I don’t really understand why Russia has been getting such bad publicity. Whenever I said I was going to Russia, most people would kinda look at me funny, as if saying “Dude? Why??”

Of course, I’ve only been here a few days and I’ve only stayed in St Petersburg so far but… it’s just lovely! Oh and I haven’t even started to talk about the food here. It’s been surprisingly delicious (and cheap). They have a huge amount of choice in fish dishes, soups, meats. Dill is a big thing here and some of the selection in restaurants reminded me of what I ate in Norway. I was also surprised by the taste of vegetables and fruits: melons, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes. They are so tasty compared to ours or the ones I ate in the US. Maybe it’s because they still have a policy of eating and consuming products made in Russia? Maybe because they use less pesticides/GMO/bullshit? I don’t know but apparently they try to restrict importations as much as possible.

Anyway… Maybe it’s the remains of the Cold War that has left a shadow on our perception of Russia but I feel very much in a normal European city – with a different but pretty looking alphabet.

(this is a selection of weird stuff I got from the supermarket. Every day is an adventure!)

It’s funny how, on the day I arrived in Saint Petersburg I kept having flashbacks of the day I moved to England.

It was back in 2003, all I had was my two suitcases and the address of a crappy hotel in Reading. I remember the train ride from Waterloo to Reading so vividly. The excitement of the unknown was tremendous and I felt extremely alive, humble and fired up. I was truly living my life, getting out of my comfort zone and already in awe of the learning experience I was about to get.

Also came back to me the very first times I travelled to England. I must have been 12 or 13 and only had a smattering of english. Having been speaking english for so long now I had forgotten how hard it was at first, how little I could understand back then and how stupid one can feel in such situation.

The feeling on the ride from Saint Petersburg’s airport to Vassilievski Ostrov, where I’m staying, was similarly exhilarating and I hadn’t felt that way in a long time, as I was soon to realize that in spite of good basics, my level of russian is really poor and that I will have to be extremely committed to make progress.

I remember how foreign and on the spot I felt, as a teenager, walking in shops not being able to articulate what I wanted to say, or even understand what people were saying.

So, here I am, 20 years later, in the same situation but in a different country. A situation that I both love and feel discomfort in, but where the drive to get better and overcome my weakness ignites me, full of the knowledge that, just like with english, if I keep doing what I do I will make it.

Why learn russian? Some have told me. To answer that, I can only begin to say that one cannot really learn about a culture without learning its language (since language is prior to thought etc…) Also I love learning languages. I feel like I’m in front of a secret code that I have to break. It stimulates me and I feel childlike excitement at the thought of communicating with people who are very different from me.

Why learn about another culture then? Well… First of all because curiosity and appetite for knowledge is part of my making. And facing a culture as huge and interesting as Russian’s makes you realize how ethnocentric you are and how little you actually know about the world. I think it makes you less of an asshole.

From the Monty Pythons to Oscar Wilde, from the dear friends Sarah in Brighton and Gemma in Australia to American TV shows Breaking Bad or Mad Men, from Rudyard Kipling to Morrissey, when I think about all things, people, fun and beauty* that have entered my world since learning english, I reel in the hope that such a world will open itself to me once I can break this other secret code.

So when are you starting to learn a new language?

(below pictures of the three places I lived in, in England between 2003-2006)

* and yes you know I really mean Ricky Gervais, Karl Pilkington and Louis CK!!