Perm

(Yekaterinburg - Perm 380km/236 Miles)
Total distance traveled = 10,177 km/6323 Miles

No hostels in Perm. Well, none that I could find in guide books or the internet anyway. I wasn't keen on forking out for a hotel, so I looked for alternatives. A few years ago I'd joined a website called 'Couchsufing'. I wasn't sure if I'd ever use it, but after reading about the site I thought i'd see what it was all about. Basically, people who join the site can offer their couch (or spare bed/mattress) to travellers for free, or look for members who are offering a place to sleep. Members are organised by city and receive references and ratings from other members who meet, or stay with them. As well as offering a place to sleep, the site also gives the option to offer to meet for a coffee. This way you can help people around your city, without having them stay in your home. When I joined, I wasn't sure if I'd ever use the service, but I filled in a profile, added a few photos, and set my status to 'meet for a coffee' and 'couch not available'.

This seemed like a good time to try the site. I mean, if someone let me stay and we didn't get along I could still just go and stay in a hotel. With this in mind, I sifted through the site when planning the trip. I'm not sure how other members decide who to make a request to stay with, but I looked at a few (mainly superficial) factors....

* Do they look like a nutter in the photo.

* Do they speak English well enough for us to communicate.

* Do they sound normal in their profile write up.

....As I said, fairly superficial. I'd probably fail a lots of screenings if the same questions were asked of my profile. After looking through a few, rejecting nutter type photos, and the guy whose hobbies were 'shooting and hunting' (again probably normal in the middle of Russia, but added another element of risk in my mind), I sent requests to two people. One said they were away/busy on the dates I suggested, the other said OK. So I was going to a city in the middle of Russia where very few travellers go, and I was staying with someone I'd never met before, for three nights!

I emailed close to the time and Lana (the girl who I was staying with) said she couldn't meet me at the station at the time my train arrived. I wasn't too concerned about this and suggested I just hang around or wander around the city on my own. She said it was no problem for her friends to come and meet me though, so I'd be met by two more strangers...who I'd never even communicated with.

The city didn't look particularly appealing as I pulled into the station. After initially wandering the wrong way (no signs!) I found the exit, and two guys holding a sign with 'Hi David' on it, a bit like those you see at the arrivals department of airports. As a kid I'd always thought this was quite cool, but never going on business trips or hiring drivers meant that until now I'd never experienced it.

Illiya introduced himself and his friend Vladimir (bit more shy, and less English). They'd been put in charge of entertaining me until Lana was free at about 9pm. As it was hot, they suggested a 'picnic' by the river. By picnic, they meant a few beers and some crisps, but I wasn't hungry so that was no biggie. We drove down to the riverside and met 3 of Vladimir's friends sat by their car smoking a shisha/hookah (those waterpipe things that I associate with the Middle East/North Africa). Illiya was the only one with a good command of English, so he set about tranlating everything that they said. This continued for a while, then in the pizza restaurant where we went for coffee after. I felt a bit bad for Illiya, but he seemed to enjoy speaking English (he teaches English) and translated everything even when I said that he didn't neccessarily need to translate what was said if it had no relevance to me. The conversations ranged from my impressions of Russia and Russians, sports, Rope jumping (like bungee but the rope doesn't stretch), and a monkey that used to live in the pizza restaurant.

When I arrived at Lana's house (actually her parents, as she's living in China now and just back for the holidays) it felt a bit strange, but she was very welcoming and made me feel comfortable. We chatted for a while before I went to sleep, and I felt a little better with the whole 'staying in a strangers house' situation.

The next day we spent most of the day walking around the city, from her home to the old part of the city, a viewpoint, a military museum, parks, an opera house, etc. Lana knew a lot about the area from her family and wandering around herself, and told me a lot about the area. That evening I met her parents (they didn't speak any English, so when we needed to communicate Lana translated). Her father works for a television company (i think) and makes documentaries. He'd recently won an award for one of them. I think he was also involved in a magazine (which I would later be interviewed for!). Her mother made dolls and figures. I saw a few of them in the home. They were really good. They kind of remind me of stop motion animation figures, the kind I'd seen in an animated adaptation of The Tempest, or maybe A Nightmare Before Christmas. A bit dark, and fairytale-like.

The next day I visited the Perm 36 museum. A former GULAG prison camp. It was a pain to get there, and Lana suggested that it wasn't that great. But as this was the only reason I'd chosen to stop in the city, I still wanted to go and see for myself. I was driven to the bus station and helped to buy the ticket, before I was sent on my way for the day. I met a French Canadian girl on the bus going to the same place, so we managed to work out the correct stop and the right direction to walk the 3km to the museum once we got off the bus.

At the museum we team up with an Italian guy for an English tour, in order to spread the cost a little. There was some confusion at the start of the tour as the English guide didn't seem to understand our simple English quesitons about the tour. He seemed very nervous, but improved as the tour continued and was able to tell us quite a lot about the palce. The camp was interesting, but it seemed that the museum was underfunded and so wasn't as good as it could have been.

That evening, Lana's father interviewed me. It was for an article about foreigners visiting Perm, and so I expected questions about my travels. It was a lot more rigourous that I expected though, and went into topics like 'why did you move to Japan?', 'Why didn't you choose a job related to your degree?', and 'Will you stay in Japan forever?'. The kind of serious probing questions that I tend not to think about and don't really have answers to! It was quite interesting though. Again, my translator was made to work hard, but Lana dida great job of translating. I wonder if i'll get to see the finished article?

Overall, it was a lot better experience than I'd expected to have. The house and people were nice, I was given a lot more attention than I expected, I got a few home cooked meals, and I didn't encounter any nutters.

A few photos...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Perm/?albumview=slideshow