Full marks

Irkutsk, Russia

English translations are a guaranteed pleasure of travel. However, Russia has a special skill for taking already-translated words and then re-translating back into Romanised spelling. One of my favourite examples of this was the ballet production of Romeo and Julietta, based on the Bill Shakespeare play of the same name.

Among all this Romanisation chaos, Irkutsk has taken the cake. The town’s main drag is Karl Marks Street. What would Lennon have said?

One word: Marksists?

Spasiba (thank you)

Russia

If you were on a Russian train, would you know where the hot water urn was? Would you know the toilet protocol? How about understanding the Russian-language timetable?

As railway novices we were confronted with scores of such mini-challenges on our journey from St. Petersburg to Murmansk. To the lovely railway staff who guided us through this minefield, we left this note (right) and some perfume as a token of our eternal thanks.

One word: Grateful.

Exclamation marks the spot!!!!!!!!!

Russia

You know you’re approaching the Russian border when you spot the hundreds of exclamation marks in the distance.

It seems that the most mundane of signs require the stress of not one, but several of these punctuation marks that are all but taboo in English.

I shudder to think of the number of exclamation marks used in Russian emails.

One word: Noted!!!!!

Cyrillic nails me

Minsk, Belarus

Picture this. You arrive in Minsk on a bus at 7:00am. Wearily, you unfurl your English-language map only to discover that you don’t even know the name of the bus station or what street it is on because the local language has a Cyrillic alphabet. Reading has become impossible and you are unable to even match street signs to the map.

You cast your mind back to high school maths. Pis, Fis, Landas were all there, but you don’t recall the backwards R. What sound does that make?

One word: Illiterate.