My first few days

I have now been in Moscow for just over a week and what a experience. I have settled into my flat and my flatmate is Amy. Amy is from Canada and she taught Nursery in the school last year. The flat is surprising big. It has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen with a small dining area. The flat doesnt have a living room as this isnt traditional in Russia. Both the bedrooms are quite big and both contain a double sofa that pulls out into a bed. I have been informed that in Russia a two bedroom flat would be used to house two families as housing is really expensive (The school pay our accommodation costs – flat is about 50,000 roubles (£1000) per month ). Our flat has been completely modernised and it is beautiful and clean. I was expecting it to have all the horrible patterned wall paper, but no it is white and fresh looking. We are living on the 12^th floor in a 16 storey apartment block. The apartment block is really secure, you have to enter a security code to get into the building. When you enter the building the landlady is sitting in her little room – keeping watch over who is entering the building . She is a nice lady, called Nina, who speaks no English and sits there everyday from 7am-10pm. The building is really rundown inside and has two scary looking lifts, the hallways aren't mantained but they are quite secure as you have to use your key to open the hallway door, then a electronic fob to open your flat door. Four of out the six international teachers live in this block of flats – everyone else is in the block appears to be Russian. You see generations of a family living in one flat. The other two teachers in the school live about a 200m away.

The flat is situation about a 10 minute walk from school, across the road from a lovely park (Friendship Park). The metro is situation a five minute walk and so is a shopping mall and supermarket. We are living in the Rechnoy Vozal area of Moscow (this is a suburb of Moscow) - but you can easily reach Red Square in about 20-25 minutes on the Metro.

Since arriving in Moscow, it has become apparent that Moscow is a vibrant city. People are on the go at all hours of the day and night. Drinking in the parks and streets is normal as it is cheaper than then pubs. Most people start off their weekend with a meal and drinks in a restaurant/pub, get the metro back to their district (metro runs 5am-1am) and then have drinks in flats, street and parks. Moscow has a huge problem with drink and it isnt uncommon to be walking back to the flat in the afternoon/early evening and see groups of people drink/smoking in the street/parks. It is cheaper to buy a bottle of beer here, than a bottle of water!