Julien was born in a small city in Burgundy, central France, and studied to change into a linguist. “Our university in Clermont-Ferrand had student exchange programs with Russia. I was given the choice of either Tver or Saratov. I chose Saratov and didn’t regret it,” Julien recollects. He preferred the outdated service provider metropolis with its wood mansions and its stunning Volga River embankment.
He noticed Russia for the primary time in 2008. He then acquired his diploma in France and returned to submerge himself into Russian tradition and to journey throughout the nation. In Saratov, he teaches the French language and considers this metropolis his second dwelling. He even had a tattoo performed on his chest with the Russian flag and the coat of arms of Saratov.
One might solely inform he is a foreigner by his gentle accent.Â
“I don’t like to draw attention to myself and try not to speak French, I feel uncomfortable when people stare at me,” Julien explains.
He has no downside with the Russian language: he understands the spoken language properly and writes accurately (okay, he admits, his feminine buddy proofreads his weblog posts) and even involuntarily swears in Russian when he forgets a phrase – “Blin!” (‘blin’ in Russian is a gentle swear with a that means near “damn”).
Julien in Murmansk.
Julien likes historical past and politics; apart from his Saratov coat of arms tattoo, he has quite a lot of tattoos with Russian and French historic figures. He believes that the peoples of Russia and France have lots in frequent, which can be related to the occasions of the start of the nineteenth century. One of his articles is devoted to his love for household feasts, well-liked in each nations. But, it was in Russia the place Julien tried bizarre appetizers like dried fish and sunflower seeds for the primary time. He even tried to make rye bread kvass by himself.
His homeland, Burgundy, is known for its wines and cheeses and, at first, it was uncommon for Julien that the tradition of ingesting wine in Russia is totally different. Unlike in France, individuals favor not dry, however semi-sweet wines; Julien wanted fairly a while to discover a wine to his style.
Unexpectedly, nonetheless, he relished medovukha, an historical low-alcohol drink primarily based on honey and yeast. “I remember how I brought medovukha to France. My friends and I have a football team and I offered it to our opponents, saying that it was a local Russian alcohol. But it doesn’t get to your head, it gets to your legs and they were sluggish on the field after. We won then.”
The Frenchman accepted of Russian-produced cheese. “I found such a camembert that if someone gave it to me to compare to the French one, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“There’s a great saying by Charles de Gaulle – how can you rule a country that has 246 sorts of cheese? In France, there really are a lot of cheeses, but, in Russia, their quality and amount is also improving,” Julien says.
“I often read that, in Russia, people don’t smile, but I understand that better than when smiles are fake,” Julien says.
Often these stereotypes originate from Russians themselves, who take a look at different nations and say that Russia is for the unhappy. “For some reason no one says that, for example, Japan is for the sad, although they don’t smile there all that much either.”
Julien in Saransk, town the place Gerard Depardieu is registered.
Julien believes that, by years of residing right here, he bought russified and treats many issues as regular, which, in France, would seem bizarre. For instance, if visitors come instantly.
“My dream is to visit every region of Russia,” Julien says, “For now, I managed to visit Krasnoyarsk, Murmansk, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Vladikavkaz, Vladivostok, Tolyatti, Nalchik, Voronezh, Ulyanovsk, Astrakhan, Izhevsk, Saransk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd, Sochi, Samara, Moscow and St. Petersburg!”
He says that he likes to journey on the Pravda prepare probably the most; as a foreigner, at first, he had bother with buying prepare tickets together with his French passport (Julien does not have Russian citizenship). “Excuse my French, this is a pain in the ass [sic] – as the majority of Frenchmen, I have three names and no patronymic name. Sometimes, during ticket checks in trains, I’m even asked to pay a fine, since I stated no patronymic name. I tried to explain that it’s not a patronymic name, it’s a second name. Now, I found a loophole, maybe someone will find it useful: when I buy tickets on a website, I put all my names into the ‘name’ field and say that I have no patronymic.”
In the North Caucasus.
During a current journey, Julien determined to see town of Saransk, about 350 kilometers from Saratov, the place his compatriot, legendary actor Gerard Depardieu, is registered. He even discovered the home of his “friend”, the place the actor apparently is registered, and wished to pay a go to, however nobody was there, Julien mentioned. However, he did not get discouraged and nonetheless loved the journey.
This check in Murmansk says “The North is to live”.
“Surprisingly, for now, I liked Krasnoyarsk the most, I literally fell in love with this city. All my acquaintances say that I just got lucky that, in these five days, the city had great weather without smog from the local factories. It only rained one day, the sun was shining for the rest of my visit; the city is clean, well-kept, pleasant, large and, of course, the nature around is beautiful. Krasnoyarsk Pillars were especially impressive.”
“As it occurred to me, Murmask has the most stoic people. For now, that’s the only northern city I’ve visited; I’d also like to visit Arkhangelsk, Solovki and Karelia next. Last year, I wanted to go to Norilsk. My friends were telling me: why would you go there? But it’s interesting to me.”
Julien says that he typically hears, even from Russians themselves, that there is nowhere to go on a visit, however he believes that the nation has all of it: forests, seas, mountains – there’s loads of issues to have a look at!
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Source: RBTH