Bohemian Living

I've been home the whole day, because I have the worst cold ever. Mostly just been sleeping since the internet sucks and I can't think of anyting to do. Should probably practise Russian, but I just get depressed for not getting anything right. Luckily the guy living next to me speaks only Russian to me, and he's quite talkative as well. There's six people living here altogether, (It's quite the bohemian commune thing going on in here) though they seem never to be at home.

The one's I know are: Diana, the girl who majored in English, and who's actually working with exchange students here in some university I don't know. She said she knows a couple of people from the University of Tampere as well. She has the cutest Japanese Bobtail cat ever, he's always hanging in my room and playing with my stuff like crazy. The first everning we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and Diana told me there's a way to get into the roof. It's supposed to be very beautiful there at night time, when they lift up the bridges and the whole city is lit up.

The Cat, who hangs in my room in the evernings.

We painted the walls to make it cozier.

A huge painting left by the last inhabitant of the room. Misha lives now nex to me with Diana. Oh and my Christmas lights finally found a tree.

Then there's the surgeon boy, Aleksei I think his name was. He seems really nice as well, though we've been having only small conversations in Russian. There's one room vacant, because the boy who lives there is in China at the moment. He has a picture of Dali on his door, so he can't be that bad. 

Then there's Anash-something, can't remember his name (and if I could surely wouldn't know how to spell it.) but I just know him as the crazy multitalented artist guy. He lives in the room next to mine, and like two of the other guys living here, he also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He's a sculptor/ fotographer/ musician and always drinking tea. He can play crazy balcan tunes all night long, sometimes singing, sometimes reciting a play or a poem. I told him I paint, and that I'm really interested of studying at the Academy, so now we're trying to practice my russian.

Stas and Najda helped me to find this place through an estate agency, and I really like it here. We do have warm water, though currently we're washing our dishes in the bathroom since the tab's dead in the kitchen. We have to get a new one, hopefully It won't be too expencive. Everything in Russia happens "tomorrow", like the tab, that should have been fixed a week ago already. The house was built in the beginning of the 20th century, though the last two floors were added in 1930. I live in the sixth floor, and obviously there's no elevator. Can say getting my bed up here was quite fun, though unfortunately I got to be a mere spectator, hehhe.

It has five rooms and a kitchen, a toilet, and a bathroom. In the Soviet times these sort of apartments (like this one, right in the centre, near Nevsky Prospekt) were usually communes inhabitet by several families. Since the state took care of the necessary repairs, mots of the apartments in the centre are in poor condition. Rental apartments owned by the city etc. don't really exicst in the system, so it's always a private person renting an estate. You can get easily scammed when looking for an apartment, so it's quite good to know what you're doing. ( you rent an apartment, pay the fees, and when you get there, someone else is living there already) Also usually the agencies advertise fot apartments or cheap rooms in the internet, but when you ask for them you get something like "oh, that place is no longer available, but we got this slighty better one for xx rub. more money...". Especially if you're a foreigner. That's why I got lucky having Russian people helping me to find such an affordable place: my rent is something like 180 euros per month.

Ps. I just had chicken soup with two of the guys. I only had to mention the word "vodka" and they were already holding a bottle in their hands. Haha! We should get along just fine.....