A quiet Sunday......

..... Just like most of the other days really so nothing new there then.
Took a walk around Yayva as a bit of a Sunday constitutional stroll after lunch. It's not all apartment blocks...


Nearly Every property though had a dog chained up in the garden. And as soon as one barks they all do. Only -7 today so relatively mild.


Found the railway station - you have to cross a set of tracks to get to the building in the picture as demonstrated by a train trundling through just after pic taken.


This is a cafe in the town - we only know as it's the one we went for breakfast in on the day of arrival. All very anonymous and no real indication as to what's behind the door as you can see.





Quickest way to get around is to ice skate down the street.
So had a couple of hours walk as we also went to look at the river which is just ourside town. Bit disappointed to see that it wasnt frozen over and was actually in flow and steaming. Probably as a result of the coal fired power station cooling water discharge as it uses the river for direct cooling I.e no cooling towers, although the new ccgt station has a tower system. A few fishermen about on the bank but couldn't see what they were catching.
Were slowly sorting our grub out from the supermarket, not perfect but managing. Our biggest issue is communication with home, no Internet at the hotel or work(yet) so no skype etc, emails, unless we use our Russian dongle which is so slow as to be virtually like dial up, or use our Uk iPhones on edge( 3 g intermittent) at £6/ mb and £1.50/min calls!!!!!! Al G's Company phone doesn't work Over here (long story and wasn't unexpected!!!) so it's got a Russian sim in it at the moment so it's not totally useless although can't use it as a modem on the laptop as we can't yet download the appropriate software - no robust enough Internet connection. It's called catch 22!!!!

Its The Weekend

got up today and went out and about after sun rose at 10am!!. taxi into Berezniki which is about 40km away and 45 minutes over very bumpy and icy roads.

Berezniki has a small town centre with the surrounding usual Soviet sprawling apartment blocks. The intention of the trip was to sus out what the place was like with a view to a posssible relocation. I think the journey times & risks rule it out really, but the only hotel we saw looked exactly what you imagine a soviet era hotel to look like - there may be others in the town but we would need a guide to find them. so as not to disappoint ourselves any further i think we're staying in Yayva, our quiet little backwater in the forest!

Picture of little Al in front of ice sculptures in Soviet square with other ice playground slides with loads of kids on them.

It may be getting colder

Today we've spent a bit longer outside than we have so far. One of these was the 15 minute or so walk across site from the ccgt to the coal site canteen. It's only -16 today but my 'tache and beard froze in the time it took to walk to the canteen, and makes us appreciate that we are not expected to walk the 2 miles from the hotel to the edge of town where the plant is, although many of the Russians do!! Our translator said it was - 40 this time last year, and it's expected to get colder again later on. Don't bear thinking about.
Getting onto site is another experience - armed guards in big lace up boots & furry hats, and walk through metal detectors like at an airport, plus the thing with the handheld where you ' spread'em' if it beeps.They didn't look pleased on day two when we turned up and they hadn't got our passes ready and got a mouthful from our driver who ended up being late for his canteen breakfast. How to make friends and influence people and I'll never think bad about our security staff ever again.
We eventually get to our desks and proceed to graft as you can see.

Meet the neighbours...

We are staying in a hotel in Yayva called Usbada, which means Manor Hotel. Each of us has a sort of suite of 3 rooms - bedroom, ensuite and a lounge/diner (settee/chairs, tv, dining table, fridge, kettle, microwave)


The hotel doesn't do meals, so it's stocking up at the supermarket for evening meals and self catering as the hotel have kitchen facilities downstairs which we can use. There are one or two cafes in the village but the translator doesn't recommend!!! As long as we can get a decent lunch in the works canteen (mmm...more on that later) we shouldn't starve.
As the title suggests we met our neighbour today, the other long term resident, the hotel mascot. Now, I've been places where they've had a parrot, fish tanks, a cat, a dog or maybe a few rabbits running around but this place tops them all with their BROWN BEAR.


It's in a cage behind the wooden building in the other picture above, but something tells me it's not a petting zoo. We'll find out it's name and let you know. One of the old ladies from the hotel took us over at feeding time and spoke non stop about gawd knows what and totally ignored our replies in English,so we just continued replying ' really' you don't say' ' well I never' etc etc. Bit of a panic on when we thought she was bringing it out of the cage but she was closing & opening partitions to put the food in.
A challenge to keep ourselves occupied of an evening, but after finishing our daily logs, Al B has dozens of feature films on his laptop, plus a hdmi cable to connect to tv, so it's film night every night!!! Won't take us long to get fed up with that I'm thinking.

A long day 10 Jan

Finally get into Perm at 05:00 local time - 23:00 uk so that's 15.5 hours or so all in - 4 hours in airports, 2 hours in car getting to Birmingham, 7 hours in the air over 3 flights and 2 1/4 hours drive Perm to Yayva. We had arranged for a driver to meet us at Perm, expecting him to be in arrivals with a sign, but can't find him! Rang his mobile, but guess what, doesn't speak any english. Anyhow it turns out we were inside the terminal waiting for him and he was outside waiting for us!! We eventually hook up an hour later and were on our way. It's -14, pitch black and ice & snow on the road. We soon see a sign for Berezniki 190km and Yayva about 30 km further on. You do the maths for the average speed we're not letting on about the max we saw but We were relieved to see studded snow tyres on the car and eventually the hotel. To be fair, the guy was very quick but competent and guess what? He's our driver for the duration!
We book in and get some sleep after arranging with the site to meet up with our translator and get to the plant for 14:00.
The translator is a very nice ex school teacher of English and is quite excited about meeting two real english speakers!!! She speaks excellent English but has never conversed with a native English speaker - only germans, Turkish,etc plus the written word for translating documents - this is a common occurrence with the two other English speaking Russians on the site of 550 or so. We'll leave an impression with some Notts/Lincs slang by the time we're finished.

Waiting in Frankfurt

One hour delay from birmingham so we were beginning to wonder if we would make connection in Frankfurt for Perm if it was much longer.






As it happens no problem and we get to sample the business lounge for 90 mins or so. Al B kindly gets Al G some complimentary beauty products that he reckons is much needed. Now, do you swallow, chew or spread it on?







We really are being a bit spoiled. Reality will hit I guess when we get to Yayva.
Arthur in Surgut has been in contact wishing us luck - only trouble is that he isn't back in Russia yet due to visa delays. Be good to see him in Moscow at end of month on the way back to Uk

We're on our way

In Birmingham waiting for 1230 flight to Frankfurt. We then get 1750 to Perm. Lufthansa all the way and sampling the delights of the executive lounge as we've got business class tickets





Complentary snacks, coffe, tea etc, and a help yourself bar!!! It's the way to travel. It just may be the last chance for some decent grub for a while.