The topic says it all. It was my first day in an odd ,cold, strange, and later discovered to be interesting country. Did I say cold, I meant freezing country -the word permafrost comes to mind first- because I ended up in the North of Russia. Think minus double digits cold, think so COLD black people don’t live here voluntarily. Now that I’ve got that off my chest let’s continue.

Honestly I also don’t know how I found myself in the country but I was determined to make the best of a terrible situation. Got admission into a prestigious university in a lovely city called Arkhangelsk situated in the North of Russia. With just the thought of getting out of Nigeria my main concern, I really could care where Arkhangelsk was, let alone try to pronounce it.

The day finally came and I met the other students at the airport and we chatted for a while , getting to know one another until we boarded the flight .It was a long flight but it was nice and was just eager to get out there and start a new chapter in my life .

We landed in Moscow which is the capital and i was impressed with what I saw, I was told it was a developing country like Nigeria.What a joke. Yeah right this was totally a developed country so I thought and It wasn’t as cold as I had imagined it would. Maybe that’s because I was well prepared. I was layed. with 2 trousers on, 2 t-shirts and various items of clothing I was all padded and ready for whatever temperature I found myself in.

We had to board a connecting flight to Arkhangelsk which is in the Northern part of Russia. Arriving about an hour later and on getting off the plane, we were ushered through the immigration and customs, and of course with this comes form filling and all that red tape. I was shocked to discover that very few people spoke English but was glad when a lady walked up to us and introduced herself as the representative of the school. Her function was to help us navigate the Russian officialdom, translating and all what not. In short Settle the new students.

But out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed people staring at us. Some actually stopped in their tracks and I could feel the intensity of their gaze. While still trying to adjust to the people staring, I could see some of them smiling and giggling, pointing at us and other laughing off their heads. We summoned up courage and agreed we should smile back and just be as friendly and wave.

Wow!! Was surprised at the outcome it worked, the young gals waved back which immediately made us smile and wave hardly, and could see the elderly ones staring so hard, although still a little surprised we were happy to see smiling faces so it was all good. We proceeded to pick up our luggage, while waiting we saw a group of young lads looking at us funnily and we decided to use the same strategic , we waved at them and BOOM, It worked and to my utmost surprise they did manage to wave back but with words as well, the more they waved, the more we did as well, and they kept saying a word, “обезьяна”

Which we assumed was hello in Russian language,they laughter around us in the airport got louder and I thought it was just a way of welcoming us into the city. Our guide kept telling us to stop waving, and we initially ignored her until we discovered she was upset and was almost shouting at us to stop it. She couldn’t help it anymore and we asked her why that we were only being friendly, suddenly the cheering was dying down and she blurted out the meaning of the word.

“обезьяна”, wow such a hot powerful strong word, meant monkey. Oh my God, I almost passed out, here we are in the middle of nowhere and been cheered on only to discover that we were being called called monkeys.I personally wished the ground would open up and swallow me. The next words that came out of my mouth was, “where can I find the bookshop”?

Some of the people I came with were shocked and still didn’t understand why I needed to get to the bookshop but I knew if I was in Rome, I had to behave like the Roman blah, blah….

Hahaha so right there and then I had my first language lesson. Hot with all kinds of emotions I bought a dictionary, well to be honest I got two as a matter of fact, a pocket one to go with me everywhere and the other one was going to be my second book of life while in Russia.

Well watch out for more stories on my life in Russia because I later discovered the country is filled with nice friendly people and I did meet a lot of good people and still have them as friends till now.

I finally devised a method that worked faster than even the dictionary. Am sure I got you wondering what the method is.

Stay tuned and keep the frequency open.


SOURCE : www.iyandasdiary.com

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Pls giv us more na,am really enjoying d story.can't wait for d continuation

This your story is unique and refreshing. Please don't let it die. I'd read it a few days ago and came back to continue reading only to discover that you haven't updated it again. That's a no no!

Is it a true story or fiction?

@ Inosenduatall

Thanks appreciate the comments

The story is true life.It happened to me when I went to study in Russia some years ago .

I do have couple of more stories i posted here on nairaland

Kindly visit www.iyandasdiary for more true life stories.