S Novim 2009 Godom

I took a 17 days holiday from Christmas to New Year. I travelled around Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and saw the year off at the Red Square, Moscow. I expected that my trip to Russia would be the most difficult and challenging trip I had ever experienced. However it was not all it's cracked up to be. There are several elements that made my trip comfortable without any problem. In this post I would like to review my trip what makes my entire trip comfortable.



Firstly, my Russian friends helped me a lot. They gave me live information about Moscow in advance and helped me buy tickets and a mobile phone. They invited me for a wonderful silvester dinner in their new flat. I am so grateful of them for their great hospitality. If they had not advised me that I should go to the Red Square more early than I had planned because there were several security controls to enter the Red Square for new year celebration, I could not have celebrated new year and seen fireworks at the square. It was 5 min to the new year when I arrived at the square.

Secondly, I had prepared to study survival Russian in the run-up to the departure. I decided to take a trip to Russia in last October and then started studying Russian. I took private Russian lessons in Tokyo. It was just survival Russian such as greeting, counting numbers, typical phrases for travel use. As a result, few people understand English as I had expected. I managed to communicate with them in my poor Russian during my entire journey. At least I have got used to the Cyrillic alphabet. Thank my Russian teachers for helping my Russian. It worked really well.

Finally, there were lots of nice, friendly and supportive local people who helped me in every situation. They smiled not so often, but once I asked them for something, they tried to explain to me with patience although most of the people did not understand English. I realised in my trip that we have an inbuilt assumption that Russian people are not friendly. It is not a ture, I think that little smile and little English would inflate our Russian stereotype. Unfriendly people might used to be true, but Russian people in 21st century have changed.

To conclude, the countries I have been to this time are worth visiting. There are lots of amazing places round the region. Nice people, delicious food and beautiful lit up buildings especially in winter are waiting for your visit. The countries have been changing over the last ten years. Gloomy Soviet atmosphere has almost been cleaned up. With getting used to the Cyrillic alphabet, we can enjoy the modern Moscow and other former Soviet cities.