The rocking and
rolling that put me to sleep last night woke me up this morning at
about 5.30am Moscow time. The trans-Siberian operates under a
slightly odd system – the trains don't run on local time, they run
on Moscow time. The difference between these two times increases by
roughly an hour a day, and when you keep getting off the train, this
can make things confusing, both for your conscious mind and for your
unconscious body clock. Our travel agent has helpfully converted
everything to local time on our itinerary, making it less likely that
we'll miss our train when leaving a city, but unhelpfully haven't
included the Moscow times, making it a bit trickier to figure out
when to get up in the morning to make sure we're ready to get off at
our stop. Luckily today's train arrived in the city of Perm at about
9.30am Moscow time (11.30am local time), so we had plenty of to get
ready to get off.
Kate woke up a bit
later, and when the girls awoke – quite a bit later - we started to
organise breakfast. The trains on the trans-Siberian helpfully come
with an urn at the end of each carriage, where you can help yourself
to hot water. We had come prepared with packets of cup-a-soup and
cup-a-porridge (back in Winchester we had a taste-testing lunch,
where we tried about six different types of soup, each giving them a
rating so we knew who liked what), and this morning we broke them out
for the first time – (lumpy) porridge for Kate and Zoe, and soup
and rye crackers for Zoe and I.
A light rain was
falling when we got off the train in Perm. It was on the cold side –
about 6C – and we could see our breath as we trudged down to the
bus stop, wandered from shelter to shelter trying to figure out where
the number 68 left from and then settled in to wait the 15 or so
minutes until it arrived. When it finally pulled up, we joined the
rush to jump on, Kate and I making a pile of bags near the middle
door and the girls heading up to the back seats. When the conductor
came around, we showed her our map and managed to get her to
understand that we needed her to tell us when to get off. At each
stop, the bus got more and more packed, to the point where Kate and I
were eventually crushed against the windows. The girls got up and
joined us and then finally, the conductor indicated that it was time
for us to get off. This was easier said than done and we had to force
our way through the crush, the conductor loudly exhorting people to
let us off.
Out on the pavement,
we caught our breath and gathered our thoughts and then headed off in
the direction that our rudimentary map suggested would lead to our
hotel. After a few wrong turns, we duly found it and checked in, the
receptionist sitting Kate in front of her computer and using Google
Translate to explain the ins and outs. We then headed out into what
was now a rather heavier rain. We were looking for the Perm Opera and
Ballet Theatre, where we needed to pick up our tickets for tonight's
performance of Beethoven's 9th, but spied an outlet of a
local fast food chain and decided to stop for some lunch. It was a
cafeteria-style place, a popular type of restaurant in Russia, and a
handy one for us as it means that you can just point at what you want
rather than having to actually ask for something off a menu that you
can't read anyway. The prices were extremely reasonable and our trays
of dumplings, pancakes and potatoes came to a grand total of about
£5. The food was tasty and filling, but not quite filling enough, so
we went back for seconds.
Back outside, we
quickly found the concert hall but it was all locked up. Thankfully,
a helpful woman sheltering from the rain pointed us to the ticket
office around the corner, where we met up with the lovely Olga, with
whom Kate had been corresponding from Winchester and who sorted us
out with our tickets (which cost 600 roubles each – about £8). We
then had a bit of wander around Perm – down to the Kama River,
which runs through the city and to a lovely wine shop, where we
bought a cheap bottle of Italian wine for tomorrow night's dinner on
the train. We then began what turned out to be a rather long and
frustrating search for a coffee, eventually ending up in a very
trendy bar located across the road from our lunch restaurant.
After a bit of a
rest at the hotel, we got dressed up in what passes as our best
outfits and headed back to the concert hall, which was now buzzing
with patrons. We found our seats – high up on a balcony with a
passable view of the orchestra and settled in to wait for the
concert. The hall was fairly small, but quite ornate – all red
velvet, grand staircases and big chandeliers – and the orchestra was correspondingly
compact, but the acoustics were good and when the chorus got going it
made quite a racket. The Japanese conductor, who was making his first
visit to Russia, was wonderfully expressive and both the orchestra
and the chorus were extremely good. All in all, the performance was
absolutely sublime. The girls loved it – Kate and I were a bit
worried at first as it looked as though they might fall asleep, but
the last movement woke them up and they couldn't help but be
impressed by the singing. We left the hall buzzing and after stopping
for photos with a big statue of Lenin, we made our way back to the
bar that we had visited earlier, where Kate and I had an absolutely
dire glass of white wine each.
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