Russia didn't allow me on the internet for the best part of 2 months, but I have all the blog entries from that time span, so now I can enjoy a typing marathon, and they all go up at once...

Roughly mid-October, I think.

Siberia, where winter is a myth made up to keep annoying foreigners away

Nickles (even after this long, his hostess still can't pronounce Nicholas or even Nick) has run away from hospital. Even after a week, they still produced no diagnosis (we all knew perfectly well there was nothing whatever wrong with him) so he packed his plastic bag, bade a fond farewell to the policeman in the next bed (also right as rain, but infinitely less fed up with having nothing to do), discharged himself, and took a bus back to his hood. Each of our teachers took one look at him and exclaimed with surprise, wonder and delight that he was ishcho zhivoi (still alive). He is now on an untiring mission to get one of us into hospital as quickly as possible. Apparently it would be funny. He has since had at least three people shake his hand and congratulate him on the great achievement of surviving a week in the BSMP, as it is the worst hospital in the city.

Continuing along the medical theme - has anyone in England (i.e. a sensible country which is not full of hyperchondriachs) ever heard that women shouldn't sit on the floor? We thought Fila (heretofore referred to as Philly, but the Russians can't cope with that, so for the sake of ease we copy them) was joking when she said they are all terrified of ovary infections, but as we got more and more warning words each time we sat on the ground or a rock, we decided to ask the ever-willing Tatiana Konstantinovna (our favourite teacher - about 30, beautiful, rich, fashionable, married, in love with her cat, and with a cackle like a cartoon witch). It is absolutely true, she says. One can obtain cystitis, if lucky, or much worse, if unlucky. I think my good friend Trevor has omitted to wash this week, I can smell him rather strongly. In the same conversation, we taught Tatiana the phrase "fallopian tubes", and she taught us the Russian names for various parts of the digestive tract. Surely men have much more to worry about than women when it comes to sitting on cold surfaces?! Particularly as there are only 884 men for every 1000 women.

This is not just a statistic - Russia is truly a nation of women. The competition for men is so great that an average Russian girl will spend her entire adolescence and early twenties going to ridiculous lenghts to get a man. If she is lucky, one of the omnipresent catcallers (what's the point in manners when you could get any girl you want anyway because they're all so desperate?) will turn into a boyfriend, who might then marry her and provide her with a baby. The moment she starts to lose her looks, he will leave her for someone younger and prettier (he still has all the choice in the world - you just never see middle-aged or elderly couples, but plenty of older men with younger girls), start drinking heavily, get into fights, and either end up in prison or die. It is very noticeable wherever you go - there are hardly any men anywhere, the few there are are rarely over 35, and always have a glamorous girl in tow. The average life expectancy for men in Russia is 56. The elderly women look to us as though they must surely be in their 80s or 90s (hunched, haggard, dressed in shawls, string bags of root vegetables), but are in fact only in their late 60s.

We have achieved Krasnoyarian fame; we have been interviewed for local TV. I was the main victim for questioning, and when I didn't understand the question, I just jabbered about fluffy animals at the zoo. We're trying to get hold of copies to put on Facebook/Youtube. Will let you know if this ever happens.

The way to stay safe when walking through the forest at night is to sing Abba songs at the top of your voice. It scares everyone away, including the multitude of stray dogs, one of which turned out to be a person. It was dark, ok? This trick works even better if you have watched Mama Mia two evenings in a row, and can't quite snap out of the feeling that you are on a Greek island, living the life of Riley with Colin Firth and Piers Brosnan.

The other night we had a culinary party with some Nyemtskiys (the Russian for "Germans" is "dumb people" because it was felt, in the days of yore, that Germans had particular trouble speaking Russian. It's not even slang). and during the preparation we discovered not only that it is possible to buy baking powder in Russia, but also that we had bought some by accident the first week we were here, and not known what it was. We also found "Cheddar" cheese - it was bright orange and not really Cheddar, but it melts! Score! A bit too much fun was had by all...

Ruth now lives on the same stairwell as Lucy. Not in a homeless sense - remember all the Russians live in blocks of flats. Some men in boiler suits (there have been vague attempts both ways at making conversation) are painting the stairwell orange, and Ruth does not like this because "it's like being in someone's mouth". This is not the only special thing Ruth has said this week - I was told to "come back here, you've only got one eye!"

In our local supermarket, one may purchase chickens' feet (or "paws", as Tatiana prefers to call them) and chickens' heads by the dozen. We thought we might get some just for fun, although just what we would do with twelve chicken heads is beyond me. With just one of them, there is a possibility... it has been suggested we buy all the chicken body parts we can find - legs, wings, breasts ("you can get breasts without bones in them," said Nick, "they're really nice"), paws, heads etc, and "reconstruct" a chicken. There has been debate as to whether or not sellotape would do the job, but there's lots of space in the freezer, and we all like lots of chicken (apart from Rosie the Second, who is a part-time vegetarian, a concept the Russians can make neither head nor tail of). We are drawing the line, however, at chicken head soup. The heads and paws can go to the stray dogs- we are told that the only reason they are so mild is that they know quite a lot of people will feed them, so it is not worth their while being aggressive.

There have been a lot of animal references this week. In addition to those previously mentioned, Sasha has great difficulty with the pronunciation of the words "horse" and "host", and then further difficulty remembering which word is which. We had a rather strange conversation which involved the phrases "I am your horse," "do you like to ride a host?" and "I have a friend, he possess two hoes." This was followed by a demonstration of riding a horse cowboy-style, lassoo and all, and he had not the first idea why we were in crumpled heaps on the floor in fits of laughter and tears.

There is no direct translation of the word "privacy" in Russian - this should go some way towards explaining how it feels to live amongst the Russians. The concept (or lack of it) extends not only to personal space (both at home and out and about) but also to topics of conversation. We are all frequently told things we'd rather not know (think intimate details of medical history and past relationships etc, and you're on the right lines), and asked questions which we would consider forward, personal or even prying, which we would rather not answer. Russia is a very strange place!

I have had a shouting match with a rather terrifying Russian woman, and won. Admittedly, the shouting match was mostly in English, but just you try arguing with a Russian, even in your own language.

Dear Elena, every day I love her more. My dinner one day this week was a salad called "herring in a fur coat" - under beetroot and some other things. She is much cheered that we are going to Lake Baikal after all (it nearly didn't happen at all, due to prices, but now it's only Mongolia that's fallen through. That would leave rather a large hole in the map) and has been helping me find ways of avoiding verbs of motion. For those of you who know no Russian, it is impossible to talk about simply "going" - you have a ridiculously large choice of verbs, depending on if you are going on foot, by land vehicle, by air, by water, or running, then more choice depending on whether you are going and coming back, going and staying, going just once, going every day, going usually, or just going around and about aimlessly. And that's before you start thinking about the all-important prefixes. So yes, Elena has been helping me avoid them, particularly as I explained that they are the bane of my existence (no, I don't know the Russian for that), but has failed to grasp that I do actually need to get my head around them pretty sharpish if I am to get a vaguely respectable degree. She has also, mercifully, corrected my mis-use of prefixes on the verb "to sleep". I told her that Lucy and I, after going to the all-night cinema (3 films in a row for £2, starting at about 1am), had gone to bed in Lucy's giant double bed at 7am and slept in until 12. I used the verb "perespat". "No Rosy, perespat is a bad word. It is better to say prospat." Lucy and I, it seems, had spent those 5 hours in her large bed doing something very different.

It is hard to believe we are half way through our time here already, it seems we've hardly even finished settling in yet. Although I am very much looking forward to once again being in a country where people do not automatically assume I am stupid, pathetic, weak, cowardly, thoroughly dependant on my parents, incapable of looking after myself etc just because I am female and English. It is the most infuriating thing about this place! Nothing annoys me more. All girls and women are weak, pathetic and scared, all English people are stupid and hopeless, so English women have no chance of gaining any respect.