An Adventure to start an adventure

by Luizza Mendes (Brazil)

A leap into the unknown Russia

I was traveling in Russia for almost twenty days when I decided to meet Rozhdestveno, a small village located more than ninety kilometers from Saint Petersburg. Until then, I had visited just Moscow and Petersburg with my basic Russian language studies. In Russia, it is uncommon to find people able to speak English fluently. Actually, it is hard to find who can speak more than a few words in English. However, this is not all bad for those who are studying the Russian language, because it makes you communicate, leaving aside the fear of speaking in a foreign language. That was my case. Ok, you could ask me, but why did you want to go to a small rural village, an unknown place, with no directions in Google Maps or others apps, so far away that you need to get a train and a bus? Well, I am a big fan of Russian literature and one of my favorites writers is the American-Russian writer and poet Vladimir Nabokov, who lived there. Now, with the appropriated context, let’s go on to my adventure. To get there I got the suburban train in Baltiskaya Station until Silverskaya Station. I bought my tickets ten minutes before the departure and ran to find the platform. The wagon had straight seats without partitions and a lot of room for standing travelers. As I was travelling in the morning, leaving the city when most of the people were coming, it had just a few people in there. As soon as the train left, a lady came and checked my tickets. Behind, but a bit far from her, an old man with a truncheon kept a serious and threatening expression. Probably, prepared to some guy who doesn’t want to pay or to someone who wants to cause problems. My travel was long and with many stops. At each stop, more people got in and more tickets were checked. Most people were sleeping. I was trying to maintain myself awake, looking to the winter view - the frozen rivers and the bare trees – and to the people. Sometimes train merchants came and displayed their products to sell. They stood there, talking calmly about their products and their benefits, selling for who wanted to buy it and then leaving. Finally, more than one hour later, I was in Silverskaya station. Now, I needed to get a bus to Rozhdestveno. I found Silverskaya a really small town, with florists (and you find a lot of them in Russia) and meat salesmen. I looked around the station, where there were bus stations, but none of them was the bus that I needed to get. Well, I thought of asking or information. Some old ladies were waiting in the bus station. They were using the classic Russian cloth around their heads, which is essential for the cold. They looked simple, old and sweet. A foreigner is something rare, I imagined, in that place. They had told me that I needed to cross to the other side of the station and there I went. Beyond the station, the place was a dirt road with dry and brown winter trees. I finally found my bus, that was totally grey from the mud There was no information about the price and, being sincere, I never understand numbers in Russian language. Anyway, I asked the driver about the price. He told me something that I did not understand, how expected, and he became impatient, so I just gave him the coins and he got what he needed. The bus was an antiquity and I felt - and I can tell it about all this experience in general – from another Time. It was ten kilometers until Rozhdestveno and I do not know where exactly I needed to get off the bus. Everything looked the same – brown dust. When I was almost relaxed, enjoying the view, I read in the road “Rozhdestveno center” and quickly got off. I almost ended up in another village! But I got it. And that was my adventure before the adventure itself, in Rozhdestveno.