Tver Archives - Plug Me In

23 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 160 | Some lessons in Tver

Day 160 | Sunday August 22

The Babushka’s treated me with even more fruits, vitamine C and herbal tea. I started to feel better. Today they took me for a tour through Tver. Hundreds of years ago there was a battle between Moscow and Tver about which city would be the capital, so it’s a place with much history. The river Volga flows through the middle of the city and has it’s spring nearby. The famous poet Pushkin has 2 statues here and also Lenin has one. There are still some small reminders about the Soviet Union times, in the heart of the centre can be found an old theater from that time.

Tver has 400.000 citizens which they consider not much people for a city in Russia. It is quite, nice and interesting to walk through. The woman had a lot to tell about it. One monument reminded of the 1.400 people that died on submarines during WWII. They had no idea why this was placed here as there was no submarine base nor any other relation with submarines.

Yesterday I asked them if they knew anyone who could cut my hair. My hair became quite long, it came over my ears and to the back of my neck. They immediately took all their phones out of their pockets and started making phone calls. They couldn’t find one but offered to pay for a barber today. So we did. I showed the barber some pictures of the model I prefer and I think she managed to cut it like that, I feel young again.

Sustainability

I tried to talk with the woman about what they think about sustainability. They didn’t really understand what it meant and after I described it with some examples they understood but apparently it’s not really a issue in Russia. Tanya told that she thinks about it sometimes but hasn’t really started to work on it.

A problem in Russia is clear drinking water. It doesn’t come out the pump here at homes so you need to buy it at stores. Some people use the pump water to cook, others don’t. Some companies installed water supplies on the streets, for a cheap price (4 Ruble or €0,05 a liter) you can refill your bottles here. The company claims it’s pure drinking water but most citizens don’t believe this and buy bottles at the stores.

Pictures of today

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21 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 159 | Valday – Tver

Day 159 | Saturday August 20

My hosts Ivan and Dascha left in the morning for work. Ivan is an IT-specialist and takes care of the ATM’s in the region. He had to go to another town and would be back around noon. With the other Ivan I visited two museums in Valday. The first one was the bell museum. Valday is well known for this. Since a long time (already since the year 1400 if I understood correctly) they have been making bells here. Small ones and huge ones. For example on all the churches in St. Petersburg the bells came from this place. Their market was not only in Russia but even in China their bells were sold. In one of the rooms it was possible to play with the bells which was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. Most of the visitors left quickly.

The second museum was the museum of history from Valday. Many artifacts (including lots of bells) from ages ago could be found here. Very interesting to see old pictures from people in their original costumes.

Unfortunately Ivan’s work was delayed and I couldn’t say goodbye to them. Ivan’s mother Nina wanted to be sure that I was allright and when I got there she gave me 3 huge bags of apples, some drinks and potatoes, she is a true “Babushka”, as they call grandmothers here.

My next stop was Tver, 220km farther away were brad Seppo found a relative were I could stay. Seppo was one of my hosts in Helsinki. 220km is a distance which I can make under the most ideal circumstances. Today there were some hills, the temperature was 22 degrees and it didn’t rain. Almost ideal. When I had 10% battery left I had done 180km (which is a good achievement) and now knew that I just couldn’t make it. I stopped at a restaurant next to the highway to ask if I could charge here. The woman didn’t speak English and luckily I was prepared for that. Before entering Russia I made a document with an explanation of my project and some basic questions like “where can I find a socket?”, “where can I find a toilet” or “can you offer me some electricity”. That worked and she showed me where I could plug in the car.

The highway to Tver was party a tollway and I didn’t know that in advance, it was 200 Rubles and luckily I had received some money from Vlad and could pay for it.

Around 7pm I arrived at my hosts in Tver. The whole family came out to see me. They lived in a single house with a huge garden, which is special in Russia and especially in a big city as most people live in apartments. They served me a good Russian meal with Borscht and meat. They noticed that I was not feeling well, gave me a lot of medicines and sent me to bed quickly. The Russians know how to take care of you.

Pictures of today

Bells

Big bell

Playing with my bells

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