30 August - 16 September
At last! Now I have Internet at home.

What I've been doing here:
- Cleaning the flat and carrying the things away (to the family house; I'm living in our 2-room flat nearby), assembling furniture, fixing things. Fighting roaches (daily).
- Buying food, things for home, and looking for a bed (now I sleep on the floor).
- Helping Mother in the house/garden.
- Enrolled to the course of teaching Russian to foreigners and to a driving school (both start 25 Sept.).
- Got all my 3 parcels from Sweden (including new photos, they will be uploaded soon!)
- Phoned to my ex-girlfriend Irina (now she lives in Moscow). I'll have to go to Novomoskovsk (her parents' flat) soon to get my video and cassettes.
- Caught a cold, I'm still ill.
- Reading: Voinovich's "Chonkin". I also get TIME here, but it comes 2 weeks late.
- Bought a modem, tried to connect for several days, finally got the connection on 16 Sept.

News at home:
Yulia left her job in July, her salary was too low (about usd 50). Mum has also finished her job. Grandma is in a bad shape, she almost can't walk. Dad left his job in our village and works now in Moscow, at a heating plant (his salary increased from usd 70 to 170).

The driving school
I enrolled to the driving school in Vidnoye (the town between my village and Moscow). The course lasts 2 months and costs 2800 roubles (now USD 101). Theory lessons are 3 days a week in the evenings. The course also includes 24 hours of car driving and some simulator driving. In addition I can purchase extra driving training for 50 r/hour. On the same day I went through a medical check in the school for 150 r. extra (they just check the sight).

The driving groups are being formed. I do not know yet when I drive, first I need to pay for the course.

At the end of the course there will be an internal exam, then a exam with the GAI (traffic inspection) who will come to the school. If I fail the first GAI exam, all other attempts to pass the exam I'll be making in my area of residence, that is Podolsk. I need an international driving license which will be given on the basis of the local Russian driving license for a additional fee (I hope the procedure will not be as exasperating as getting an external passport).

17 September, Sunday
Life in Fedyukovo. Russian suburbia. A strange feeling of surfing Internet in a Russian village! Most of the villagers here do not have even phones. The phone lines are terrible. Most of the day today we've been without water too. On the other hand, life is inexpensive.

Those who work in the village get a salary usd 40 - 100 per month. In the Soviet times there was a big state farm here - sovkhoz Put' Ilicha, i.e. Ilich's (=Lenin's) Way State Farm. Then, in the beginning of 90s, it was privatised and called ZAO. Those who worked in non-agricultural facilities (like my Dad, he worked at a heating plant) got no shares. Officially ZAO has still no profits, just losses. Common workers and former pensioners get no dividends on their shares and they can sell them only via ZAO. But the director (same who headed the state farm) and his family live in luxury. They own several houses and flats, garages with cars. Recently the director's son got married, there were 200 guests at the party - all in white suits! But officially the director and his wife (she also works in ZAO) get an ordinary Russian salary.

Crime is not infrequent in our village. My Dad has told my of a few people robbed of their money which they kept at home (where else can one keep money in Russia?). One man, our cinema mechanic - I remember him - told someone that he wanted to buy a car; soon he was robbed and beaten to death.

Dad advised me to be cautious. It's better not to tell people of having lived in Sweden. (I've almost nothing to hide at home, though).

We have only one policeman in Fedyukovo. He lives in another village and sits in his office here during the day. At night anything may happen - and happens - here.

For example there was a gang of robbers for years in Fedyukovo that attacked lone women who went home late from the train station. Many were robbed, some killed. Finally the robbers were caught by local men and turned out to be residents of Leninskaya (next station from us to the south).

I think that in Russia outskirts of big cities are most criminalised and marginalised. There are few good jobs there, many people live in poverty, yet these suburb residents often come to downtown and see western-style shops, nightclubs and the New Russians in their Cherokee jeeps. Of course some are attracted by a promise of easy money and join gangs. Many gangs that sliced all Moscow originated in the suburbs (such as Solntsevo gang).

Still these people are an exception. There are many others, however, who drop out of their stable but almost unpaid jobs in suburbs and start work in town as salesmen on numerous markets, in zillions of kiosks, on suburban trains (elektrichkas). When I ride from Moscow they turn up one after another people People drop their professional jobs for which they were trained and start to "spin" (vertetsya), as Russians put it, that is take all sorts of odd jobs that bring some cash in order to make a living.

Another phenomenon in suburbs are so-called castles - huge, brick mansions springing up around Moscow. A few years ago there was just an empty field between our house and the forest. Now there are about 30 new houses. The most imposing belong to the director of our state farm. Another big house belongs to an employee of FSB (former KGB), also officially not a highly salaried job.

21 September, Thursday
Grandma's death. Two days ago my grandmother died - mother's mum, my last grandparent. She was 76 and in a bad shape. During the last year, while I was away, grandma broke both her legs: the bones got fragile. She was operated and got metal rods instead with which she could barely move about the house. When I came from Sweden (3 weeks ago) she told me she felt very ill and wanted to die. Then we noticed she was forgetting words (nouns) and sometimes talking nonsense. I do not know why exactly she died. Mother says there were gas leaks in the house recently and she could not sleep at night, but they both also got bronchitis - anyway they were coughing, but the grandma was weaker of course.

We buried her today in village Sitenka (75 km. to the south from us), next to the granddad who died in 1993. My mother's friends (ladies in their 50s), uncle Volodia (mother's brother), and my sister came to help. I helped mostly with money. At 9 a.m. they all went to the cemetery in a hired Gazel lorry. I travelled separately by bus and suburban train, because there was no safety belt for the front seat where I was supposed to sit; my mother didn't like the idea at all. In Sweden I got used to fastening myself even when sitting the third row, here in Russia a great deal of vehicles have no belts - just imitations - and roads are much more dangerous. We returned at about 6 p.m. and had a memorial meal - wine and good food (traditional bliny, etc). I also sat there but not long.

Internet. Then I went upstairs (where my Dad and sister live) and used Internet. I was looking for sites from where I could fax abroad inexpensively. I found Hotvoice, and Faxaway. Later at night I tried to use free Internet hours offered by my provider; I came at 2 o'clock in the morning but could make a free connection. I got a paid-for connection with another ISP and downloaded MS Internet Mail almost an hour, but it got disconnected. This is the second night this week I spent trying to use Internet for free, but I won't do it again. The free hours are overloaded and it's impossible to connect from here.

Now I'm mostly using Elvis-Telecom; they charge usd 9 for 10 hours. There's also an "unlimited weekend" card (usd 6), that's a good option. Monthly flat rate in Russia is about usd 50 (it's about the average salary in Russia).

Today I was in Moscow. First I went to Pushkin Institute of the Russian Language (Kaluzhskaya Metro, south of Moscow) to pay for the course which starts from September. No one answered the phone so I decided to visit them. It turned out they'd left early today because there was a total disinfecting at the Institute against roaches. I'll go there again on Monday.

Then I went to visit my Alma Mater - Linguistic University (Park Kultury Metro, not far from Gorky Park). From the outside it looked almost the same as when I last saw it last two years ago. I entered the building producing my diploma in the original and passport to the guards. After I graduated I began to have difficulties with the guards. I felt insulted, as if I were told I was a stranger there. But in the past it was still possible to go inside after talking with the guards and showing them a photocopy of my diploma. This time they did not let me in. They told me that just wanting to walk about the building was not a valid reason for entering. I needed to phone some of the teaching staff inside to arrange for my visit. I told them I just wanted to see the inside, feel the University's atmosphere, just to hang around - after all I studied there 6 years and I had the proof in my hands. But this argument was lost on guards. After I took a picture of them they grabbed me in their room and showed me an instruction against potential terrorists (I've seen similar instructions in other public buildings since I arrived, this is of course due to all those recent bombings). Thanks goodness I was not detained.

So instead I went to the Progress bookshop (also near Park Kultury Metro). It also had associations from my student life. In the past it was a well-known bookshop with foreign-language textbooks, dictionaries and books on social sciences published by Progress Publishers. In the beginning of 1990s Soviet propaganda books were replaced by expensive "commission" books targeted to foreigners. Around 1993 Progress publishers & bookshop moved out to small adjacent premises, the upper floors were renovated and occupied by a westernised supermarket. I often went there on the way back from the University - to pick up a free copy of the Moscow Times newspaper. Now after 1.5 years there were no more major changes, but I could see no free newspapers.

24 Sept.
Events in brief:
Went to Novomoskovsk (it took almost all day).
In the evening helped my Mum to move about the furniture in her part of the house.

25 Sept.
11.00 - First day of studies at the Institute of the Russian Language. Greeting and introduction. First class: Russian linguistics. I liked the lecturer, she is very informal, but speaks very educated Russian.

13.00 - Went on a bus trip around Moscow with foreign students. I was sitting with 4 Chinese students who has been in Moscow 8 months. The bus route:

• Vorobiyovy (Lenin) Hills (near the main building of Moscow State University). Amazing sight! Here is the highest point of the city. One can see all seven "Stalin skyscrapers", the huge newly-restored Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Ivan the Terrible belfry in the Kremlin, the Ostankino TV tower (its equipment was ruined by the August fire), Schusev Radio tower, the Luzhniki Sports Arena, etc. Probably the best view in Moscow. I do not remember ever being here!
• Poklonnaya Mountain. I have not been here either, but went past this place in a car many times. As I expected, too grandiose and not enough human (Zurab Tsereteli's work).
• Novy Arbat avenue (new billboards). Boulevard to the Pushkin St. Tverskaya. The Red Square. - All well-known places. The guide said the music of the Spasskya tower has been changed to that of the pre-1917 time - I need to come at 12 o'clock and listen. Lenin is still in his tomb. The politburo graves are still there, as well as urns with ashes of the communists in the Kremlin wall. End of the excursion.

Driving course. I went to Vidnoye again, but just could pay the money. The course starts on 5 Oct.

26 Sept.
Classes: intensive method of teaching (2 classes, from 9.30 to 13.00). About Losanov's method and its adaptation for teaching of Russian. The underlying idea: this is very hard work, but it gives a great satisfaction to the teacher. Last class: Theory of Communication, by Formanovskaya. I wasn't very impressed (probably, because I was sleepy, I went to bed at 1 a.m., got up at 6).

From about 7 p.m. we had a total power blackout in Fedyukovo. I couldn't do anything and turned in.

27 Sept.
Test of foreign language skills (I tried to say something in French). We are four in the group. We do not have a teacher of French yet. The French class begins next week.

The blackout in my village continues. Also there was no water again. The fridge has unfrozen completely. I studied French for 1.5 hour with my audio-player (it has batteries). Then I went to mark 9th day of the death of my grandma at my mother's (in Russia we mark 9th, 40th day and 1 year). In the house they got the light and I used the computer for some time.