Friday, April 25, 2014
April 11, Friday, Kazan
We plan to leave for my Russian home of Saratov on Friday. The train is an overnight 15 hours and leaves at 5pm. This gives us another day in Kazan.
Laura and Janet have breakfast and head over to the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan for a few hours. I walk down to the still bare Chernoe Ozero Gardens to sit in the sun for a while. The day is a little warmer and I feel a little lazy. While I am sitting on a bench with my sunglasses on I witness a very Russian routine. Most parks have what look like parallel bars and chin-up bars. Bare bones equipment, often ancient. A succession of fellows comes down to the park for use of these. First, a high school kid---he does probably 5 chin ups. Then a lot of swinging around on the parallel bars. He leaves after a decent workout. Then a guy that looks like he's on a lunch break from an office. He carries a old school sweatshirt tied up in a ball, carried by strings. He takes off his jacket carefully and folds it. Then the same with his shirt. Then in his undershirt he does about 5 minutes of boxing moves. Puts on the sweatshirt. Then a series of pretty tough exercises on the bars. 30-40 chin-ups, a bunch of parallel exercises. Carefully removes sweatshirt and dresses. He leaves. Then an old guy. Same sort of routine. All are pretty strong dudes. Interesting.
We are to meet our Kazan University girls, Regina and Aida at 1pm for lunch. They've suggested a traditional Tatar/Kazan café. We all meet at a major streetcorner and go to a place called Skazka, a little funky sort of family restaurant off Bauman. Laura gets a green, veggie pasta, I get some traditional turnovers filled with beef, chicken, onion, and potato. Delicious. I think Janet gets a good salad. Our students get juice and fruit salads. Laura waits while we all eat. Hers arrives after about 30 minutes. After the check, we say goodbye to our new friends who have been simply the best. Patient, kind, generous. As we leave the restaurant we are presented with a bounty of traditional Tatarstan sweets, called I think Chak Chak. Flaky sweet pastry chips and what seem like heavy rice crispy balls saturated with honey. Good stuff for a long train ride.
We spend the remainder of the afternoon wandering around a bit. Hotel check out was at 12. Girls do some last minute shopping for train groceries. We get a cab for 3:30. Russian train tickets show the time a train leaves. I am now used to the notion of arriving 30-40 minutes before this. Train arrives at this time, you load in and get settled. The providnitza is usually waiting at one of the entrances to check you passport and ticket. I've bought all of ours on-line and printed them so no need to deal with
ticket window strangeness and lines. The Kazan train station is slightly confusing. There are elevators, stairs, walkways, and tracks at a variety of levels. Elevators do not really indicate what tracks are where so we lug everything around. Luckily we get where we need to without any issues.
At 5 we are off to the south and Saratov.
Laura and Janet have breakfast and head over to the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan for a few hours. I walk down to the still bare Chernoe Ozero Gardens to sit in the sun for a while. The day is a little warmer and I feel a little lazy. While I am sitting on a bench with my sunglasses on I witness a very Russian routine. Most parks have what look like parallel bars and chin-up bars. Bare bones equipment, often ancient. A succession of fellows comes down to the park for use of these. First, a high school kid---he does probably 5 chin ups. Then a lot of swinging around on the parallel bars. He leaves after a decent workout. Then a guy that looks like he's on a lunch break from an office. He carries a old school sweatshirt tied up in a ball, carried by strings. He takes off his jacket carefully and folds it. Then the same with his shirt. Then in his undershirt he does about 5 minutes of boxing moves. Puts on the sweatshirt. Then a series of pretty tough exercises on the bars. 30-40 chin-ups, a bunch of parallel exercises. Carefully removes sweatshirt and dresses. He leaves. Then an old guy. Same sort of routine. All are pretty strong dudes. Interesting.
We are to meet our Kazan University girls, Regina and Aida at 1pm for lunch. They've suggested a traditional Tatar/Kazan café. We all meet at a major streetcorner and go to a place called Skazka, a little funky sort of family restaurant off Bauman. Laura gets a green, veggie pasta, I get some traditional turnovers filled with beef, chicken, onion, and potato. Delicious. I think Janet gets a good salad. Our students get juice and fruit salads. Laura waits while we all eat. Hers arrives after about 30 minutes. After the check, we say goodbye to our new friends who have been simply the best. Patient, kind, generous. As we leave the restaurant we are presented with a bounty of traditional Tatarstan sweets, called I think Chak Chak. Flaky sweet pastry chips and what seem like heavy rice crispy balls saturated with honey. Good stuff for a long train ride.
We spend the remainder of the afternoon wandering around a bit. Hotel check out was at 12. Girls do some last minute shopping for train groceries. We get a cab for 3:30. Russian train tickets show the time a train leaves. I am now used to the notion of arriving 30-40 minutes before this. Train arrives at this time, you load in and get settled. The providnitza is usually waiting at one of the entrances to check you passport and ticket. I've bought all of ours on-line and printed them so no need to deal with
ticket window strangeness and lines. The Kazan train station is slightly confusing. There are elevators, stairs, walkways, and tracks at a variety of levels. Elevators do not really indicate what tracks are where so we lug everything around. Luckily we get where we need to without any issues.
At 5 we are off to the south and Saratov.
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