My Russian family

I have been planning to devote an entry to one of the major factors that have made my first months in Moscow such a success, which is the lovely Russian family that I have been living with. I know them through my colleague (and friend) Sergey Dorofeev (not to be confused with my other colleague and friend Sergey Shilnikov), who is a friend of Ilya.

The family Baryshev consists of mum Svetlana, her sons Ilya (21) and Sasha (20), Svetlana's brother Gena, and two cats. They succeeded in making me feel at home from the moment I arrived. Svetlana has become some sort of second mother to me, cooking for me, taking care of me when I was ill, and helping me improve my Russian. Despite the fact that she only speaks Russian, I am really happy that we managed to get along the way we do. Ilya and Sasha are both great as well. They have been extremely kind to me, helping me settling in in Moscow by showing me around the city, meeting their friends (who have now also become my friends) and helping me in so many different ways. A good example of this was Ilya coming with me early in the morning on my last day in Moscow to buy some souvenirs after he had been out all night. They have become some sort of combination of brothers / friends to me. Gena is also a great guy. Always smiling, joking around and up for anything between drinking a beer or reading Russian poetry together (and trying hard to explain it to me). I have a love/hate relationship with the two cats. On the one hand they can be very funny when they play around, while on the other hand they can get on my nerves when making noise throughout the night and their hairs.

I count myself very lucky that I was able to live with the Baryshev family for over two months. Apart from being great people, they have allowed me to get to know Russia far better than I would have had I lived on my own.