Another Shore - Russia

New Year was spent visiting relatives in Russia. Lily's parents are likely to move from her hometown this coming year and, with it being...

The day started a lot like any other… well, maybe not. It was Tuesday – the only day I had morning lessons so the only day I got up ear...

As a native speaker English teacher, you're prepared for all kinds of questions about the language and sometimes really having to get in...

Samuel Goldwyn is supposed to have said, "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." In Russia, the same co...

Adler, Russia, 2011 Indestructible? I'm currently reading Bill Bryson 's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid , an a...

The Director of Studies and I had to interview a five-year old with a view to her having lessons. The little girl, having lived in Boston, U...

I could smell it. Walking around our 8th floor flat, there was a definite smell. I was walking around the flat, in that manner unique to loc...

Some of the teachers had been out for a drink or two and got back in late. Two colleagues, Ian and Tim, had already fallen asleep in the lou...

The Russian Post Office can be a mixed bag. Sometimes they go the extra miles and then some; other times... You can always visit their we...

One day, three intrepid teachers ventured into a bank in search of travellers cheques - even then an anachronistic means of cash transfer, b...

I'd worked in Russia a year before I got to see my first match over there. The Dinamo Stadium's imposing floodlights in the backg...

Russia... why queue anywhere for 10 minutes when you can wait for over an hour? I'm beginning to suspect that if there were bread queu...

In my early days in Russia, a friend, Vadim, called me to invite me over. Soon outside his flat. I rang the bell and the door opened. I...