Russian jet-lag

Russia can give you quite a jet-lag! Seriously! The time zones change before you even notice and suddenly 2 hours of your precious time are gone again! That is exactly what happened to us on the way to Ufa. We were already 2 hours ahead but suddenly we had to add another 2 to it. But not only the time zone change. It's also the views and the nature. One day everything is flat, the other day the road goes up and down the whole time. But the most important thing that changed are the people. Russian people were very friendly to us since our first day in this country. We always got some help when we needed it and so far never really experienced any hostility. But in the European part of the country people rather ignored us. They went about their business and simply left us alone until we made a move. But even then they stayed pretty reserved. And that was also fine with us. We simply went along with it. That is why we got a bit surprised in Ural region when people suddenly started waving to us, screaming some different things. At the beginning I actually though that maybe something is wrong with out car. Maybe they are all trying to tell us something. I just couldn't cope with this sudden attention. But nothing was wrong. They just wanted to know where we are from, how we like Russia, where are we going or they simply wanted to tell us Welcome to Russia.

And they really were interested in our story, even if they all though the idea of spending a honeymoon in Russia a total craziness. It sometimes seems to us that Russian people don't have the highest opinion about their country. When they ask us how we like it here, they always add things like “Russia is very poor isn't it” or “the roads are very bad, don't you think”. And if we say we really like it here they are either very happy or look at us as if we were only trying to be nice. Well we do like it here. And we enjoy the people being so open with us. It makes the ride even more enjoyable.