Trip Report: 2 weeks in Moscow/Sochi

[Turboguy]

I agree with that too.  Wiz, we have the same thng being discussed in 3 different threads.  I just posted a long answer to you in the other so let's pick it up there and leave this topic for what it was intended.

[groovlstk]

Groov

Just a simple question, from your personal experience.

Do you think the fact that Iryna spoke good English has increased your chances of having excellent communication and better base for a good relationship.?

Also did this minimised the time of getting to know each other well with the successful results that we now know?

Wiz, when we first started talking, Irina's English was about a 2 on a scale of 5. With each conversation, however, she dredged up more and more of the English she learned 6 years earlier in uni. I was amazed at how quickly she progressed.

I'd say about 1/2 of the FSU women I've met required an interpreter. On my final trip to Dnepr almost a year ago, I met a wonderful girl through Cindy and I spent most of my time in Dnepr with her. She had zero English, but towards the end of the my stay we spent some time alone together. It wasn't ideal but we were able to get by with our pocket dictionaries. I was planning to visit her again in a few months. However, after I arrived home, the situation seemed futile. I would phone her and basically all she could say to me was "allo!" When she wrote to me, through Cindy's interpreters, that she was too busy at work to take English lessons, I decided not to waste her time or mine and said goodbye to her. If you read my TR http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=912.0 you'll see it ends very suddenly... it's because our relationship went *POOF* so quickly after I arrived home that I hadn't even finished writing my TR! At the time I was too depressed to wrap it up, knowing I'd blown another couple thousands of dollars and a week's vacation.

[Turboguy]

It is sad when things like that happen.  When we see our dreams go up in smoke and waste our vacation and money for nothing.  I would really like to see the language discussion go back to the other threads but I will comment that when I talked about overcoming language difficulties, I said "
"both" need to be willing to work at overcoming them.  It is a case where she was not.  I think it ended the way it had too and I am happy that you have found happiness with a gal who is probably far better for you anyway.  You write the best trip reports.

[groovlstk]

It is sad when things like that happen.  When we see our dreams go up in smoke and waste our vacation and money for nothing.  I would really like to see the language discussion go back to the other threads but I will comment that when I talked about overcoming language difficulties, I said "
"both" need to be willing to work at overcoming them.  It is a case where she was not.  I think it ended the way it had too and I am happy that you have found happiness with a gal who is probably far better for you anyway.  You write the best trip reports.

Thanks, TG. The sad thing is the Dnepr girl's a really sweet girl. She asked the agency to remove her profile just before we parted, and I notice she never bothered to re-post it after we broke up. For all of my mistakes, bad luck, etc., I met some really sincere, sweet girls. I wish I knew some of the single guys here better because I'd love to hook them up; but by the same token I feel protective of these girls and won't recommend they meet someone I don't really know.

[wiz]

Wiz, when we first started talking, Irina's English was about a 2 on a scale of 5. With each conversation, however, she dredged up more and more of the English she learned 6 years earlier in uni. I was amazed at how quickly she progressed.

Thanks Groov

Now I have a very good example to compare with Olga's fast English progress. Her verbal English improved so dramatically, while in Kos, that it took me by surprise. She had studied English in two summer schools in Cambridge and Oxford and looks that once you learn to ride a bike you do not forget easily!

Now of course it is very easy talking to her on the phone and rarely she asks me for any new words.

I am sorry about the debate with TG.

Can we please have some more updates?

I find it very pleasant reading your posts.

[groovlstk]

Thanks Groov

Now I have a very good example to compare with Olga's fast English progress. Her verbal English improved so dramatically, while in Kos, that it took me by surprise. She had studied English in two summer schools in Cambridge and Oxford and looks that once you learn to ride a bike you do not forget easily!

Now of course it is very easy talking to her on the phone and rarely she asks me for any new words.

I'd posted something about this in another thread back in April, after I made firm plans to visit Irina in Moscow:

I've noticed something in several women I've met, as well as a woman I'm planning to meet at the end of this month in Moscow. If they studied English in school, their English abilities will improve exponentially if you phone them regularly prior to your trip. I realize this is an investment in time as well as money and that a good number of men here insist that it's a waste of time to send more than a handful of letters/phone calls prior to meeting. I disagree, but that's a separate argument.

[Durk]

        Groov,

            I just wanted to say thanks for sharing your trip reports with us
    and congratulations to you and Irina. Just starting out and I would agree
    with you on the letters and phone time is the only way to go.
            The girl in Dnepr will always have feelings and will be looking at
     her choice for a very long time. Girls I dated here acted the same way.
            Some really went down hill after our break up. Guys that treat
     the girls right see this. I do not think woman realize how great a guy
     they have until it is to late most of the time. Keep us up to date.
                                                                       
                                                                                D

[groovlstk]

Thanks Durk, I wish you well in your search! Funny thing though, I don't feel so strongly about many emails/phone calls before meeting a girl as I did back in April, before I met Irina in person. In terms of our our chats/emails/phone calls, the only real benefit (to her) was greatly improving her English. When we met for the first time, I very quickly determined that she was all I expected times 10. She however, had a completely different impression of me and I had to have the patience and humility to shelve my impatience and show her who I really was without putting too much pressure on her. We laugh about it now, but at the time it took every ounce of patience and charm I had to woo her. So extensive emails/talks can also sabotage things by creating unrealistic expectations, and it works both ways.

[groovlstk]

Part VIII

The next morning we were set to head back to Moscow. The manager spoke to us a few days earlier and told us her daughter, who was studying English, wanted to drive us to the airport in Sochi so that she could practice her English. I agreed and we packed our suitcases into her late-model Volvo. The ride to Sochi takes about 30 minutes without traffic, but the manager warned us to leave three hours prior to our flight because we were likely to hit a lot of traffic. And boy, did we ever. Two hours and 45 minutes after setting out, we pulled up to the departures area and bid adieu to lovely Sochi. Strangely enough, the manager's daughter spoke maybe 30 words to us the entire ride. I tried to get a conversation going with her several times but then gave up and made faces at the many "Sochi is an applicant city for the 2014 Olympics" signs as we inched along.

Aerosvit food is about what you'd expect, and Irina was too tense during the flight to eat anything. She made me promise that I'd fly to Moscow and accompany her on the long flight to the US after she receives her visa.

We arrived at SVO 1 and although Irina lives less than 10 minutes from the airport, none of the many cab drivers would accept anything less than 1000 rubles for a lift. It was strange since we'd paid 300 rubles for a ride to her apartment when I'd arrived two weeks earlier and that was from the international terminal. Why were the cab drivers in the domestic terminal so stubborn? Irina dismissed them as "greedy" and angrily led me through the parking lot to the road beyond, where she flagged a passing Volga. The driver agreed to give us a lift to her place for 200 rubles. I like 70s-era Volgas because the front styling reminds me a little of the old Dodge Dart.

Back at Irina's home, Chuck was thrilled to see us, and curiously he seemed to have suddenly lost his ardor for my leg. Maybe I was playing too hard to get? Irina's dad was home as he had the day off. He shook my hand when I entered but didn't seem all that impressed when Irina told him that we'd agreed to marry.

Over the next few days, her dad told her many times that he truly liked me and knew I was the perfect man for her. It is his dream that I'll come to live with them in Moscow. While I'm pretty sure he genuinely liked me, he has many more reasons for wanting me to live in Russia, the most important being that the only person who loves him in this world will be moving across the ocean.

We were both feeling pretty tired so we mostly vegged this day, leaving her flat only to walk Chuck in the early evening and then, after dark, to have a beer outside in her building's courtyard.

The next morning was bright and sunny, and we decided to do some touristy things. We hopped on the elektrichka and connected to the metro, then headed towards Exhibition Park.

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/exhib.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/exhib2.jpg

It's a beautiful public space. Irina explained to me that each of the ornate buildings were named for countries in the former Soviet Union, and back in the day held treasures and exhibits from their host countries. Now, however, these buildings housed retail space, most seemingly electronics stores run by Asian men.

The sun was hot but thankfully strong gusts of wind would occasionally blow the fountain water across the square, cooling us.

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/fountain.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/exhib3.jpg

In one of the buildings, there was some sort of exhibit going on that you had to pay to see. An Asian guy stood outside the doors, handing out pamphlets and chattering in a way that reminded me of carnival hucksters from my childhood. Irina wanted to see the exhibit and bought us two passes. However, when we entered I saw the entire show consisted of a bunch of fetuses floating around in big jars. I'm not really squeamish but I hate giving money to people who appeal to the most lurid, grotesque parts of our nature. So I told her I'd wait for her outside. About 20 minutes later she came out, and I could tell by her posture and tone of voice that she was pissed at me. I explained to her that the exhibit's content was disgusting to me. "But they are not alive, they have no feelings," she told me. We walked to the metro and Irina walked quickly, several times I had to jog to keep pace with her. When we lined up to take the escalator down to the metro platform, I lost sight of her and frantically searched the platform for her after a train quickly arrived and departed. Finally I caught site of her and scolded her for leaving me behind. When we arrived at the elektrichka station, she paid for her own ticket and asked me to pay for mine. OK, I got the gist, she was insulted at paying for my fetus exhibit ticket and then having me walk out of the show without so much as a thank you. I figured I'd wait for her to calm down and then talk about it.

We boarded the elektrichka at the height of rush hour. We were lucky enough to get seats at a car near the rear, but before the train left the station I gave my seat to a babushka standing nearby. The train's seating areas and center aisle were packed butt-to-belly with commuters. Twenty minutes later, as we approached Irina's station, she tapped me on the elbow and proceeded to squeeze past the aisle crowd. I tucked my mp3 player into my backpack and politely excused myself as I tried to move through the crowd. No one moved a muscle for me, and as the train slowed to a halt, I started to pushed my way through only to meet more resistance (and hisses from females). By time I got within arm's reach of the doors the train began accelerating. As the train pulled away, I looked out the window and saw Irina looking around the platform for me. I was super pissed and said the F-word loudly enough that the people around me withdrew a bit. The next stop was a good 5 minutes away, and the train flew... I knew I had a long walk ahead of me.

At the next station I bulled through the few people blocking the exit, not caring a whit if they were offended. On the platform I spied a street that seemed to run parallel to the tracks, but I figured the safest bet was to simply walk back along the tracks like some deranged railway hobo from the 1920s, transplanted from Arkansas to Moscow by some quirk of fate.

During my hike back I alternately dodged approaching trains while keeping an eye on the abandoned train cars that lined some sections of the path. Many such cars were now homes, and the inhabitants stared at me curiously although no one spoke. For posterity I snapped a quick photo in the failing light.

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/rail.jpg

I knew that if Irina had figured out what happened, she'd wait for the next train and then come after me. I was easily visible to anyone looking out the trains' windows, and I hoped she'd see me and then grab the next train in the opposite direction. After about 90 minutes I caught site of her station's platform. The long walk on a sweltering day had tired me and I once again laughed and thought that I could have never, in even my wildest dreams, imagined myself in such a situation before I began this crazy quest.

[wiz]

Groov

Sounds a bit odd.

Doesn't Iryna have a mobile and don't you use one when there?

Why didn't you wait for her to come and get you or why not taking a train on the opposite direction?

[Elen]

unability of a male to get out of any public transport at his station sounds for me odd as well 

Also I didn't get a part what's such former trains cars wich now are somebodies HOMEs In the best case it could be dachas but not homes for sure
------------------------------------------------------------

PS OK a trick wich would help you with crowd in publick transport

Nobody would move to get you a place if you try to make your way through a crowd SILENTLY . Moreover it's like that case when you yourself do deserve to get a kick from people and a hiss from women for such rude behavior of yours  in opinion of other people

You are supposed to ASK people to get you a way and there is NO sign on your forehead that you are a foreigner and can't do that due to your lack of language skills.

So learn a couple words for such situations

VyhOdite? ( are you going to get out) - a question wich is supposed to be asked in time enough to make your way to exist but not when bus/train already approached your station
 
 If you get an answer DA then stay calm and wait till those who stay before you would move into derection of exit An attempt to pass those people who said you DA would make you no good.

if you get an answer NET then say RasreshEEte or IzvenEEte and make your way ahead till other sombodie's back on your way.

Rather simple rules of a game actually 

[wiz]

Helen

When in Rome do as the Romans do!

When travelling on public transport in any country I just say EXCUSE ME....and if the person does not move then I use me elbow.

If you think this is rude then you should think also that the other person was more rude who did not moved to my polite expression!

I think Iryna was wrong leaving him behind for whatever reason. Lovers tiff.....

[groovlstk]

Wiz,

The smart thing would have been to chill out on the platform and wait for her, but hey I never claimed to be a genius. Irina has a mobile as do I, but I didn't bother bringing mine along on this trip, I simply saw no need. Also, not all trains stop at all stations, and with my luck that day I'd have ended up on the express to Swaziland.

Elen,

Irina explained to me later that elektrichka commuters stood and made their way to the exits one stop prior to their intended station during rush hour. I still don't understand it, but I can tell you with all certainty that Russian people are much less concerned about pushing and shoving than New Yorkers. Even on the most crowded subway train in NYC, if you say "excuse me" people around you know you must exit the train and will bend over backwards to make space for you. (Probably because they think you are a psychopath or have a gun, but that's another debate...) And I didn't use the words "excuse me," I said "ezviniitsya!"

[Elen]

What did not you still understand ?? That you could have no time to move through a crowd to exist if you stood when doors already opened at YOUR station? 

PS You should practice in speaking "izvinite" more fpr to do it better because this word does work for me ( and for other Russians) fine in rush hours in Moscow metro


-----------------------------------------------

Helen

When in Rome do as the Romans do!

When travelling on public transport in any country I just say EXCUSE ME....and if the person does not move then I use me elbow.

If you think this is rude then you should think also that the other person was more rude who did not moved to my polite expression!

I think Iryna was wrong leaving him behind for whatever reason. Lovers tiff.....

Okay I understood everything in your post except the word "Helen"? Are you sure you spelled the name Groovlstk correctly ? 

[Bruce]

I'll second Groovlsk on this one.  For sure Russians are ruder both on the Moscow and St. Petersburg lines than New Yorkers.

[groovlstk]

Elen,

If you take the metro at rush hour you must know that it can be a hellish experience because of overcrowding. In NYC we don't have such crowded trains, for the most part. Probably this makes me a rube compared to the average Muscovite

Moscow metro system:

• Annual ridership: 2.6 billion (2nd in the world only to Tokyo)
• 12 lines
• 171 stations
• 173 miles of track

 

NYC subway system:

• Annual ridership: 1.5 billion
• 26 lines
• 468 stations
• 660 miles of track

 

Then again, with so many obese Americans maybe things are more even than the numbers indicate:)

[Elen]

Moscow metro is more crowd than NY ones but even with that it's much more better    you just should know how to manage it.
 The end of sicussion You may continue with your trip report

[Turboguy]

Just a side note.   I see several of Moscows metro stations that are really beautifuly decorated.  Something like that could not last a week in New York without being totally destroyed.

[wiz]

Just a side note.   I see several of Moscows metro stations that are really beautifuly decorated.  Something like that could not last a week in New York without being totally destroyed.

Oh dear.....

and you (plural) keep telling everybody that you are the most civilised Nation on this planet?

HA HA HA

That is not what your comments say...........now!

[Turboguy]

Wiz, on my first trip to Moscow 10 years ago I only saw Graffiti two places.  One was the elevator for the gals building I was visiting the other I think was on a metro.  All the graffiti I saw was written in English.   I noticed the same thing on a trip to Paris long ago.

[wiz]

Wiz, on my first trip to Moscow 10 years ago I only saw Graffiti two places.  One was the elevator for the gals building I was visiting the other I think was on a metro.  All the graffiti I saw was written in English.   I noticed the same thing on a trip to Paris long ago.

So it wasn't American then???? HA HA HA

Never mind about that, let's wait for the next chapter from Groov.......

I can't wait for happy stories. I have my handkerchief ready!

[groovlstk]

Just a side note.   I see several of Moscows metro stations that are really beautifuly decorated.  Something like that could not last a week in New York without being totally destroyed.

Turbo, I suspect you haven't been to NYC for many years. Not only is it the safest big city in the US, it's safer than many small cities. In Manhattan, there are no "bad" neighborhoods anymore south of 96th St. Even in the years after 9/11, when unemployment was higher here than anywhere in the US, crime continued to plummet. Take Times Square as an example, less than 10 years ago it was seedy, the only "legitimate" business there sold porn and lap dances, now it's like Disneyland. Funny enough, some of my friends here hate it, saying that NYC has lost the edginess that made it hip. Manhattan has become very gentrified and while it's much safer, it's simply out of reach financially for people such as firefighters who paradoxically risk their lives to protect it.

[Turboguy]

I used to go to NYC a lot.  Now a days I don't get there much or at least not much closer than JFK Airport.  I did spend a few days in NYC last summer.  I do agree it has changed a lot.  Some of the subway cars I saw way back had so much grafiti it was hard to see what color the car had been.   They were about as clean as the Moscow ones last year. 

I too, used to enjoy the seedy side of NYC.  Not that I partook of much there but it was fun to see it.  You would walk down 42nd street and fight off all the drug pushers and walk up 7th ave and fight off all the hookers.  For a small town W. PA guy it was sort of fun just to watch.  I would walk through a few of the sex palaces and maybe drop a few quarters in the slots where the windows went up and some naked gal was dancing around in there but that was about the extent of what I did.   I have to say you are right.  It is a very different place than it used to be.

[catzenmouse]

Groov,

 I just wanted to add Elena and my congratulations to you! No matter the disappointments you felt from earlier visits/relationships I think that they were all pointing you in the right direction. It is a testament to you that you kept your head and kept looking until you found exactly what you were looking for. Both of us wish for both of you the greatest happiness, joy, and lifelong love!

Elena & Ken

[BillyB]

The next morning was bright and sunny, and we decided to do some touristy things. We hopped on the elektrichka and connected to the metro, then headed towards Exhibition Park.

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/exhib.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/exhib2.jpg

It's a beautiful public space. Irina explained to me that each of the ornate buildings were named for countries in the former Soviet Union, and back in the day held treasures and exhibits from their host countries. Now, however, these buildings housed retail space, most seemingly electronics stores run by Asian men.

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/fountain.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~marka136/exhib3.jpg

I was there in May! I recognize the pics.