We started early at 07.30 because we were going for a full day excursions to the city Berezniki and Usolje, which are about a 2-3 hour drive away form Russia. Our plan was to sleep some on the way but I think we had underestimated the awakening effect of the Russian roads (or more precisely, the holes in the road). But it was well worth the ride and I think it just to get used to some average of 4 hours of sleep per night for this journey. Seems to be what we can fit into our schedule. Anyhow, in Berezniki Charlotte and I started with an excursion of the city. The others went to a meeting with the deputy major which turned out to be a big event with local press, TV etc. Oskar will write a separate blog entry on that. The excursion was very interesting and I learnt alot about modern Russian history regarding how the town was constructed by the communist party and how important functions from Moscow, St Petersburg and Volgograd was evacuated to citys in the middle of Russia such as Berezniki during the second world war (or the great patriotic war as it is called in Russia).
Since I also have a fetischism for old industrial town Berezniki was perfect with a lot of really massive old industrial plants.
On the afternoon we went to a nearby village called Usolje and to the historical site of the house of Stroganof. We visited the local musuem, which hosted both some local historical items and more suprisingly some really interesting modern sculputres and modern art installations.
After that we were submitted (yes....submitted is the right word...you will understand why when you see the video) to an interactive folk lore theatre explaning the local traditions in a very funny way. Interactive means the we often were made part of the show since we were included as actors, trying out the historical games which were played in the area etc. You can find a short video of this here:
After the theatre we had a dinner and the opportunity to ride in a horse wagon while one of the actors played for us. This was awesome. The weather was beautful, the surrounding bizarre with a mixture of old historical buildings and industrial plants and the actor was fenomenal. To me it doesn’t become much more russian than this.
Once back in Perm we had a dinner and drinks with some of the friends we made in Perm. We went to a Turkish restaurant where we had a very nice dinner and tried out the water pipe. The athmosphere was awesome and it was honestly one of the best dinners of my life.
The evening ended with a lot of good-byes, which I just realized will be a sad aspect of this travel. We meet so many nice people and make so many friends, and they end up in equally sad and numerous good-byes since we are only staying a couple of days in each city. But that is something you’ll just have to deal with in a trip like this.
After way to few hours of sleep (3,5 to be precise) we went up early again to start the long drive to Ykatrineburg. I will truly miss Perm and all the people we met there. Our Russian adventure couldn’t have started better than it did and I am very grateful to everyone which made such an effort to make our Perm stay that great.
Best Regards,
Anders
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