For me, I could see all the islands, while commuting. It’s alright if you don’t want to ride bicycle in winter, you can use the metro. But still, you may want to give it a shot. Here are some cool videos though the city on a wintery night.
And here is a comparison of the same place at about the same time. [During summers the sun sets at 11 PM, which is why it is sunny. In SPB we have white nights.]
I remember how some of my friend pulled a joke on me. They said that I should cross the river on my bicycle. Although, for them it was a joke. For me, I wanted to do that in January, as by that time the ice is really thick and cyclable. I had used my bicycle all winter long. However I couldn’t use my bicycle for a week in January, because it got stolen by a woman! More about this adventurous story later (a strange form of adventure). 😀
obviating 