Contains nudity

привет !

Dear friends, it is time for me to send the last part of my adventures in Russia. After this email I might not keep writing as much, I’ll see if I have interesting things to say about my wandering around Europe. 

So after Siberia and Kazan I continued my trip west. I reached Moscow after yet another night train and from there went straight to Tarusa, a small town about 120 km south. There I went to a farm called Ferma Bobry where I was awaited to volunteer. They have goats, hens, beehives, four cats and a huge vegetable garden with a couple greenhouses. They make cheese and they also sell meat and veggies. 

There where 3 Russian volunteers with me and one girl from Uzbekistan that I shared my room with (but not my opinions). We had a couple heated conversations, she thought that homeless people in Europe should not be helped and that charities create dependance toward the people they help. I can agree to some extent but I had a hard time with the way she was expressing her views. She also said that she thought feminism is going to far, that we have enough and that we don’t need “testosterone girls”. Coming from a Muslim woman that is now travelling the world and choosing her job and future husband outside of her community I found that a bit disturbing, although she did acknowledge that she could do all that thanks to feminism. She also mentioned something interesting about the fact that she think we have collectivist societies in the west and not individualism because we all seem to really want to stand behind a cause. I told her I believe her vision is a bit distorted by the fact that she has only met westerners that are travelling to Asia and the Middle East in volunteering contexts, so it is not a very representative sample of “westerners”. I still think it was an interesting talk so I’m sharing this with you. 

Anyways, I didn’t learn so many new agriculture techniques on the farm. It’s crazy to think I knew nothing when I arrived in Dehradun in January and now I can tell is a plant is baby spinach or weed in the blink of an eye. But there is one thing I did learn : for the first time in my life I milked a goat. I was so excited and moved at the same time it was ridiculous. 

I also witnessed one of the owners of the farm spinning and cutting a whole goat, and then the rest of the Russian crew cooking it. That was disturbing. 

Anyway my role was mostly to work in the vegetables garden, so I did not have much interactions with the animals, which is not so bad after all. 

Before leaving the farm they really insisted on inviting me to the collective Banya. The banya is the traditional Russian sauna, I can’t remember if I mentioned it in another email. Anyways, in the Russian tradition people go to the sauna and have a few 30 mins sessions of intense heat with breaks that consist of throwing themselves in the snow or in cold water. I had also heard about a weird tradition of whipping each others bodies with branches to get the toxins out. 

So they fired up the sauna for me, and I kind of had to go. I hesitated a long time on the appropriate level of nudity to adopt but I’m kinda shy so I decided to wear my swimsuit anyway. To “break the ice” with my fellow naked farm workers we chit-chatted a bit and I mentioned the branches thing, out of curiosity. After the first naked run through the forest to dive in the river they asked me of I wanted to try the branches tradition. They were very serious about it and insisted it had to be properly done. 

I here I was, laying down on a bench in the sauna, while a naked dude was standing next to me, putting water on the hot stones to have enough steam and raise the temperature. Then he, still standing and still very naked,  started to shake the branches above my body to direct the steam to it. He was kind of chanting incantations through the who’e process.  It had to remain very concentrated not to burst out laughing, but it was so hot I was afraid I would choke if I took a big breath while laughing, so I kept it together until the end, while he was still shaking and waving the branches. Not only the branches were waving, if you see what I mean. Then we ran again through the forest and into the freezing river. 

I felt surprisingly good after this sauna experience, and full of energy. So if you ever get the chance to try it I would definitely recommend it. But don’t laugh, it’s rude. Respect the traditions. 

After leaving the farm I stayed a couple days in Moscow to visit the city. I saw the red square, the Kremlin, Lenin’s mausoleum where his body is exposed (what the f*?) and I met with Maria José, the girl from Ecuador that was also volunteering at Vandana Shiva’s farm in India. We had a great time and ate a lot of syrnikis, which are officially my favourite Russian food. 

Then I spent the last two days of my visa in Saint Petersburg. I stayed with a local Russian girl that lives in a very Soviet shared flat, with the shower in the kitchen. We had a great time, talked about politics and went partying a bit with a young American guy I met on the street when I broke my phone (you know I didn’t choose to ask an ugly guy for help, he was good looking here). 

Olya, my Russian host, told me its hard for the youth to still go vote when they know their democracy is a fraud. I told her about the European elections and how we had 34 candidates in France and she said it’s still better to have 34 than just 1. At least we have a choice. 

Now that my Russian and trans-Siberian adventure is over I’d like to share some details with you about the journey. Before I left people told me I’d be completely broke after the trans-Siberian because it’s very expensive. So I did 5 stops (Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Moscow, Saint Petersburg), I always traveled in third class except twice when I took second class because third class was sold out. You have to buy a ticket for each portion of route. The beds are comfortable enough, there’s hot water available in every wagon and the train stops in several stations on the way, some stood give enough time to buy some food in the kiosk on the platform. 

For the whole trip from Ulan-Ude to Saint-Petersburg, buying all my tickets last minute, I paid 156 euros. So taking the trans-Siberian is about 6 times less expensive than buying an iPhone X.

After Russia I took the train to Estonia, visited the Baltics and I am now writing from Warsaw. I’ll tell you about the rest of my trip in another email. 

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Love
Lucile