I am back from my first trip back to Motherland in 3 years. It was certainly an experience I got unused to over the years and there are many things in UK that I will stop moaning about. One of them is bad roads. The best road in Russia is the worst road over here. Not even Polish roads can beat the chaos of outrageous surfaces that lie there.
Noone in shops has any change - ever. We went to buy 2 packs of playing cards for 80 roubles and when the sales assistant was presented with a 100 rouble note, she asked whether I had anything smaller. And it's the same everywhere. Everything there is designed to "just about work". If something was designed any worse, the whole system would collapse.
My uncle has a 3 year old Lada 110 and it looks and feels like it's 3 times that age. And I thought my 8 year old Pug was bad. Everything creaks and groans on it, it has some rust, engine mounts are shot and one of the suspension bushes collapsed. Although, judging by the state of the roads, it didn't do too bad! Niva is far more suited there.
Weather was very hot there. +40c most of the time, although it cooled down into +30's over the past week there. Noone has any air con over there, so it was difficult to sleep at night. Luckily, my town of Saratov is right on the Volga river, so easy to get away to the beach, so it's a nice refreshment.
Got a busy week ahead. Starting a new (old) job tomorrow with a nice drive to Bristol and am moving house on Saturday. Then some DIY-ing to do, questions of which I will post separately
But for now, enjoy my stay
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