25 August 2019 - 4 September 2019
孩子大了，总是要放手让他们自己走自己的路。每一个孩子的路都不一样的。当然，每一孩子的性格，想法，兴趣都有所不同。身为父母亲，能为他们做的，就只是帮一点忙把路给铺得平坦一点。再多呢，就帮不到了。
这个正昂也真是有他的一套。有他自己的看法。很好！有这样的胆识，我们当然一定会尽力支持。
Sending off dinner
24th August 2019
One day before we were to fly off. It was so nice of 姑姑故丈and 阿欣 to have bought all the local food for dinner, to send 正昂 off, because he probably won't get a chance to eat these for a long time to come.
Day 1. Off we go on Qatar Airway
25 August 2019
St Petersburg, here comes father and son! We were very lucky we decided to reach the airport much earlier to check in because apparent this Qatar airway flight was overbooked and at the check in counter, the nice Korean service staff asked us if we would like to change to another flight on Lufthansa flying to Frankfurt arriving one day later. Man, that would set our schedule back! Luckily this very nice Korean lady must have appreciate my Korean announcement to Serene "북잡해요!" (which meant 'crowded' in Korean) and smilingly squeezed two seats out for both of us to take the original flight. Very heng ah, we both!
Ready to board liao!
We really didn't know what to expect on this journey. None of us have been to the Russian Federation. We had so much difficulty with getting both our Russian visas done. After hearing so many horror stories, we decided to get a company to do for us. Luckily we did, because there were spelling mistakes in his Russian name (I must say Zheng Ang was very sharp to have picked it up) and we rejected all the notarised, translated and certified documents and had them re-do for us. Thankfully all the documents came back in time a week before we left. in retrospect I was glad we corrected all the spelling mistakes because Russia Federation is such a sticky, beaurocratic country that we would have gotten plenty of trouble with the incorrect name. The price for the visas and all the translation and notarization, legalization, certification of his certificates came up to slightly more than $2k. Not cheap. But these were necessary preparations.
The plane trip took as through Doha and then to St Petersburg.
Arriving in Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg.
10pm, 25th August 2019
The weather was a nice 17 degrees. It was the deepest part of summer.
We had no troubles with the immigration. Our luggage arrived with us, and we breezed through the Green 'Nothing to Declare' Channel with nary a look nor a check from the customs officers. Good. Again, see beh heng ah!
Multiple research on Trip Advisor prompted us to just use a Yandex taxi (the Russian version of Grab), and for 608 Roubles (about S$12) we got a taxi to take us that 40 minutes drive in the dark to Vasiliesvsky island, where our Demidov Bed and Breakfast mini hotel was located right beside the Vasileostrovskaya Metro station and within walking distances of the Saint Petersburg State University admission office, the local banks and the local Telcom branches.
McDonald's!
Here in these old buildings of the old USSR era, every room, every corridor is made up of thick walls and heavy metal doors. In fact most are. Especially so in the faculty buildings themselves, the research laboratories, the classrooms, every single one of these are literal bomb-shelters, designed to protect the professors and students and researchers from a direct nuclear bombardment from the US of A during the Cold War period. No wonder our phone signals couldn't penetrate the re-inforcement. Here inside I had absolutely no phone signal.
Finally our turn came. The grumpy lady took one look at Zheng Ang's form and pointed out that the dates were not filled up. The school admission department ladies should have filled up the dates but they didn't. Professor Nina could have filled up the dates, but she must have missed them out. Even Zheng Ang's desperate call through to Professor Nina on her handphone and passing her to speak to the grumpy lady did no good. They were stickers for formality. The dates HAD TO BE WRITTEN by the administrative staff otherwise they would not accept it. Welcome to Frankfurt!
So we were thrown out of room 106.
Well, really a long day from Vasiliesvky to Petergof and then back to Vasilievsky. Only managed to accomplish registering, and meeting the director of the preparatory course and buying a MegaFon SIM card. Dormitory was a total failure, setting up of bank account was a failure because we haven’t had student letter yet. Shucks.. what an adventurous day.
Day 3. Again Petergof. Hopefully today would be better.
27 August 2019
It was actually Margarita’s last day of work. She was so helpful to help us print out the correct bank payment form. A really nice and gentle young Russian girl.
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| 难忘的一餐！ |
Day 1. Off we go on Qatar Airway
25 August 2019
St Petersburg, here comes father and son! We were very lucky we decided to reach the airport much earlier to check in because apparent this Qatar airway flight was overbooked and at the check in counter, the nice Korean service staff asked us if we would like to change to another flight on Lufthansa flying to Frankfurt arriving one day later. Man, that would set our schedule back! Luckily this very nice Korean lady must have appreciate my Korean announcement to Serene "북잡해요!" (which meant 'crowded' in Korean) and smilingly squeezed two seats out for both of us to take the original flight. Very heng ah, we both!
We really didn't know what to expect on this journey. None of us have been to the Russian Federation. We had so much difficulty with getting both our Russian visas done. After hearing so many horror stories, we decided to get a company to do for us. Luckily we did, because there were spelling mistakes in his Russian name (I must say Zheng Ang was very sharp to have picked it up) and we rejected all the notarised, translated and certified documents and had them re-do for us. Thankfully all the documents came back in time a week before we left. in retrospect I was glad we corrected all the spelling mistakes because Russia Federation is such a sticky, beaurocratic country that we would have gotten plenty of trouble with the incorrect name. The price for the visas and all the translation and notarization, legalization, certification of his certificates came up to slightly more than $2k. Not cheap. But these were necessary preparations.
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| 7 hours 40 minutes flight from Singapore to Doha, and a 2 hours 15 minutes transit in Doha, followed by a 6 hour 10 minutes flight from Doha to Saint Petersburg |
Arriving in Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg.
10pm, 25th August 2019
The weather was a nice 17 degrees. It was the deepest part of summer.
We had no troubles with the immigration. Our luggage arrived with us, and we breezed through the Green 'Nothing to Declare' Channel with nary a look nor a check from the customs officers. Good. Again, see beh heng ah!
Multiple research on Trip Advisor prompted us to just use a Yandex taxi (the Russian version of Grab), and for 608 Roubles (about S$12) we got a taxi to take us that 40 minutes drive in the dark to Vasiliesvsky island, where our Demidov Bed and Breakfast mini hotel was located right beside the Vasileostrovskaya Metro station and within walking distances of the Saint Petersburg State University admission office, the local banks and the local Telcom branches.
My Plan
One of my very good Taiwanese classmates in our Korean class asked me to check out Saint Petersburg because she also wanted to travel there one day, and our good Francis Chia reminded me to die die must go and see all the palaces, the churches, the museums, the royal gardens. One of my very good patients she told me when I am in St Petersburg I must try the Georgian restaurants there because they are very famous there.
Well, my actual plan was - I wasn't going to do a single bit of sight-seeing at all. I knew that I had to be very laser focussed on this trip because we would be facing plenty of uncertainties, we would be feeling our ways blind-folded through a system that we had never had any experience with, and which we knew would be full of its own idiosyncrasies, a system that would not be remotely similar to what we were so familiar with back home, or in any Commonwealth country, or any English-speaking country. We had tasks to accomplished. Not being a common destination of study for Singaporeans, and not having too many Singaporeans who have walked down this path to set down the trail, the process of getting him into Russia and getting him to university was a huge question mark. I had to just have faith that Zheng Ang's Russian language was good enough for all the missions in hand. And I really wasn't sure if I was prepared for it.
So I told Zheng Ang: "Son, when we are in Russia, every day is an adventure. We will take it each step as it comes, ok?"
My plan was very simple - First 5 days 4 nights we would stay in Vasilievsky Island, where Saint Petersburg State University's admission office was, and where we would register him, get his chest X ray done here, buy his Russia SIM card, open his Russian bank account and importantly remit money into his Russian account and initiate the process of paying the school fees.
For the next 6 days and 5 nights, we would travel westward to spend these days in Petergof (or also commonly spelled in the Germanic form Peterhof, the House of Peter), where we would check into the dormitory and settle him in, because that would be where his Faculty of Applied Mathematics campus would be, just a short walk from his dormitory.
Sounded simple, right? Hah.....
I knew Zheng Ang had learned quite a bit of Russian from his months of studying under his Russian teachers back in Singapore but it was the first time I heard him speak the language. And man, was I glad that he could speak the language. Honestly, I would not have been so certain to just come father and son, had I not had the confidence of his linguistic capabilities. And he has proven me right many a time here in Saint Petersburg. Of course, he was still new, but he could get by. And what was more important, every day he was learning new terms and new grammars.
The Video...
Demidov Mini Hotel Bed and Breakfast
We were here for serious business. As per my usual practice, I didn't believe in spending huge amount for accommodation. Here smack right in the middle of Vasilievsky was Demidov, at $65 a night, with breakfast. We were happy. The only thing was - we needed to carry our luggage three storeys up to the hotel. But hey, nothing that two big muscular men couldn't do.
The part time night receptionist Margarita was very shy initially but later she turned out to be so helpful as we needed advice and help.
8:30am. Ok, just nice. We timed ourselves to walk the 20 minutes walk to the school's admission office to reach there just before 9am.
It was not cold. But cooling. 13 degrees in the morning.
The streets of Saint Petersburg's Vasilievsky was not crowded and there wasn't much traffic. It's buildings, according to Zheng Ang, were very Byzantine, because they were modelled after the Byzantine periods of the Roman Empire, taken from the Eastern Capital Constantinople.
As we walked we were impressed to see many buildings having plaques and plaster figured of famous poets or writers or musicians or artists who lived and grew up in the buildings, or where they did their works. No wonder people said that Saint Petersburg was called the Cultural Centre of Russia. In fact Tchaikovsky himself was made famous here in St Petersburg.
The Nebo (pronounced NieBa) River ran across Vasilievsky.
It was really so predictable that the unpredictable should stumble upon us so fast. We arrived at 8:45am to realise that the government departments in Russia start work at 10am.
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| It was so easy to use the Yandex App to call for a Yandex taxi. And for S$12 for that 40 minutes ride it was really good. The driver was from Uzbekistan, but of course he spoke Russian. |
The Video...
Demidov Mini Hotel Bed and Breakfast
We were here for serious business. As per my usual practice, I didn't believe in spending huge amount for accommodation. Here smack right in the middle of Vasilievsky was Demidov, at $65 a night, with breakfast. We were happy. The only thing was - we needed to carry our luggage three storeys up to the hotel. But hey, nothing that two big muscular men couldn't do.
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| Clean, simple. Down to earth. No-nonsense classic Russian style. We like. |
And we slept.
Day 2. A day of unexpected to-ing and fro-ing.
26 August 2019
5:30am the sky already started to light up, as it was summer.
The younger man woke up very early 6am something, and was already changed even as I was still laying in bed rubbing my eyes struggling to wake up.
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| Our very lovely receptionist at Demidov, Margarita, who is working part time here and studying her Masters in the university because her stipends is only 3000 roubles a month (36000 rubles a year, S$765) for her education so she needs to work to pay for her studies. |
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| Simple breakfast |
8:30am. Ok, just nice. We timed ourselves to walk the 20 minutes walk to the school's admission office to reach there just before 9am.
It was not cold. But cooling. 13 degrees in the morning.
The streets of Saint Petersburg's Vasilievsky was not crowded and there wasn't much traffic. It's buildings, according to Zheng Ang, were very Byzantine, because they were modelled after the Byzantine periods of the Roman Empire, taken from the Eastern Capital Constantinople.
As we walked we were impressed to see many buildings having plaques and plaster figured of famous poets or writers or musicians or artists who lived and grew up in the buildings, or where they did their works. No wonder people said that Saint Petersburg was called the Cultural Centre of Russia. In fact Tchaikovsky himself was made famous here in St Petersburg.
The Nebo (pronounced NieBa) River ran across Vasilievsky.
I told the young man: "Ok, we both definitely need to wear jackets today because it's our first day and we have to look presentable. Cannot any how wear T-shirts and such."And he very guai. He followed me.
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| Walking along the embankment to number 13 to register. |
It was really so predictable that the unpredictable should stumble upon us so fast. We arrived at 8:45am to realise that the government departments in Russia start work at 10am.
"OK, let's walk 15 minutes up to the nearest Sberbank to see if we can set up a bank account for you first before we walk back to register you for admission," I said.
But alas, it wasn't meant to be. With no student pass, no letters, all the acceptance letters from emails were not valid for account opening. And the very very pretty young Russian Sberbank counter staff simply could not understand English and Zheng Ang had not enough of Russian finance terminologies to communicate.
By the time we walked back at 10am, we were number 38 in the queue. I was very impressed to see many foreign students from Russian-speaking ex-USSR states. And several PRC Chinese with their agents guiding them. The PRC Chinese students were good - the fact that they had a Russian-speaking agent (also a PRC Chinese himself or herself) to bring several students at a time, really lubricated the whole process.
The wait was not long. Just about two hours. And 7/8 of the time I didn't knew what was happening. Only Zheng Ang's spattering Russian managed to get us through the whole process.
Honestly, if you asked me, I would say this - Here, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and neither of them knows what the middle hand is doing, and the left hand says go to the middle hand and the right hand says go do the X ray, while the middle hand is instructing the registrant to immediately go to Petergof and stand outside some the door for another three hours' wait only to be chased out because of incomplete form, and had to return the next day for the same process.
By the time we walked back at 10am, we were number 38 in the queue. I was very impressed to see many foreign students from Russian-speaking ex-USSR states. And several PRC Chinese with their agents guiding them. The PRC Chinese students were good - the fact that they had a Russian-speaking agent (also a PRC Chinese himself or herself) to bring several students at a time, really lubricated the whole process.
The wait was not long. Just about two hours. And 7/8 of the time I didn't knew what was happening. Only Zheng Ang's spattering Russian managed to get us through the whole process.
Honestly, if you asked me, I would say this - Here, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and neither of them knows what the middle hand is doing, and the left hand says go to the middle hand and the right hand says go do the X ray, while the middle hand is instructing the registrant to immediately go to Petergof and stand outside some the door for another three hours' wait only to be chased out because of incomplete form, and had to return the next day for the same process.
What was more interesting, the whole process was marred by human mistakes that made us take the long trip to and fro twice. I knew it was going to be like that. But I didn't know it was going to be like that.
That night, Zheng Ang received an email from the University's admission department.
"Papa, hey they said they gave me a wrongly named bank payment instruction form. It's under the name of a Mongolian student. They have emailed me the correct form! I was frantically checking everything but I couldn't understand this part on the form that was why I missed out the mistake in the name."Zheng Ang was really meticulous in scrutinising every single piece of document to make sure it was correct and that he understood what they were for. But still, the barrage of information definitely was overwhelming, for a new Russian learner. Fortunately, Margarita the night staff was very kind to help us print out the correct Bank Payment instruction form. I looked at the incorrect form with the Mongolian name and shook my head...
So what do we do now?
Simple. So we die die had to take that 58km trip down straight away to Petergof to the Dormitory to get registered there. That really screwed up my plan. I was only planning to go to Petergof on day 5. No choice. We had to postpone the Chest X ray till tomorrow, and hope that when we came back this evening the bank would still be open for us to open an account for him. The quicker we opened the account the better, because I urgently needed to fund the account to pay the fees.
"Ok, let's do this, Zheng Ang," a quick run through in my mind and I made the decision. "It's 12pm something now. We will go MegaFon shop at the Metro station to buy you a Russian SIM card because I anticipate that when you register with the bank, and with the dormitory they would want a Russian phone number, then we quickly grab lunch at the McDonald's opposite and then we call for a Yandex taxi to go down to Petergof where we will search for your Professor and then the Dormitory."
MegaFon!
Luckily MegaFon's customer service guy was English-speaking, a Warcraft fanatic, and it took him less than 15 minutes to get Zheng Ang's MegaFon SIM card activated and he now had a Russian phone number. I went straight for MegaFon because I read that it was one of the better Telcom, slightly more pricey, but had good coverage and good plans. At 600 roubles (S$12.70!!!!!!) a month, he had unlimited 4G data, and he had 20Gb of free data to personal hotspot to his laptop and other devices. Where to find this kind of plan in Singapore at such prices?!?!?!
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| MegaFon saved the day! |
Eating McDonald’s outdoor in summer is really nice! One Big Mac Meal and one McChicken meal all in? S$7.50 ONLY for two full meals!!! Honestly, Zheng Ang had done his homework well. He already told the whole family that living cost in St Petersburg is only about 50% of Singapore. And so far he had proven himself correct.
Everything was cheaper compared to back at home.
Onwards to Petergof!
Life is such an adventure. The Russian red tapes really threw us literally out of their rooms and our planned schedule out of the window. So many unexpected twists and turns in registering, and having to make a sudden long trip to Petergof, only to find ourselves later on, once again thrown out of room 106 after a long three hours standing wait...
Department of Applied Mathematics Campus,
Saint Petersburg State University, Petergof
I got a rude shock when the taxi dropped us off at what appeared to be rather deserted old-looking buildings from a different era. They looked more like buildings from an old Soviet horror movie rather than a University that had yielded 9 Nobel Prize winners and 3 Fields Medallists.
Zheng Ang seemed to know his way. I could only follow him. Google map was really a wonderful tool, even in this part of the world.
Meeting Professor Nina Peterovicha Dorofeeva,
Director of the Preparatory Course,
Department of Applied Mathematics.
Professor Nina was such a motherly figure. She was very very warm and friendly and she kept speaking to Zheng Ang in Russian, but to me, she used English. Patiently she instructed us what to do the next step before showing Лим Чэнг Анг (yupe, now Zheng Ang finally has a Russian name) his classrooms.
Then we started towards the dormitory
Boo boo after boo boo after boo boo...
So we came to a very crowded corridor full of foreigns students. It was hot and stuffy and the phone signals could not come through in this corridor. We waited in the line for room 103. We waited for about 45 minutes and when it came to our turn, the plump black-faced lady inside took a look at our documents and straight away chased us out - alamak! We actually should have queued up in the line for room 106 BEFORE we go to Room 103. Welcome to France!
The following 3 hours was spent waiting standing in the stuffy corridor for the lady in room 106. These young men and young ladies from other parts of Russia, from Belarus, Turkey, Uzbekistan and eastern bloc countries show true grit in have a lot of patience in their perseverance in waiting. They were just as frustrated. I didn't expect them to have as much patience as me, a grown up old man. But they proved me wrong!
Everything was cheaper compared to back at home.
Onwards to Petergof!
Life is such an adventure. The Russian red tapes really threw us literally out of their rooms and our planned schedule out of the window. So many unexpected twists and turns in registering, and having to make a sudden long trip to Petergof, only to find ourselves later on, once again thrown out of room 106 after a long three hours standing wait...
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| Yandex taxis abound and are very efficient. Just like our Grab at home |
Department of Applied Mathematics Campus,
Saint Petersburg State University, Petergof
I got a rude shock when the taxi dropped us off at what appeared to be rather deserted old-looking buildings from a different era. They looked more like buildings from an old Soviet horror movie rather than a University that had yielded 9 Nobel Prize winners and 3 Fields Medallists.
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| 半個人影都沒有。為何？因為是學校假期呀！ |
Meeting Professor Nina Peterovicha Dorofeeva,
Director of the Preparatory Course,
Department of Applied Mathematics.
Professor Nina was such a motherly figure. She was very very warm and friendly and she kept speaking to Zheng Ang in Russian, but to me, she used English. Patiently she instructed us what to do the next step before showing Лим Чэнг Анг (yupe, now Zheng Ang finally has a Russian name) his classrooms.
"You must now immediately go to the Dormitory Block 10, Room 103 and after that Room 106 to get your migration registered and get your permanent Dormitory pass," exact instruction from Prof Nina.The Video...
Then we started towards the dormitory
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| The newly crowned 'Чэнг Анг' walking to the dormitories. |
So we came to a very crowded corridor full of foreigns students. It was hot and stuffy and the phone signals could not come through in this corridor. We waited in the line for room 103. We waited for about 45 minutes and when it came to our turn, the plump black-faced lady inside took a look at our documents and straight away chased us out - alamak! We actually should have queued up in the line for room 106 BEFORE we go to Room 103. Welcome to France!
The following 3 hours was spent waiting standing in the stuffy corridor for the lady in room 106. These young men and young ladies from other parts of Russia, from Belarus, Turkey, Uzbekistan and eastern bloc countries show true grit in have a lot of patience in their perseverance in waiting. They were just as frustrated. I didn't expect them to have as much patience as me, a grown up old man. But they proved me wrong!
This young lady in white said: “we already waited three hours, we are not going to give up now. If we come back another day there will be more students.”I admire their maturity, their grit, their strength in character. Only those who grow up in places that are less privileged (than those of us back home in Singapore) will develop hardier characters like these. No wonder the Russians, the Central Asians, the Eastern Europeans are such stoic people. Good for ‘green-housed’ Singaporean young people to come and experience the difference.
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| Very patient young men and ladies. |
Here in these old buildings of the old USSR era, every room, every corridor is made up of thick walls and heavy metal doors. In fact most are. Especially so in the faculty buildings themselves, the research laboratories, the classrooms, every single one of these are literal bomb-shelters, designed to protect the professors and students and researchers from a direct nuclear bombardment from the US of A during the Cold War period. No wonder our phone signals couldn't penetrate the re-inforcement. Here inside I had absolutely no phone signal.
Finally our turn came. The grumpy lady took one look at Zheng Ang's form and pointed out that the dates were not filled up. The school admission department ladies should have filled up the dates but they didn't. Professor Nina could have filled up the dates, but she must have missed them out. Even Zheng Ang's desperate call through to Professor Nina on her handphone and passing her to speak to the grumpy lady did no good. They were stickers for formality. The dates HAD TO BE WRITTEN by the administrative staff otherwise they would not accept it. Welcome to Frankfurt!
So we were thrown out of room 106.
"OK Zheng Ang," I sighed. "We have done our best. We will take the long taxi ride back to Vasilievsky now. Then tomorrow morning we will go and do your chest X ray exactly at 8am when the X ray centre opens, then we will taxi immediately over to Prof Nina to let her fill in the dates and initial the form, then we will come back and queue up outside room 106 again."
Well, really a long day from Vasiliesvky to Petergof and then back to Vasilievsky. Only managed to accomplish registering, and meeting the director of the preparatory course and buying a MegaFon SIM card. Dormitory was a total failure, setting up of bank account was a failure because we haven’t had student letter yet. Shucks.. what an adventurous day.
Day 3. Again Petergof. Hopefully today would be better.
It was actually Margarita’s last day of work. She was so helpful to help us print out the correct bank payment form. A really nice and gentle young Russian girl.
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| Margarita was so happy to see us father and son and since it was her last day she offered to take a wefie with us and using her own handphone some more. |
But for us, it was another long and tiring day. We rushed to do the chest X ray first thing in the morning. The Fluorogrqphy centre recommended by the school was at Vosstaniya 1, right next to Plochad Vosstaniya Metro station.
To save time we took a Yandex taxi and reached there just nice at 8am. We were the third in the queue. For 350₽ (S$7.44) and only a five minutes wait for the X ray report was ready. That, was really efficient. So it seemed to me that the private organisations in Russia - MegaFon, this private X ray centre lah, all could actually be very efficient.
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| waiting for the X ray report. |
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| A library en route to Petergof |
Man, this travelling 58km to and fro just to settle some documents seemed to be the norm in Russia. They would not even blink an eye to make that distance to have some dates filled in and the paper signed. Of course, for Singaporeans living in such a small country, everything was so near. We took things for granted. Thus, here in Russia where land is so expansive, it required a total transformation of mindset to perspective on distance.
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| OK, first thing was to look for Professor Nina to have the form dated and signed. |
Professor Nina was just ushering another two new students from China when we stepped into her office. She welcomed us warmly. Forms filled. And we darted towards the dormitory.
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| The bus stop just outside the dormitory. This would be where Zheng Ang would take his bus to change to the train to go to city centre in the future. |
But first we needed to conquer room 106. With apprehension we entered the high-security dormitory where we both had to use our passports to get an access card each.
Here, block 10, room 106.
Today, the grumpy lady was less grumpy. And she allowed us and the Turkish boy (behind Zheng Ang) to enter first because we waited in the queue yesterday and she promised today we just needed to walk right in. And boy, were we glad we actually had the X ray done this morning because she asked for it. Had it been yesterday we would have died on the spot because we hadn't had the X ray done. The reason why we didn't do the X ray in Singapore was because they needed it to be in Russian, and had we done it in Singapore (although easily done) the report would have to be translated to Russian. So we decided - forget it, enough of translating documents in Singapore - we will do the chest X ray in Russia.
And within a short few minutes, Zheng Ang finally got his permanent access card! One room down. Now, over to room 103.
The Video...
Oh man! Finally he gotten his permanent Dormitory access card and the room key. Phew, one obstacle down.
Room 103's plump lady was less grouchy this day, said Zheng Ang. He was again pumped out of room 103 because she told him to get over to Block 12 to get some documents first. Haiyah... this was getting more and more complicated. We never knew what would come our way next. One room would direct us to another room over in another block which will in turn direct us to yet another room in another block. This was getting quite interesting.
"Zheng Ang, I will sit down outside here while you go back into room 103 later ok?"
FINALLY (again. This whole trip was full of 'Finallies'). The plump lady in room 103 gave him his migration registration of residence in the Dormitory form. Man, this piece of paper was soooooo precious. Immediately we took it back to Professor Nina.
"Now you walk to the other side of the faculty, to the Faculty of Physics where you must look for room 208 to buy your school health insurance," instructed Professor Nina.
Huh...? Why was I not surprised? I think by then I had become blase about the whole thing. I expected to be pumped from one station to the other station, and then further to another station. The Faculty of Physics was quite a walk. And room 208 was not easy to find. And the elderly receptionist at the entrance, though very nice, she was not really able to direct us. So we found ourselves walking through corridors of the Nuclear Physics department with heavy metal door with huge Radiation signs on each door. It WAS truly of the old Soviet era.
I almost gave up. But the son persisted and took another turn, believing strongly that room 208 was definitely somewhere. Fortunately for us, his patience paid off. We found another old lady called Elena who was in charge of health insurance and for 5600 rubles (S$117) a year we paid of the insurance and gotten two pieces of papers which she insisted that Zheng Ang never to lose.
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| Finding the Faculty of Physics |
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| The man and his Faculty of Applied Maths. |
The Video...
Lunch back at Vasileostrovskaya metro station
Wah... man. Now dormitory permanent access card obtained. Room key obtained. Dormitory registration of residence form obtained. The correct Bank payment instruction form printed.
We hadn't had a proper meal for one and a half days. And I told Zheng Ang we deserved a real proper meal. So back to Vasiliesvky island once again we headed.
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| The Yandex taxi ride from Petergof back to Vasilievsky |
We found a restaurant serving beef and lamb next to the metro station and we just whacked. It came up to about S$10+ per person but we had a really nice meal.
Adventure opening up a Russian Bank Account... Сбербанк
Zheng Ang was adamant about opening an Alfa bank, because one of his friends used Alfa bank. I was personally keen to do Alfa bank because it was a private bank. We found a branch but eventually the bank account opening was a failure because the very nice Russian-speaking man told us that for state universities the state banks will do a better job because privately-owned banks like Alfa bank will charge a hefty commission when helping us pay our school fees.
So we had to go back to Sberbank (Сбербанк) where the day before that extremely pretty but stern-faced Russian girl who rejected us happened to serve us again.
"Look, Zheng Ang. We are going to do this. Because anything involving financial matters, we have to be really precise and we cannot be uncertain, I am going to ask if they have an English-speaking staff to assist us. When it comes to money, we better be exact."This time round we were lucky, because we were welcomed by a nice young officer could speak English. And after understanding what we needed, he explained all our intentions to the pretty female colleague. With the help of the English interpreter she managed to swiftly set up Лим Чэнг Анг’s Sberbank account. And she even helped Чэнг Анг set up his Bankomat (ATM) card that doubled up as a Mastercard debit card with no annual subscription fee. And she finally smiled at us... wow, what a lovely Russian smile.
Pretty, high nose bridge, blonde, long droopy eye lashes- classic Russian beauty who spoke ONLY Russian.
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| We were so happy to have successfully set up his Sberbank account that we just had to take a wefie in the bank |
After a long session with the pretty female Russian counter girl, getting his account settled and understanding how to use the mobile app. Now this Sberbank's mobile app was really excellent and it allowed the users to do everything and anything with it. In fact, in my humble opinion, it was even better than our DBS mobile app. They had PayNow-like features and cashless payments abound.
Remitting money into Russian bank...
This had been the one solitary nightmare that had haunted me for months. I tried all kinds of ways and asked around. Majority of the Singapore banks did not deal with Russian banks because our good friend Mr American President declared Russian banks to be sanctioned banks.
And many remittance companies including Western Union did not and could not assist in remittance of money into Russian banks.
Citibank account holders and HSBC account holders could do so, but not without plenty of trouble by a round about way, incurring huge administrative fees, and at poor exchange rates.
So how could I transfer money to his Russian account?
Finally, the answer came from a very reliable global remittance service called TransferWise. Very fast, very reliable, had a presence in Singapore, and within just a day, the exact amount I remitted was safely in Zheng Ang's bank account, and their exchange rate from Singapore $ to Roubles was excellent. For example, remittance of S$10,000 would only incur a fee of say, around S$92, but the exchange rate was the current S$1 = 47.8 roubles while if we were to do this with banks the exchange rate would be S$1 = 42 roubles. We literally save 10%. Thus if, for example, we sent $10,000 we would have saved $1000 by using Transferwise.
Exactly as promised, 18 hours after I remitted the amount on my mobile, Zheng Ang's Sberbank mobile app alerted him that the money is in his account already. That was marvellous!
To celebrate, we had a sumptuous Georgian dinner at Tamarisi Georgian restaurant. It was really delicious. And at half price of what we would have paid in Singapore- had Sashlik, Dolma, Kachapuri and Spicy and Georgian coffee. Man, we were drained and pure-tired out.
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| Tamarisi Georgian restaurant |
The Video...
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| Kachapuri- a kind of pastry meat with bread. This one has cheese and wow it was really delicious! Pork Shashlik. Oh lovely! Dolma- pork and beef mixed together in soft leaves and eaten with sauce. This one really delicious! |
Day 4... a more relaxed day.
28 August 2019
We woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast. So far we had been living on cashless payment and it was about time we had some real hard roubles cash in hand. Any bank was supposed to be able to do money exchange in Russia. So we walked to the nearby Alfa Bank hoping to change my Euro to Russian Roubles but I was taken aback when the lady just said no no no no and refused to serve us.
We walked to another bank - Russian Standard bank. That nice lady looked at the €500 euro note, saw a small tear and straight away rejected my money.
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| “I’m sorry there is a small tear on your €500 note and we cannot accept this note,” said this nice lady at Russian Standard Bank. |
So how? As always, the state bank Sberbank to the rescue lor! Over there no question asked. The lady just scanned my €500 made sure it was legit and gave me my Russian roubles. I really find that the customer service standard in Sberbank much better than in the other banks although it is supposed to be a state-owned bank.
Taking the metro to Vosstaniya...
"Ok, Zheng Ang, now that we have some cash, let's explore the city central where in the future you can come and buy things, electronics, clothes and whatever, ok?"The metro was fast. And for 47₽ (S$1) we can take as many stations as we want. It’s charged per entry one leh!
正昂Чэнг Анг was surprised. “Papa, it’s only S$1 per entry, no matter how many stations you take. This is fantastic! I can travel as far as I want to!”
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| Their Metro is fast and smooth, clean. Like any modern metro. |
We walked around and enjoyed the nice sunny late morning weather. There were more people in the city centre and more shops.
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| Souvenir shop next to Plochad Vosstaniya Metro station. I learned finally that some places merely waving the credit card to pay wirelessly doesn’t work. I need them to insert the card into the terminal and use the chip to pay then it will be successful. |
As I emphasized once again, this TransferWise was really a very reliable remittance service. Great! Time to pay school fees!
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| Walking to Sberbank at Ploschad Vosstaniya |
"Papa, let't not go back to the Sberbank at Vasileostrovskaya. Let's try one of the Sberbank branch offices here at Ploschad Vosstaniya," suggested Zheng Ang. Hey that was a good idea!
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| Сбербанк (Sberbank) Vosstaniya very good branch and very helpful staff. Payment was easy with the Bankomat/Mastercard Debit card. |
Sberbank customer service staff at the Sberbank Vosstaniya branch were fantastic! Three of the ladies were English speaking and they knew exactly how to help us pay the school fees into his State University and they were exacting in helping us amend some errors in his passport number and helping us convert his name in the bank to the Russian Cyrillic name so that in the future he will have no more issues. Such professionalism. I am beginning to find Sberbank such a good bank to use!
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| Very professional customer service officers who can speak English in Сбербанк Vosstaniya. Good job! |
In fact, Zheng Ang was already texting one of his friends who was also going to start a course in Moscow University all these important information and all our experiences, sharing with him what we have learned these few days.
That was all we needed to do on this day - just pay the 272,000 roubles (S$5780) school fees for the semester. A commission fee of S$30 was charged. But that's reasonable. Phew! One more obstacle down.
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| Taking the metro two stops back to Vasileostrovskaya. |
Back to Vasiliesvky...
Lunch was a simple take away KFC. Here the KFC and McDonald is half the price of Singapore. And everywhere we go we can use Apple Pay to pay anything! We were pleasantly surprised how cashless Russia is. With them working together with Huawei to develop 5G I told my son he will have the honour of being the first in the family to be using 5G technology in no time here in Saint Petersburg.
Ordering for KFC is similar to for McDonald's - we use the touch screen big panel and pay using cashless method. Russia is such an amazing country. Like China, almost everything is cash less transaction. The locals pay by their hand phones. Apple Pay is the norm in all groceries, supermarts, malls, restaurants, even many many small shops. We were truly very surprised how advanced Russian’s cashless payment system is. Thus moving forward when he is in the dormitory he will make plenty of payments with his Apple Pay.
Our lunch!
Evening...
This evening the young man purposely wanted to go down to the supermart and test out his Apple Pay with the current phone case with his dormitory access card clipped inside. And the Apple Pay worked! Good job! And he accidentally found many different flavours of his favourite Black Monster drink that are not available in Singapore and the prices of the Monster drinks are 74₽ (S$1.50) much cheaper than in Singapore. Literally half the price. The potatoes are S$0.20 for one kg of potatoes and the tomatoes and vegetables everything is in tens of cents tens of cents. He was delighted. He could do plenty of cooking in the dormitory and save a lot of money.
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| 24 hours groceries shop in Saint Petersburg. |
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| 9.99₽ (S$0.20) for one kilogram of potatoes. How cheap can it get? Well he found his buckwheat! We had it for breakfast this morning at the hotel. |
Dinner back in Demidov...
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| Special flavour Monster drinks and instant noodles. |
Day 5. Ok, time to move over to Petergof!
29 August 2019
It’s time to take the long drive to Petergof where Saint Petersburg State University’s department of Applied Mathematics’ campus is located.
Russia is such a huge country that Saint Petersburg State University literally can locate its different faculties 50-60km away from each other.
Petergof is really a sleepy little Kampong. It used to be where the Summer Palace of the Tzar was located. But this was also where the top brains of the Russian physicists, mathematicians, scientists, nuclear physicists chemical engineers all were working and doing their researches.
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| Our nice little cottage where we would be staying for the next few days |
We were early. 11am, the cleaning lady was still cleaning up the room.
I spoke to Anastasia, the manager on the phone and told her no problem, we would just leave our luggage here and we would walk to the university to get our administration done.
Another 1.3km walk from Cottage to the Faculty of Applied Mathematics. .. including walking through small wooded paths, that would be unlit at night. What an interesting place. I told Zheng Ang this kind of environment was what the famous Charles Darwin lived in during his time - woke up for breakfast, did some studying, and some research, write some papers. Then late morning for a nice walk in the park and think through his theories in his mind. Then come home for lunch and take a good rest, after which he would do some more reading and writing and examination of his specimens, before having dinner and perhaps a nice relaxing evening of reading. And retire to bed. The peaceful life of a scholar.
Here the faculty buildings all looked like time stood still in the 70’s during the Cold War period. Each building is rectangular, no-nonsense. And every classroom is made from thick walls with thick iron doors. The buildings and the dormitories were literally bomb shelters. And each building and each faculty was located a certain distance away. The Soviets could not afford to lose their top brains to a nuclear bombardment from the USA during those days. So they were all scattered. Walking through the hallways and the corridors of the university and the dormitory transforms me into scenes that I watched in movies where the KGB physicists were working intensely in their laboratories, all hidden in highly secured buildings.
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| At the faculty of Applied Mathematics there were some old what looks like Howitzer guns still sitting in the backyard. Relics from the Cold War? |
And I could imagine the floor where I was standing was literally where all these activities were taking place decades ago. But time has changed. Russia is now no longer the USSR, which as a child, I was still used to calling them Soviet Union, and to which I still harbour a sense of fear as an all-powerful communist state. Never would I imagine one day I will be here, standing right here, witnessing something really out of the world. Here. In Petergof. The old Leningrad.
Professor Nina, Zheng Ang’s course director, was such a welcoming and motherly figure. “Keep speaking in Russian,” she urged the young man. “Try not to use English. And you shall improve leaps and bounds.” She encouraged.
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| Prof Nina Peterovicha Dorofeeva |
Professor Nina warned: “The department of mathematics is one of the most difficult one in the world. This department has produced several Fields Medallists over the decades.”
The Video...
The Dormitory
The official name for the dormitory is called The Petrodvorets Student Halls of Residence. The dormitory at Botanicheskaya encompasses six blocks 14 storey oldish buildings and another outer ring of blocks of dormitory, with oldish Soviet lifts. Security level is very strict. Every visitor needs a temporary pass obtained only with passport, and every student has his or her own permanent pass. The rooms can only be entered by tapping the pass and after that opening with a key, as a double security.
The accommodation was simple and basic. Two students to a room. Two rooms to a unit that shares a toilet and one shower. So four students from all foreign countries will be staying together. Simple, no frills no nonsense Russian practicalness. This is where they train their top brains with precise Russian strictness.
The Dormitory
The official name for the dormitory is called The Petrodvorets Student Halls of Residence. The dormitory at Botanicheskaya encompasses six blocks 14 storey oldish buildings and another outer ring of blocks of dormitory, with oldish Soviet lifts. Security level is very strict. Every visitor needs a temporary pass obtained only with passport, and every student has his or her own permanent pass. The rooms can only be entered by tapping the pass and after that opening with a key, as a double security.
The accommodation was simple and basic. Two students to a room. Two rooms to a unit that shares a toilet and one shower. So four students from all foreign countries will be staying together. Simple, no frills no nonsense Russian practicalness. This is where they train their top brains with precise Russian strictness.
“Wah my room is on the top floor 14 storey. It’s really a penthouse!” Said the young man.
Need to tap the access card to enter the unit. High security one, don’t play play.
After tapping the access card to enter the main door, now he has to use te key to open the door to his room, which houses two students.
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| Zheng Ang and his bed |
The Video...
One shower, one toilet - to be shared among four students.
He was delighted they have a hot plate cooker and a working oven in the kitchenette two doors away!
“Now I can cook and bake!”
Now, to explore the nearby Lenta supermarket...
Dormitory inspected. Now we would walk the 1.3km from the Dormitory to the nearby Lenta, a 24 hour-supermarket chain in Russia. Apparently this is were most of the students here do their grocery shopping. Some more walking.
Dormitory inspected. Now we would walk the 1.3km from the Dormitory to the nearby Lenta, a 24 hour-supermarket chain in Russia. Apparently this is were most of the students here do their grocery shopping. Some more walking.
Walking the gravel road named ‘Wide Road’ from the dormitory to Lenta supermart. Many of the Russian students and foreign students were also walking down carrying heavy 4 litre bottles of waters, groceries but they gallantly trudged on. These are really strong-willed young men and young women. Difficult to find in the modern day world. But in this part of the world, these are hungry young people who would be those pushing their own boundaries.
The sun was scorching hot and I was surprised how hot summer was in Petergof. I brought base layers, middle layers and outer fleece in anticipation of a colder kind of weather. But wow, I was feeling the full force of the sun and after the third day I was just in T-shirt and jeans all the way.
Lenta was pretty well-stocked. They had fresh vegetables, many many different types of cheese, meats of all kinds, fish vacuum-packed, dried food, utensils, almost everything.
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| This Russian counter staff was very cute. She was kinda amused by Zheng Ang’s rusty Russian but she was very kind to help him point out how to fill up the form to become a Lenta member. She kept laughing at him. |
"Papa, all these prices are so many cheaper. At least 60% of what we pay in Singapore, some local products are even cheaper. But I must first become a member of Lenta," said Zheng Ang. And so for a 20 cent fees he signed up as a Lenta member and forever he would enjoy the special prices of Lenta membership.
We did not buy much for our first visit to Lenta - just a broom for his room, some cold pizzas and sandwiches for us to feed ourselves tonight, and two bottles of Fantas and two bottles of plain water. On hindsight we should have prepared for breakfast the next day. But we hadn't even checked into the cottage yet, thus it slipped our mind.
The raw wilderness of Petergof. Walking. Being out in the open. Be one with Nature. That was what being an undergrad in Petergof seems to be about.With our exploration of the dormitory and Lenta over, NOW we were really ready good to go. My job was almost done. 99% done. Now everything else left was all up to the young brilliant man already. He has to adapt, to learn, to leap, to stand out, to persevere, to keep his mental strength as strong if not stronger than all the other equally hungry foreign students who come from less privileged backgrounds and less privileged countries -Belarus, Iraq, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, PRC China and Central Asia countries. There were even students from South Korea , USA and Indonesia! What a melting pot!
Here in Petergof, according to the Health Insurance lady, there was no Singaporean. So he was the only Singaporean here.
Walking back to the cottage was a delightful affair. Zheng Ang kept calling out "Wow! Papa have you ever seen such huge 蒲公英 (dandelions)! And look at these! These are called bluebells!" like a small little boy. He was so drawn by the flowers and the leaves.
Walk and walk and walk and walk. The Russians don’t lose out to Koreans when it comes to walking. But in Russia the only difference is- their land are all flat land. There are no slopes no mountains no hills, no slopes, unlike in Korea.
It was about 4pm when we did our check in into the cottage. And it was a really nice fully-equipped room with kitchenette, microwave, stove - everything one needed to cook. The only thing was - we had nothing to cook.
We had only our sandwiches and two pizzas which we devoured for dinner. Breakfast would need to be postponed to a later time the next day.
For this day, we had done enough and we just needed to rest.
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| Pactising his Russian on the instruction note in the cottage wall. |
This was the height of summer. And daybreak was around 5:20am and the sun finally went down at around 8:30pm. Thus at 8:15pm, it was still bright. We were surprised to see Russian boys and father playing football outside at 8pm something!
The Video...
“Ok Papa,” 正昂 said. “Tomorrow, I am going to transfer my whole big floppy luggage full of things to the dormitory. Most of my stuff we will bring over and I will leave some little bit in the cottage and we will move them slowly over the next two days.”Sounds good. I like it that the young man is making decisions himself and telling me what to do. And he spent the night packing his luggage and deciding what to bring over the next day and what to leave in the cottage meanwhile.
Day 6. Moving most of the stuff over to the dormitory.
30 August 2019
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| Well we found wheat flour... we found some spaghetti, some coffee powder, there was sugar and salt... |
Early morning we woke up automatically as the sun shone through the windows. No alarms. Nothing. Man, I haven’t woken up naturally like this, well-slept, well-rested for a long time. But we had no food. However we found some flour in the kitchen and I don’t know how he did it but this talented young man made bread for me! Bread and coffee for breakfast! Man, his years of working in Long John Silver, in a Japanese Restaurant as a chef assistant, and as a baker in a Pita bakery really paid off. He can cook up almost anything from nothing!
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| And he made his bread from dough! |
"Papa, here is bread for your breakfast. It’s not Pita because I don’t have yeast. But can eat lah." And hey!!! It’s nice! I cannot believe that he actually made bread for me for breakfast when we did have anything at all!
Ok, let's go!
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| That long, non-ending road to the Faculty of Applied Mathematics from our ulu ulu cottage in the Kampong. |
So we walked that long long Russian Kampong road through the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and then all the way to the dormitory, and plonk the whole stuff there. It’s summer. But at 10:30am in the morning it was still nice and cool and one can walk in t shirt and jeans. But at 2pm it will be hot and one can actually become sweaty. Of course this place has an extreme of temperatures. Come winter it will be very cold. Zheng Ang later found out from a China student who was doing the same preparatory course last year, that during winter the mercury could plunge to negative 20 degrees Celsius.
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| This Zheng Ang ah... I think he is really suited to the 荒芜的郊外. He is so captivated by all the plants and vegetation’s and kept pointing them out to me. |
The Petrodvorets Hall of Student Residence
Today we had just one last document to acquire. I really didn't understand what it was, but Zheng Ang said it was some kind of registration of residence in the Dormitory. So many documentations required in Russia I was also blur.
So I waited while he disappeared into room 103 again to wait in a short queue of about 8 students...
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| Wah the Russian girls have very colour full hair hor.... |
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| These are Russian girls, all speaking in Russian. |
As I sat down and looked around, I caught sigh of so many young Russian girls and boys, probably only in their teens, all very young, from different cities and states of the Russian federation.
“I think I must be one of the older students around here,” said Zheng Ang.Well... our Zheng Ang will be 23 years old in half a years’ time. Ok lah. He definitely won’t be the youngest.
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| Ok! Finally a registered Russian! Hahaha! |
Ok man! 成功啦！ Finally gotten the proof of registration of dormitory. 真是麻烦，这么多 red tape. But ok. Today there are many more students and many are Russian boys and girls from other cities and states of the Russian Federation who are coming to study here and to stay in the dormitory here. Interesting. It was really very interesting to see the various typical features of Russian boys and Russian girls, different from the Germanic, different from the Anglo-Saxons, the Russians are a Slavic people and their facial features and body structures are different.
“You know, Papa...” Zheng Ang said. “We all Singaporean also have our own look. One look you can always tell, and we can easily pick out our own Singaporean people. Somehow we are different from the China Chinese or the Taiwan Chinese or any other Chinese.”
“Yes you are right, son.” I agreed. “I think although our ancestors were from southern China but somehow the environmental influence, the life style, the climate, the weather, the sun, the food, our inter-mixing of blood in our country.. that made Singaporean Chinese look different from a PRC Chinese. We behave differently, we dress differently. We also think differently. It’s evolution.”
“But even though my great grandparents were from China directly, you think just three generations would have made such great difference?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Zheng Ang.” I mulled. “My personal theory is, yes evolution can take place very quickly especially in this modern world.”
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| Walking up to Corpus (block) 12 |
He was wondering about the laundry and the dryer. We knew they had it somewhere. But I jokingly pointed out this ledge and told him, worst comes to worst he can always dry his clothes here. But eventually he found out, right at the back of the blocks there was a laundry service and for S$5 he can pass the whole week 5kg of laundry to the laundry lady who would carefully wash and dry his clothes for him. Problem solved. Especially come winter when it will be hard to dry clothes.
Back to Lenta...
We shopped and bought three to four days worth of food from Lenta and walked back to our cottage.
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| The young man having a swell time doing his shopping buying ingredients for his cooking. |
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| 80 cents for huge pumpkin! Anyone? |
“Papa, have you ever seen tomatoes so red ever before?”True hor... these tomatoes are really red! I am sure they are not genetically modified by local farmer-grown ones.
And on our way back on the next street, I refused to walk left out of this road make two right turn, a long distance to our cottage. We actually bashed through the woods instead of taking the proper road. This father is crazy! And the son also LL followed.
I told Zheng Ang “Come son, let’s just bashed through this thick wood and bushes and see if we can emerge from just outside our cottage.”
So we bashed our way through undergrowth, thick woods, and branches and up a slope to reach our cottage from the other lane because if we had to make the walk out and the u turn back it would have been really far. It was two days later that I found a much more pleasant and easier short cut path in the woods when I walked back myself. Haha.. that one needed no bashing through branches.
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| Just emerged from the thick woods. Bashed through, SAF soldier style. |
丰富的自煮晚餐...
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| Zheng Ang's pita dough! |
The Video...
To be able to eat fresh pita with egg and bacon, in such a foreign country, made by my own son, was a 福气. Seeing how meticulous he was in rolling his doughs and making sure they rise, was an eye opener for me.
As I father, I am guilty of spending too much time at work, trying to earn for the family, that I actually didn't spend enough time with the children. Not as much as I really should. There was so much that I have missed out. Only to find out later how good they have become, and how grown-up they are. I missed a great chunk of that. The fault is no one's but my own.
At this point in my life, I look around at all my children and I heave a sigh of relief. I know every single one of them will make his or her own way in life, of course not without obstacles. And as parents that is what we are there for... hopefully to smoothen out some of these bumps along the path. But the children are tough cookies, every single one of them. And I am proud of every one of them.
For my part, I actually fried omelette and made spaghetti and bacons. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't cooked for don't know how many years already and finally here in this ulu little kampong, we found ourselves having to survive. Really, luckily I had Zheng Ang with me.
It was a relaxing evening. Zheng Ang was again deep in his own thoughts. I knew he had many things to think about, and certainly many a worry about different aspects of study and living in Petergof. He even started to watch Russian drama on his handphone just so that he can quickly grasp some new words, although he hated drama. Of course, his usual game playing, as boys will always one lah.
The Video...
And rare was there opportunities like these when father and son talked and talked and talked the whole night...
Day 7. He goes exploring on his own.
31 August 2019
"Ok, Papa. Today ah, I am going to go on my own to clean up the room and the bathroom and the toilet. I will go to Lenta to buy some things first and then I will try to clean up as much as I can. If possible I will also clean up the oven and the stove in the kitchen so that I can use it," determined was Zheng Ang.He didn't need me to go along. Well, a man has to do what a man has to do.
leaving me to spend literally the whole day in the cottage alone.
This young man was really very cute. Again he demonstrated his child-like nature when he saw goats and took photos to show us.
"Hey, I saw 羊 on my way to Lenta leh!" he wrote on the Telegram Family group chat. He knew the sisters would be excited about them.
"OK I bought another bucket, and a memory foam pillow and some cleaning detergent," he Telegramed.
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| All his own photos taken with pride to show how clean a job he did. |
And when he arrived at the room and closely examined the conditions, he uttered a gasp in Telegram...
"Oh No No No!" referring to the dirty-ness of the room.Without me realising it, Zheng Ang has grown up to be quite a clean and tidy man. Throughout this trip he would complain that I use the toilet dirtily and the floor rugs are soaked with water. He would also re-wash and re-hang the utensils in the proper fashion, after I do it the wrong way. And after a while, he would remarked that we really needed to use one of the bags as trash in the cottage room. I like the OCD-ness with which he went about clearing things. That was a sign that I could be sure he would keep his belongings properly too.
So cleaned up his room he did. Really cleaned it up, this young man, while his roommate was still missing in action, with only his luggage representing him, lying quietly on the other bed.
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| Of course, he loved buckets, for they are the tools with which would work. |
How to keep all these important documents secure?
This was also a question that had been plaguing my mind from day one. Yes, of course the original document itself was the most important one. But we definitely do need to scan copies of each of these and store it somewhere.
And it just happened that Zheng Ang left the 1Tb external hard disk that I bought him at home just before we flew off. But I think still, a scanning software on his iPhone and a cloud subscription would be ideal for the young man.
Personally I use Scanner Pro App on my iPhone and I subscribe to Dropbox. For him, right here in Petergof, we downloaded and purchased the Scanner Pro App, and I purchased and subscribed to a Lifetime subscription of Koofr Cloud 250Gb for US$69.90.
"That will last me many years, Papa," said the delighted young man. And he started scanning all his important documents and pushing them all up into his cloud and sending me links to these documents. I was impressed how quickly he was able to do all that.I am relieved we solved that part.
Day 8. Last minute scramble for a safe...
1st September 2019
Zheng Ang was really adaptable. By the second day he already made a couple of new friends - an Iraqi guy Martin who was doing his Masters in computer programming, and a China guy who was also doing his Masters, in Applied Mathematics. Both of them were very helpful and gave him plenty of advice. And the China guy Bruce Su even gave him some text books! How lucky could he be?
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| Zheng Ang showed us the text book he gotten from Bruce Su. |
Getting a safe for Zheng Ang...
I spent the whole morning in the cottage. But somehow I could not find myself settling down until I complete just one last task for him - to get him a safe. The dormitory had no drawers with lock, nor any form of safe-keeping for passports and money and such.
Apparently all the students just keep their important documents in their rooms and lock up the rooms that was all. Upon asking, Professor Nina reassured us that there was no need to be worried as the students had NEVER lost anything here. I would certainly believe her, because here in Petergof, it was such a small town that no one would care nor walk into your house even if you left your door wide open. Such was the loveliness of a little place.
Still, as Singaporeans, we tended to be a little more kiasu. And I just had to get a safe for him to keep his passport, his important documents and his extra cash.
We tried going online to order but they could not deliver. So my plan was to take a Yandex all the way back to Vosstaniya city central (58km away) and check out the Galeria shopping mall where they were supposed to have everything.
As the Yandex taxi driver drove across towns after towns I was surprised to see many towns that had some kind of town centre with huge shopping malls and hardware stores and such. Hey.. perhaps I didn't need to go so far back to City Centre. So I showed the Yandex driver a photo of a safe, and used Google Translate to explain my purpose. This guy was good. Straight away he knew where to go and he drove me to a mega hardware store called Maxidom and even gestured to me he will wait for me in the car park while I go in and check with the information counter. I found just the safe I wanted for 9959 roubles and boy was I happy! I came right back and he was smiling and waiting at me. And he saved me a lot of trouble and a lot of time by being so helpful. He drove me back to the dormitory and I gave him a double tip. He was so happy. But what he didn't know was I was happier! Win-win!
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| With his help, he saved me effort, time and money! Great Yandex driver Yanenko Aleskey Pavlovich! |
Zheng Ang carried the heavy safe all the way up and was relieved he could fit it just beneath his table. Later he moved it to behind his door and plonked his huge luggage on top of it. Clever boy!
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| Oh the safe fits nicely under his table! |
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| Not bad lah. Not big enough to keep the laptop but good enough. It was a key lock so that we didn't have to worry about battery running flat and all that. It would never die on us. |
Now my job was really done. I left Zheng Ang to himself in the dorm and I slowly walked back to the cottage, enjoying the nice coolness of the later afternoon.
As my adrenaline started to drain from my system, it began to dawn upon me that the time had come for me to leave him soon. Yes, he has grown into a big man, and bigger than me in many ways. It was time.
Day 9. A short trip to the nearby town for lunch.
2nd September 2019
At 10:30am Zheng Ang had a Russian proficiency test to gauge his grasp of the language so that the professor could properly allocate the students into the corresponding groups. He was quite happy with the test - he could do about 80% of the questions on grammar and vocabulary. Russian is a complicated language with 12 forms of conjugates for each verb.. or something like that. And its nouns also had genders - female and male. We had always had confidence in him, his quickness in picking up languages and the profoundness of his thoughts in mathematics questions.
I met him at the faculty after his exam and we went for lunch together.
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| Zheng Ang at his faculty |
"Zheng Ang, yesterday as I was travelling in the Yandex, I passed by this small town only 3km away from your dormitory, and it was really a town centre where there was a shopping centre - another Lenta, marketplace, groceries, hardware shop, barber, dentist, book shop, internet shop, fitness centre, furniture shops, clothes departmental stores and shoes shops! You can just take a bus 210 nine stops and you will arrive here. I wanted to show you the place today. Let's go have lunch there ok?"
And so a Yandex taxi we took, for 131 roubles (S$2.70) we arrived and had a wonderful lavash lunch at Shaverma. We ordered THREE lavash and a coffee and a tea - cos I knew he would be hungry. For a total of 680 roubles ($14) we really ate until we were both full, until Zheng Ang had to da bao half a lavash back to his room.
"Papa, you know ah.. for a person like me who has worked so long in the F&B industry, I know exactly the prices of different restaurants, eateries and meals. A meal like this would be in the range of about S$26 back home, but we are only paying $14 now here," remarked Zheng Ang.
He really enjoyed the lavash. He said it was delicious and the french fries with the garlic sauce! In his own words - those were 'REAL garlic sauce!'.
"Papa, I really want to say thank you for planning our trip so well," said Zheng Ang during lunch. "You gave ourselves ample time to come early and do all the registration and banking so that we didn't have to rush. Today one hour before the examination was due to start, there were still foreign student streaming into Professor Nina's office, rushing to register themselves!"I was really touched by his sincere words. I was also glad we gave ourselves enough time, not for the registration, but just for ourselves to be together for once in a long time.
It would be many moons before we can spend a time like this together again, father and son.
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| Outside the dormitory gate |
We parted way at the dormitory gate for the second last time, and as he waved bye bye to me, I stood there and my eyes followed him as he slowly walked until he disappeared into the buildings...
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| Zheng Ang waving bye bye to me as he made his way back to the dormitory. |
It was time to give him some space for himself. And thus on the last two nights, we stayed apart - he in the dormitory and I, 1.3km away in the little cottage. On this evening, the Yandex weather app notified me that tomorrow would be a colder day and it would be raining the whole day. At 7:10pm, I walked out of the cottage, thinking whether I should hazard another walk to visit him just once more for the day. But I decided against it, as the security room female clerks would have gone home. I ended up just walking outside along the gravel road.
The sun would not set until around 8:20pm during summer. I just wanted to take in the sight and remember this scene here, right outside the cottage.
In the good 'ol olden days, whenever a child left his or her parents, they would never know when they would next see each other again, or at all. In those times, reunion would always be in terms of years or even decades. In my heart, I was just glad that in this modern world, reunion would be a mere 20 hours of plane ride. Any time. And telecommuncation technology made keeping in touch a simple swipe of the screen. But still, human beings were creatures of emotions and belonging. Booking into an Army Camp, or going back to the hostel in the campus back in Singapore, we all would be still standing on the same piece of soil, and we all would be somehow physically connected.
But here, 9000km away, one would not be connected through soil. It was overwhelmingly a continent away. I guess those were just random thoughts going through the mind of a father leaving his child soon. The gradual lowering of the sun, and the impending dusk did little to help uplift the mood of the moment.
That night, I did my best to sleep.
The Last Day
3rd September 2019
The last ten days with Zheng Ang simply flew by in a blur. At times it was painfully slow, at times the hours just rocketed. We have accomplished so much in such a short span of time. In my heart, I knew he was ready. He had settled down, mentally and physically and I think we have done and prepared ourselves in anticipation of most of the things that were to come. The only thing I wasn't exactly ready for, was my own 不舍得的心情.
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| Cool, green, Petergof |
I saw no castle, no cathedral, no palace, no royal garden and no bridge opening and closing in these ten days. But what I saw was a side of my son, a mature, grown-up, meticulous, serious side of him. A resemblance of me when I was at his age, albeit a more reserved version of me. And I believe in these days he also saw a side of me which he may not have seen, as I imparted what I knowledge I could to him. I was happy to have the chance to laugh over movies we watched in the aeroplane, to laugh together in so man occasions when he tried making bread out of nothing, and when we both cocked up some small little things. And to worry together when things didn't go right, and to think together the solutions to the problems- just father and son.
It was a colder day this morning at 15 degrees, just as forecasted. As I stood outside the door of the cottage, I let my body feel the cool, crisp air and enjoyed the green around me. I could imagine myself, as a 22 year old young man, in such a peaceful and serene environment, with nothing much to do but to enjoy my beloved studies. What a joy it would have been!
Now, fully confident of his grit, I am finally reassured. I knew this would be his playground, his battleground, if karma shall have it, for the next few years. With the rosary Serene, I, Ah Li and Fann bought him from the shop beside St Peter's Cathedral, I was sure he would be praying every day every night with it, to give him the strength that he needed.
He had been starting to study for the past few days and nights already, the textbooks from his new-found friends and some of the mathematics textbooks. I was sure he would finish these in no time, knowing him so well. In my heart, I hope he could get right up on track immediately and gain the confidence to start taking bigger steps before he started running.
A last heave of breath, and my mind was calmed. As Cecil Day-Lewis wrote in his poem 'Walking Away' -
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
I was glad to have one more chance to visit his dormitory, spend some time to chit chat, have a good look at how well he has cleaned up the room, and both walked to Lenta to buy him a multi-cooker ad have a sushi lunch before I leave him.
"正昂啊," I told him as we had one last lunch together before I Yandex to the airport. "I want you to have this watch and wear it every day. Whenever you look at it you will think of me. And whenever you miss the family, we are just one simple Telegram or Whatsapp conference call away. Any time, even if we are 5 hours ahead."
When my Yandex taxi came, I chugged the luggage into the boot, and gave him a long hug. As the taxi drove off, I left him as he started back towards the dormitory, waving at me, slowly becoming smaller and smaller. 眼送着他的身影越来越小，车窗外的雾水和车内的泪水，都混在一起了。
EDIT:
31 July 2020
Almost one year after Zheng Ang left for Russia, we have been in constant contact with him onZoom dinner and Telegram text. On this day he Zoom dinnered with us to celebrate his, Yeye and Fann's birthday. We were all very happy to see him and talk to him..
He was telling us that he was very busy with applying for the next semester. We all missed him so so much and we were so gald to see him on Zoom - live - from 9000km away!
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