Goodbye Winter/Hello Summer and One of the Weirdest Memorials I've Seen.

I have sick Photoshop skillz!

This might be a distraction tactic from the need to choose my modules for next year. To put it lightly, I'm screwed looking at the choice of modules. So I've taken Oasis's advice to 'Stop crying your heart out' and here is a little bit of creative procrastination...

Well, as the title says, Winter has gone and Spring/Summer has arrived. It may be still classed as Spring here but the weather definitely makes it seem more Summery. It may come as a shock to some but Russia isn't only snow 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In fact, today it is 16 degrees Celsius, which is hotter than The English Riviera (plus less rain, but that's a given).

No longer are people able to write their loved one's name in the snow on top of the iced over river. However, there is an alternative. They now use chalk like children and write it on the pathways by the river.

Anyway, it is the first week of my two week holiday. Whilst many have decided to go travelling to Riga, Helsinki, Volgograd etc. I was a bit lazy and decided to stay here and see some of the sights I missed on my first visit here in 2007 with my school. One that struck out to me was the monument to a little bird. The problem was no-one I spoke to or any website could tell me exactly where it was when I was looking.

So I spent a few hours here and there trying to find this little statue. The only knowledge I had was; 1) It is on the left branch of the Neva. a.k.a. the Fontanka river and 2) It is close to a bridge. Sounds easy to find BUT the Fontanka is roughly 7Kms long and there are over 340 bridges. Now you see why it was so hard to find. But I persevered and managed to find him.

You may be asking why is this monument such a big attraction. Well Chizhik-Pyzhik is a Russian nursery rhyme:

Чижик-пыжик, где ты был?

Chizhik-Pyzhik, where have you been?

Chizhik-Pyzhik, gd^je ty byl?

На Фонтанке водку пил.          

Drank vodka on the Fontanka. 

Na fontank^je vodku pil.

Выпил рюмку, выпил две —    

Took a shot, took another -        

Vypil r^jumku, vypil dv^je -

Зашумело в голове.     

Got a headache.

 Zashum^jelo v golov^je.

There is a belief that if you drop a coin on the ledge and it remains there you are in for some good luck. It is almost a tourist trap and with numerous tourists in the way, it is hard to get an opportunity to drop many coins. I dropped a few coins but none stayed on the ledge. It was my last coin, 10 roubles. As if by magic it dropped and remained on the ledge. Russians were shocked, after all I'd seen people drop around 20 coins each and none stay on the ledge.

You may call me a liar but the only 10 rouble coin on the perch is mine. For those not used to the Russian currency its the far left gold coin. I'm still waiting for my good luck to come in but hopefully I haven't jinxed it.

In other news, I decided to get a Zenit shirt with my name in Russian on the back. One problem I had was translating my name into Russian. Look at your visa, you might say. But I have had 3 visas and 3 different spellings of my surname; Бёртлз (Byortlz), Биртлз (Birtlz) and Бертлз (Byertlz). I asked a member of staff if he could help me. I wrote out the above spellings and he looked at me plain-faced and said they are all the same, you can choose any. So I went for Бёртлз (my host in Petrozavodsk said that's how she had envisioned the spelling of my surname before).

And finally, I am going to go to my first Zenit game on Wednesday night. It's the semi-final of the Cup of Russia against Anzhi Makhachkala. It has been well publicized Russian teams don't like foreigners; my hope is that they are too busy with the fans from Dagestan to vent their anger towards me.

Lets just hope I make it through...