"A royal flush"

At the train station in Omsk, a city of over one million people, my host Alexey met me outside my train car. A very steady man, despite of his slippery, but shiny shoes. He wore a leather coat with a nice fur collar, and a nice Russian style hat. Always looking strong he kept his back straight. He insisted to help me carry my bag, and he helped me buying a ticket to Irkutsk.

Alexey took me home to meet his lovely wife Tanya. They got married in September 2009, and they still had balloons from the wedding hanging in the entrance hall. Alexey is now 23 years old. People in Russia get married earlier than in Norway, and many before they turn 20. Alexey told me that those who marry before 20 'always' divorce. I have no trouble believing that. If I were to get married now, I would certainly have large issues with this. I am not ready, in any way. My quest is to explore the world.

Both Alexey and Tanya speak English; although, at times they had a hard time to follow me. When I get excited I start talking very fast, but they would let me know, and I would have to repeat it (I have a tendency to repeat in a very basic way, as if I was talking to a little kid. I need to learn how to find the medium level.)

Alexey has a very fascinating profession. He plays poker online, and makes a good living from it. Here in Russia he does not have to pay any income tax when he is making money online, so all profits go right to his pockets. Alexey is a very smart guy, and you need to be if you want to make a lot of money playing poker. He has studied the game for about one and a half year before he started to actually play for real money. And as a former programmer, he has built a program that communicates with the online casinos, giving him information about the players he is up against. He can see how aggressive the players are, how much they loose, and how often they win. He will join a few tables, and look through the players to see if there is a 'fish' there. A 'fish' is a player he can make a lot of money from, easily. They are players you can read, because they only play 'safe', and they have normal patterns in their betting. So, if a player is a 'fish', Alexey decides to play him, but only if the 'fish' is of the kind that regularly looses $30 to $50 in a game. He does not bother to play people from who he can only win $10 before they leave the table. This way, a lot thanks to his program, Alexey lives in cheap Russia, he does not pay tax, and he makes more money in an hour than I do at my job back in Trondheim. Of course it is not only the program that wins him the money, it only helps him to select what players he should play and not. He is the one playing, and by constantly calculating percentages in his head, looking for unusual patterns in the opponents betting, all of this by experience, he plays and wins. He many times told me, when I was watching, "this guy has a 10, and a 5 or lower. When they turned the cards, the opponent had a 10 and a 4. This he did many times. He read it from how much the opponent was willing to bet. It was really fascinating!

As all my hosts in Russia, Alexey and Tanya were very attentive, and took me out so show me the city. One of the things we saw was the prison that Fyodor Dostoyevsky was placed in, when Tsar Nicholas I sent many intellectuals to Siberia for exile. The Tsar was afraid that the revolutions of the peoples of France, the German states, the Italian states, the Austrian Empire, and other European countries would also spread to his Empire. The prison cells seemed unchanged since Dostoyevsky was placed there in 1849.

Alexey also took me to a nice bar that he used to hang out at with his friends. Here the whole marriage thing became a little less frightening. Alexey told me he would meet his friends to have a few beers two, or maybe three times a week. So he still had time to meet his friends!

Here in Omsk I also met another CouchSurfer, Alexandra. Alexa had been very helpful in the months upon my arrival to Omsk, answering many questions and telling me about Omsk. I met her my last day in Omsk, and only for a few hours. But it was nice to see her, and it turned out this girl was a small celebrity in Omsk. She and her friend were the 'Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie' of central Siberia, except she said, they were not as crazy and stupid. But when they went to parties, magazines sometimes would interview them and write about their dresses. Apparently her dad had caught her sneaking out once, when she was supposed to stay at home. She was interviewed about her outfit in a magazine that he later read. Hard life! With me she took the route taxies. The easiest way of transport in all Russian cities where there is no metro. They are buses/vans that can seat 13 passengers, and they usually cost from 11 to 12 RUB. This is not even $0.40. But usually her fathers driver would take her to school and around town.

We had some interesting conversations, and after walking outside for a while, the -30 C /-22 F forced us to go to a cafe to have a cup of tea. One of the most interesting things I came over here was that she did not like Turkish people. Nobody I have spoken to in Russia does. Just like from Norway, many Russians travel to Turkey, but none of them like the Turkish people. This also went for the Swedish, Italian and Australian guys I later met on the train from Omsk to Irkutsk. For some reason, nobody likes the Turks!