June 24:
We Reached Kazan without
any issues on what was promising to be another hot day. All this time that we
have traveled in trains in Russia, I have always chosen the bottom bunk. Not
sure what is the etiquette for a couple in trains. Should it be Shaks who
should be at the bottom since it’s easier or should she be at the top even
though it’s more work in climbing up. Then again, I could be insulting Shaks by
treating her as dainty, not capable of being on top or I could be considered
apathetic by leaving her at the bottom, not caring about her desires. Since, I
am a modern man; I care about Shaks desires so I just ordered her to be on top
berth. When I say ordered, I use it in a very loose sense. Some might even say
that what I said was more like requested. But that is just nitpicking. That is
how you solve problems, be assertive, take charge of situation and pray that
your significant other is in the mood to agree with you. Luckily, Shaks agreed
instead of crushing my arguments. If you remember, we were travelling with two
nice Russian middle aged men. Well, one of them happily took off his t-shirt
and just slept in his shorts. Unusual sight for all two of us.
Getting back to Kazan, we
were out in sweltering heat waiting for the cab for 10 minutes before it showed
up. I was glad to be out of the sun and into an AC car to our stay. This place
was also away from city center but not as desolate as Nino, at least on the
google map. It didn’t look like that when we got out of the Cab. We were left
in front of a slightly old, one floor building. It even had a Russia flag
around it. We tried to figure out how to enter it and almost walked into a government
building with our stuff. I was smart enough to actually take a look at the
address that we were supposed to be. It was few blocks away so we walked some
more in the same sun beating down on us.
This is a good time to Segway
to the topic of cabs in Russia. Now you might be much smarter than I am and not
fall into the pitfalls that I did, but I will recount here my experience so
that they are avoided anyway. Good news, there is Uber in Russia. Bad news,
somehow it never worked for me and probably once worked for Shaks. So we were
out in St. Petersburg airport , trying to figure out Uber and failing. I tried
to go to the Taxi kiosk to pre-order a taxi where someone told me the taxi to
take. After I loaded the taxi with my stuff, I started walking back to the
kiosk to pay for it. That’s when I got to know that the taxi was just a random
taxi, but since we had already kept our stuff and Shaks was inside, we just
decided to take it instead of figuring out the whole pay. The cab driver showed
us the meter and charged us 4500 Rubles. I think we paid a lot more than we
should have. I had similar experience in Moscow where we paid 4000 rubles to go
from station to our apartment and that definitely was 3 times what we had to pay.
I did some google search by this point and realized that there were Yandere and
Y. taxi apps which are equivalent of Uber in Russia, so now we are smarter
about it. We book online. But this is not a criticism of Russian cab drivers. I
am from India and have seen worst for tourists. Be it Varanasi or Chennai or
Delhi. I expect it, if anything, it’s my failure to not negotiate and forget my
roots. Also, every cab driver we met was friendly and helpful. They are just
doing what is needed to earn as much as they can, I respect that. We met
Dinah whose apartment we had rented He was nice enough to have our apartment
ready early in the morning. The apartment itself reminded me of those
government created apartments in Delhi which are reserved for army and
government athletes. He also had a washer and dryer unit. I definitely needed
to wash my socks and under wears after almost 9 days of travelling. But first
order of the day was to sleep a little so that we go to the city well rested.
We rested for couple hours
then we got ready and left for the city. The cab dropped us in Bauman Street
which is the main area to walk around in Kazan. We hardly went few steps there
before hunger took us over and like a zombie made us beeline to a restaurant.
This was our first Uzbek cuisine experience. As is common in Russia, the restaurant
décor was top notch. They even had Biryani, we were excited. But I guess so was
every other patron of the restaurant, since the biryani was sold out. Still,
the food was good, which we devoured in few minutes. Then we did all the touristy things in Kazan.
Visited the beautiful church where Shaks was required to cover her shoulders
since she was wearing a dress. If not, she would also have needed to cover her
knees. After the church we explored rest of the Kazan kremlin, ending in Kul Sharif,
a mosque. It was beautiful mosque, Shaks of course needed to cover her
shoulders and head. I did like the designer scarf that Shaks picked up for herself. She looked
like she was ready to walk the catwalk. I, of course, thought all of this only
later. In the holy place, my thoughts were reserved for piousness.
I have mentioned how we
had picked a team for our previous matches and bought some merchandize to wear
to the match. We had not done that for the upcoming Poland vs Colombia match,
so we had to buy something for that occasion. We both wanted to support Colombia.I have two
reasons for that, one I always wanted to visit the country so I have soft spot
for the team. Second, Colombia has amazing fans. World cup after world cup, its
astonishing, the large number they turn up in to support their team. Even here,
the streets were full of bright yellow colors. I think 90% of support that I
saw was Colombian fans. The best outfit I saw was a guy dressed as bright
yellow tiger. Anyway, so to buy something for the match , we took time out in
the evening and made it to the closest Adidas store. Turned out it was a
factory outlet. So while they had merchandize, it was not related to World cup
at all. Same for Nike store. Shaks was
especially bummed because now we might not have any t-shirt for tomorrow.
Goolge came to our help again as we saw that there is a large mall with shiny
stores on the outskirts of Kazan. Guess our tomorrow’s itinerary also includes
going to a mall. We walked more and then ended up in a pub to watch Germany vs
Sweden. What a match it was too. Germany had been sleep walking through out and
woke up in extra time to win it all with one of the best goals of this world
cup and believe me, this world cup has seen some amazing strikes till now. As
an aside, I met a German fan while having a bee and congratulated him for Mexico’s
win against Germany. In my defense, he was wearing a green jersey. Apparently
Germany has a green jersey this world cup as well. I think I should just copy
paste all the excuses I wrote when I mistook Portuguese fan for Moroccan fan.
We got back to home quite
late and realized that we couldn’t recognize which building was ours. After a
couple tries to enter random buildings, finally found the apartment building
that our key fit in and got in. This was when I realized that we couldn’t
recognize the floor we were supposed to be on. After a couple tries and couple small
prayers that no one would call cops on us trying to unlawfully enter their
apartment, we found the right apartment. Thus our first day in Kazan has ended.
Tomorrow our last day in
Russia and our last world cup 2018 match. Good night
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