Around the world without a time limit Screwstedt

May 2013
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May17

A Few Notifications In Russia

on May 17, 2013 at 9:57 am

Posted In: Russia

- Finnish people are much more like Russians than they think.

- Finns and Russians share the same type of black sarcastic humour. Scandinavian happy- happy flower and sunshine- dancing around the Christmas tree humour would not be understood as funny in Russia.

- Russian banya is exactly like Finnish sauna, except that Russians wear hats inside. The first time I went into a banya without a hat the Russians looked like a big pile of question marks and asked me what the hell I’m doing.

- Russians swear a lot and uses dirty words all the time, just like Finns.

- Everything is possible in Russia, if you pay 100 roubles…

- Russians are always and constantly late as fuck. If I’ve agreed to meet someone at 8pm I’ve learned to never go out before 8.40 pm. To show up 45-60 min late is standard Russian behaviour.

- The temperature in Russian flats and homes is so hot so they are wearing shorts inside and having their windows wide open even if it’s minus degrees outside. Talk about global heating.

- Russian hospitality is hard to beat,the only people that can compete are the Iranians.

- Russian language is brutal, you need a LOT of time to master it.

- I haven’t seen a Russian flat without a bathtub.

- Russian women got probably the best attitude in the world.

- Russians don’t drink as much I remembered, there are a lot more drunks on the streets in Korea and Japan.

- It’s still a nice thing to wear fur and it’s nothing strange about it, compared to Europe where you might get attacked by patethic animal activists.

- Russians don’t smoke as much as I remembered. Turks, Japanese,Pakistani’s, Iranians, Bosnians, Indians and Filipinos smoke way more.

- Many Russians don’t think that all bribery and corruption is bad. They just like that everything has a price and it’s a good thing that you can buy your way out of trouble.

- Russian girls are very feminine, both in appearance and behaviour.

- Russian food is quite similar to Finnish.

- Times are changing in Russia, you can’t buy alcohol after 11pm in shops anymore and neither can you buy beer in kiosks. Smoking inside will be banned this summer.

- Vegetarianism seem to be on the rise. Many of the girls I’ve met have been vegetarians, but not for the same reasons like in Europe.

- Russian traffic is not very bad compared to a lot of other countries even if the Russians themselves like to think so. After crossing streets in countries like Iran and Mongolia, Russia feels like heaven.

- Russians has big flats,even students have.

- A Russian smile is not a smile at all.

- In the Far East, everyone drives with Japanese cars with steering wheel on the right side.

- When you meet a new person, don’t ever forget his/hers name!

- Russians are the grand masters of making Shawarmas or Döners. They are incredible tasty,cheap and filling. In Turkey I had the most terrible ones ever! Turkish people can’t make them! ( my skin crawls).

- If you mention anything about WW2 you will probably face a great but interesting debate. The Russians are very proud about their history, but keep in mind that the history books they are using in Russian schools are very different from the rest of the world. Exactly like in Japan. You will hear things like ” the liberation of the Baltic countries and Poland, Korea etc.”

- Russian men always greet each other with a handshake when they meet, you are expected to do the same.

- I have only seen foreigners at two occasions during seven weeks.

- Be careful if you decide to challenge a Russian guy. A big part of the Russian guys are working out like hell, lifting a lot of weights, doing boxing and exercise all kinds of self defence sports like karate, MMA and those kind of stuff. And they are good at it! So again, be careful.

Comment

May14

” I never came “

on May 14, 2013 at 4:30 pm

Posted In: X- files

Location: Outskirts of Krakow, Poland. July 2012.

I had a few drinks with a Brazilian and a Australian dude I met in the common room in the hostel I was staying at. The Brazilian guy was a bloke in his early thirties and he let me know that this time was his fourth time in Krakow and this was his fourth week in the same hostel. To surprise me even more he told me that Poland is the only country he’s been to outside Brazil, and Krakow is the only city he’s visited in Poland. I thought god damn what a weird guy, he only goes to the same country,the same city and the same dormitory and nowhere else! I figured he’s one of these many Latino guys who goes to Poland in belief of that Polish girls will throw themselves over them. He talked and bragged about his great success with swooping Polish girls, I took his talk with a huge pinch of salt because I’ve met too many of these guys who are big talkers about swooping girls but accomplishes nothing once they are out in the field.
Anyway, since he’s been so many times in Krakow I figured he knows some good places to go to. We waited for his faggot Brazilian friend and we went out to hit some bars.

The first venue we went to were full of dirty backpackers and at the second one there was a sleazy British stag party going, god damn I hate those parties! I told the Brazilian dude that we need to find a better place or I’m leaving. Then we went to a okay place but there were not much action going. At this point I already knew that this guy was just big talker and that he probably never fucked a Polish girl. He and his faggot friend were on the dance floor and rocking slightly from side to side like a zombie from the Walking Dead series. The place was almost dead, I had a beer with the Aussie and decided to call it a night. It was late and I was getting tired. But when I was about to leave the Brazilian dude showed up and convinced me to check out one more place.

We went far away outside the city to the outskirts of Krakow. The place was like German beer garden and in the corner there was a club that looked a Finnish potato cellar from the outside. Fair enough, there were a lot of people but no dirty backpackers or British stag parties and best of all, it was not a sausage party! The Brazilian and his faggot friend went to the dancefloor probably to hold each others hands and and feel pity for each other, the Aussie met a gang of Polish skinheads outside the entrance that he started to chat with and I went down to the club to see what’s going on….

I bought a pint of beer and decided to walk around a bit. In a corner I literally bumped into a Polish girl. SPLASH! My beer fell to the ground and my shoes got showered in beer and also hers..

Me: Izvinitche!
She: ( looked surprised) Vy Russki?
Me: Kaniszhna niyet! A vy?
She: No, I’m from Krakow. Why are you speaking Russian to me?
Me: I started to think about the Russian girl in the James Bond movie.
She: LOL! But I have blonde hair!
Me: Yeah but you can find brown hair colour in the shops.
She: hmm..Who are you? Do you smoke? Let’s go outside.

Then we started to walk upstairs but then she stopped and said ” go out and wait for me, I’ll be there in a minute.” She turned around and I walked out and honestly spoken I didn’t expect her to show up again.
But after a few minutes she showed up, with two beers! We sat down at a table in the beer garden and started to chat. She was a 21 years old and had long blond hair and around 170cm tall with a slim body,nice ass and real killer legs. She clearly passed the boner test. She was a funny girl and easy to joke around with, I put my hands on her legs and her shoulder meanwhile I was explaining something and she showed no resistance. After a 20 min chat we had finished our beers and she suggested us to hit the dance floor and I accepted.

Everybody who knows me know that I’m not a big fan of club music and dance floors, I truly dislike it but sometimes it happens. Anyway,instead of dancing I started to do the most stupid moves I could think of. The weed eater,the lumberjack,the fisherman and all these other stupid classics, obviously she had never seen anything like that before. She stopped dancing and started to laugh like hell and wonder what the hell I’m doing. After a few minutes of messing around couldn’t resist her anymore so I grabbed her arms and pulled her next to me and went for the kiss. No resistance once again.

After a few minutes of making out on the dance floor I pushed her against the wall in a darker spot in the club. We made out some more and I rammed my leg in between hers and she went wild. She grabbed my hammer and felt that I was hard as a rock, I went with my hand under her dress and felt that she was indeed ready to rock! But now I had a big logistic problem! Where the hell should I take her to seal the deal? I was for fuck sake living in a dormitory 40 min away so that was not an option.

I looked around and I saw the bathroom, not exactly the most optimal place but what the hell, now or never! I pointed at the bathroom and her eyes got big as on a little puppy and said “are you crazy?”. I smiled and grabbed her hand and took her to the bathroom. The bathroom was for one person in a time and it had a solid door so at least we had some privacy! It didn’t take long before I was inside her. Soon she jumped on me, she had her arms around my shoulders and the legs wrapped around me meanwhile I was banging her but then she started to do some acrobatical yoga stuff! When we were banging in that position she started to lean back until she was in a horizontal position, she stretched her arms out until she could grab the upper part of the toilet and all of a sudden
” CRACK!!!” The fucking toilet cracked down! Water, shit and paper were everywhere! The security guy outside the door noticed that something happened and he started shout and hammer on the door! I had to pull out and I couldn’t finish. She told me that I should run as fast I can when she opens the door and she will take care of the security guy. I asked her if she’s sure because it was not her idea to go to the bathroom. She said “don’t worry! I will be right after you, I’ll see you outside! ”

She opened the door and I ran out as fast as I could, the security guy tried to grab me but he failed. When I was outside I waited one minute and then I saw her coming running out with her shoes in her hands. She laughed and we said goodbye and jumped in different taxis.
I have no idea how she solved the problem with the security guy and the broken toilet.
I never saw her again.

Poland is great, but I never came.

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May08

Siberia,Russian Drunks and Victory Day.

on May 8, 2013 at 10:53 am

Posted In: Russia, Uncategorized

Since the last update I have visited three cities. Ulan Ude, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. Nothing spectacular worth writing here has happened, it’s just too damn calm. If I only had the chance to buy that Lada in Vladivostok my stories would definitely be much fruitier than now.

Ulan-ude
12 hours with train from Chita. Really pretty city with the biggest Lenin head in the world, (7,7m)!. Damn if that head would start rolling, it would roll all the way to the walls of Himalaya! However, Ulan-ude is in Buryatia. The people there look like Mongols, not like the stereotypical Russian Yushin so it had a more of a Mongolian feel. Unfortunately I didn’t bump into a lot of cool people to hang out with so I had somewhat of a boring time. But Ulan-ude is worth a visit, I was the train station for 30 min two years ago when I was on my way to Mongolia so now it was time for another visit. The most odd thing I did there was maybe to be at a salsa dance competition. Please, don’t ask why.

Krasnoyarsk.
After 26 hours in a train watching two seasons of The Walking Dead series I arrived to Krasnoyarsk. Big city feeling right from the start! Here I met some really cool people and had a great time, I ended up staying six days in stead of two. I learned a lot of new Russian words, moonwalked in Siberian forests, fighting ticks ( they are everywhere!), drinking Scotch and cherry juice during the night time and had a puppet show. And most of all great company! I was laughing my ass off all the time.
Good times.

Novosibirsk.
I planned to go Tomsk instead but all the trains were sold out so now I ended up in the third biggest city in Russia. Boombastic and massive concrete city. This city really got potential but for several reasons I’m going to leave this city tomorrow. Yesterday evening I went to the cinema to see Legenda #17, this is a movie that all who love their hockey should watch. It’s about the legend Valeri Kharlamov and the summit series 1972. I highly recommend it, this one and Django Unchained is the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Now the Russians are busy preparing for the celebration of the Victory Day. National holiday again tomorrow.

However, Russia is changing. It’s not the same Russia I remembered when I was here in 2011. I didn’t see a single person drinking in public before I came to Krasnoyarsk. Beers are not allowed to be sold in kiosks anymore and it’s forbidden to drink in public. It’s also impossible to buy alcohol in stores after 11pm. These are new laws and I’m shocked to see how good people are following them. Later this summer they will also enforce a new law. Smoking will not be allowed inside cafes, restaurants and bars anymore.

Many believes that Russians are the biggest drunks in the world, but I would say they are not. Sure you’ll see some drunks here and there but this is nothing compared to Japan or especially Korea where people are so drunk so they can’t even walk! Old or young, it doesn’t matter. In Tokyo and Korea I saw more passed out people in the streets than anywhere in Russia! Koreans are the second biggest drunks I have ever seen in my life, maybe there is a reason why South Korea has the biggest suicidal rate in the world, by far! It’s not Finland, even if many people like to believe that. And yeah, the truth is that the biggest relentless drinkers I’ve seen is my own fellow people back home in my own quarters and Finnish youngsters in general. Nobody is downing the amount of drinks like you guys! Nowhere else in the world can you find people being that insanely drunk as you!
( You know who you are) haha…
The difference between Russian/Finnish drunks and Korean drunks is that Russian and Finnish drunks often get quite loud and aggressive and never quit, meanwhile the Korean is just so drunk so he collapses and passes out and then sleeps off the booze.

However,meanwhile many things are changing in Russia some things are not. The shadow of the past is always near and that makes the future unpredictable. Tomorrow it’s the 9th of May,it’s a national holiday when people are celebrating the anniversary of their victory over Nazi Germany in WW2. It’s 68 years since the Germans capitulated but on the streets here in Novosibirsk it looks like it happened 10 years ago. Banners and flags are everywhere, a huge military parade will take place tomorrow. People are celebrating. For Europeans and Americans this might be very weird but for Russians it’s not. My guess is that Victory Day will be celebrated for all eternity. In one way it’s easy to understand why. The Soviet Union (1939 borders) lost almost 9 million soldiers and 14 millions civilians. That was 14,5% of the population at that time. It was an enormous sacrifice! Left was a lot of widows and a lot of mothers and children without fathers without a home to go. The amount of towns,cities, villages that were completely wiped out and burned down was massive.
The Russians won’t forget this easily.

American war movies and Western media proudly tries to announce that it was D-day and the Americans and Brits who fought on the Western front who were the biggest reasons to the collapse of Nazi Germany. This is definitely not true. The Soviets did all the dirty work and fought the Germans three years longer than them. Like it or not, if it wasn’t for the Soviets, god knows what the present Europe would look like today.

Over and out.

Ulan-ude. Sovietsky Square.

Ulan Ude

Krasnoyarsk

Stolby, Krasnoyarsk

Krasnoyarsk

The Krasnoyarsk Mafia.

Victory Day rehearsal in Novosibirsk.

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Apr28

Chita Diaries

on April 28, 2013 at 5:34 pm

Posted In: Russia

Lenin Square, Chita

When I boarded the train in Blagoveshchensk I couldn’t just stop laughing at all the crazy incidents that happened there but it didn’t take long before I realised that fuck, I’m going to be stuck here for 39 hours. Travelling third class with Russian trains is a excellent way to get a real Russian experience. There you can see how normal Russian people are travelling and behaving. Usually they will get surprised and excited when they realise that you are a foreigner. They are happy to share their food and drinks with you and they often invite you play cards with them. There is usually plenty of time to kill because some of these people are travelling for seven days. However it’s a great way practise your Russian and also a great way to make new friends. There is no need to be afraid of these Russian drunks who are roaming around and having a lot of noise. 99% of the times they are friendly even if they are very loud. They are just curious and surprised to meet a foreigner because it might be the very first time they meet one and that’s what always seem to happen to me.

This time my company were a mixed crowd of drunks, babushkas and breast feeding mothers. I tried to stay as low profile as possible but after a few hours these drunks realised that they have a Finnish gorilla in their wagon and then all hell broke loose. They were extremely loud but they were friendly and they had a million questions to ask. They got really excited and wanted me to come and drink with them but this time I explained that it’s not going to happen, they tried to convince me a few times to join them but I said no. They got a little bit offended of my rude answer but they respected me and then they left me alone. The other annoying thing were these families with small children, they were screaming and crying both night and day so its not very easy to get some sleep. Sometimes you really see that some parents really want to beat the fuck out of their children when they are running amok in the train and can’t be calm for even five minutes. Thank god I had my headphones. The third thing that is a little bit annoying is the temperature. Russians are crazy people and they always want it hot. During this trip it was constantly +27-28 degrees, I mean what the hell! Is it really necessary? People are dressed in shorts and sandals like they are on their way to Honolulu. At nights this is really pain in the ass,especially if you are sleeping on the upper bed. Personally it’s 10 degrees too much for me if I want to sleep so I ended up lying on bed and sweating like I had malaria. Well, nobody said it was easy, this is just a part of travelling.

I arrived to Chita at 6am. The rain was pouring and it was dark and gloomy. I was back in Siberia and here I could also experience first class Russian hospitality from the very first minute. The person who invited me in was waiting for me at the platform. Even if she was a busy person with work and everything she still got up to meet me in the early morning. This kind of behaviour is pretty standard in Russia, only once it happened to me that a person had me waiting for hours at the train station. Anyway, I planned to stay a few nights in Chita but I ended up with staying four nights. Chita got a bad reputation all over Russia, and already in Vladivostok people started to tell me that the city is crazy dangerous and that I’m insane if I’m going there. Well, I didn’t experience anything like that except two people that got beaten up quite badly, a bag snatcher and some gypsies that were begging for money. I barely saw any drunk people in the streets, people are really respecting the new law about drinking in public places.

However Chita is a really OK city, it lacks big attractions and don’t have many things to see compared to Angkor Wat or something similar but since I’m no temple tourist I don’t care about that. I’m interested of people and things that are alive and breathing. Churches temples and monuments are dead. I’ve seen my share of those. Anyway, in Chita I mostly hanged out with people,walked around the city and also visited a bunch of schools. The people I knew there were all English teachers and they invited me in to take part in some classes. I must say I enjoyed it very much and it was quite funny. These kids always ask me very clever questions about why I’m doing this and that and many times I really need to dig deep in my mind to find the answers. Sometimes I really needed to question myself. It’s amazing to see how good English some kids are speaking. After the lessons when I was sitting in the teachers room children kept coming in and wanted to have autographs and pictures. In the evening when I was sitting in a cafe teenage schoolgirls showed up and wanted to chat and take more pictures.
It seems that a Finnish gorilla is a rare sight in Chita also.

However, Chita treated me like gold. I’m really getting spoiled how people are treating me here in Russia. The person who invited me in basically sacrificed all her free time in the mornings and in the evenings to show me the best of what Chita has to offer. I can’t do anything else than admire this Russian behaviour. I think I’m slowly but surely falling in love with this country…

To be continued.

Lenin Square, Chita

Russian smile!

Buddhist temple in Chita

1 Comment

Apr26

The Russian Far East Diaries Part II

on April 26, 2013 at 4:47 am

Posted In: Russia

My two good friends in Bikin gave me a ride to the bus station. The bus ride took 4,5 hours and it was interesting to see more of the countryside in the far east. I could see a lot of swamps, dead villages and untouched forests. Oh man, the forest companies in Finland would get wet in their pants of only seeing these forests that has never been penetrated by a human hand. Anyway, it felt good coming back into the civilisation again in Khabarovsk. A guy picked me up from the bus station and drove me to my host. Already from the first five minutes I had a gut feeling that I’m going to like this city. Khabarovsk is a really cool city, it’s a very nice and a very beautiful city compared to Russian standards. It almost felt like being in Eastern Europe. It kind of lacked the Russian roughness and the Soviet greyness. It’s very pedestrian friendly and has a lot of parks, squares and boulevards. It has also a small beach located at the mighty Amur river. Khabarovsk must be a really cool place to be in summer time. I met a lot of people here and I had a really good time for six days. It’s a very expensive city, but a very cool one ( Scandinavian prices) . At one point I paid 8€ for a beer. Anyway, Khabarovsk is definitely a city I want to return to. I made some good friends there.

On Wednesday I left Khabarovsk, I took a night train to Blagoveshchensk. I was surprised to see that the wagons were brand new, but unfortunately it was Korean style so the beds were really short. I couldn’t even lay down with straight legs. However, when I reached Blagoveshchensk things got even more surprising. As soon as I stepped out of train there were TV cameras filming me. I thought that what the hell is this? It didn’t take very long for me to figure out that not many foreigners visit this city. The rockstar effect was devastating. There were so many people waiting there to meet me. People took me here and there and showed me around the city, later more TV cameras and newspapers showed up. This circus continued the whole weekend. On the last night I ended up meeting more and more people and I found myself in the city’s biggest nightclub. What happened there is maybe a little bit too fruity to reveal here, but can at least say that people gave me lot to drink so I ended up being quite drunk, but what a great night, and what a cool club! One of the coolest places I’ve ever been to! Russians knows how to have fun and they also know how to make excellent venues for partying.

On Sunday I woke up slightly hung up, I had a train to catch in the afternoon but before that I had some meeting people told me to attend. Again there were lot of people who showed up only to see the Finnish gorilla in town! And of course the media was there also. I did one longer interview for a newspaper and also one interview for a TV channel. I don’t have much experience to act in front of cameras and microphones so I made a little bit fun of them. Of course it didn’t take long before the journalist asked how I can afford this kind of lifestyle. I told them that I’m a bankrobber, you should have seen the reaction of these Russian girls faces! Haha.. I don’t know if it was better or not o be hung up. People also gave me gifts before I left, one even made me a sheet with pictures and text of me being in Blagoveshchensk. I must admit I was quite flattered to be treated like this, I had no idea that I could be this interesting. But it was a great new experience, I think I will never forget Blago and it’s people. The far east rules!

Blagoveshchensk city itself a smaller one, 300000 people live there and maybe the most remarkable thing is that the city is located on the border with China. You just have to cross the river and you are in China, one day shopping trips is possible to do. Anyway, on Sunday afternoon Ieft Blagoveshchensk. Thanks to the TV reporters I almost missed the train and I had no time to go and stock up to supermarket. I had a 39 hours trip in front of me, I boarded the train to one of the most lawless cities in Russia with no water, no food and a hangover… To be continued….

http://www.amur.info/news/2013/04/21/7.html