How can any bus ride of 250km take eight hours? This one did. I had the choice of two buses. 7am and 12 and I am so glad I went for the earlier one. I had seat number nine by the window and was glad of that, especially when it started snowing, so I could think about all the warm clothes I left behind.
I enjoyed the journey down to Valdai. Three hours down the road of manic kamikaze driving, potholes, birch trees, lakes and old women at the side of the road with small tables on which stood a steaming samovar to make thirsty passers-by cups of chai. I don't think they've would know coffee if they fell over it here. Everything is tea, tea, tea. Without milk, but with sugar. Plenty of sugar. Valdai was a small town with a smaller centre, complete with two dogs trying to chew each other's ears off in the middle of the dusty street, a tiny market selling bras and socks (and no, I didn't go for either, tempting as they were. Violet is so in these days...), a cafe and a sign that proclaimed in English that they had a tourist office (which was closed). It was at this point that I realised the five hour journey I had hoped for wasn't going to materialise and we were in for a long haul. A full eight hours before landing in the town of Tver, which sat like an old toad on the banks of the Volga. A warty old toad. I took an old rattling tram with an incomplete floor to the centre of town and found a crumbling Soviet hotel to stay in. My room had a tv and a view of the circus and when I lay down to sleep, the noise of every passing trolleybus vibrated the springs in the mattress in a kind of Russian lullaby.
The town itself was quite pleasant. Some lovely old buildings reminiscent of St Petersburg and a nice path along either side of the Volga river. Unfortunately the only way to cross the river was to walk over the bridge. This was fine as long as a tram didn't go over. When this happened, all the railings on the side of the bridge rattled alarmingly and sounded like the bridge was about to collapse. Thankfully it didn't, but it was slightly unnerving the first time. Apart from the river and the few wooden houses along one of the minor streets, the only other thing to see was the park. This was more of a fairground with grass in between the rides. Some of the rides looked quite new, say 1975 or thereabouts, others, like the dodgems and the kiddies swings, I'd put pre-revolution. The most worrying one was the viking boat, propped up on bricks and with no visibly means of it being bolted down. It reminded me of the big dipper-type ride in Novgorod that careered round an oval, three feet off the ground and was half full of grim-faced little kids hoping to hell they'd survive.
I managed to find an internet cafe here. Part of the library has a room with half a dozen computers in. Getting a terminal was very difficult however. I appeared too late on the day to get access, and was told to come back the next day. This I duly did and I asked at the desk for internet. The girl told me various things, in Russian, that I didn't understand and she was aided and abetted by an older woman who I assume said the same thing, but for PEOPLE WHO WERE A BIT SLOW. I still didn't understand so tey rang round and eventually got some girl from another department to translate the costs and other information. The poor girl got redder and redder in the face the longer she tried to explain. The upshot was I got a terminal. Again, why they couldn't have written the price down and pointed me to a desk I will never know.
Tver is one of the cities of the Golden Ring that surrounds Moscow, and will probably be the only one I get chance to see. It isn't the prettiest, they sit on the east of Moscow, but it is the only one on the way from St Petersburg and was a nice introduction to the smaller town. However, time is already starting to run out on my visa and I have realised that there will have to be three or four overnight journeys just to complete where I want to go. Next stop, Moscow...
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