Dear friends!

As many of you know I have once again pulled up my roots to try and replant them in yet another place, in another country. This is the fourth town around (haha) and it's the second largest place I've lived with it's somewhere around 260 000 inhabitants. Yes, you've guessed right: it's good old Petrozavodsk, the capital of the Republic of Karelia in north western Russia.

 

The reason for this seemingly random move is that I have to spend a year in Russia as part of my degree at university. To choose Petrozavodsk as the place of study was not too hard as I can continue to study both Finnish (it's very close to Finland) and Russian.

 

About this time, exactly one week ago I was sitting in a train station in St Petersburg, waiting for the screens to tell me which platform the train to Petrozavodsk was to depart from. Now, I'm sitting on my bed in a concrete block of flats in the suburb Kukkovka in Petrozavodsk. This first week has gone past so quickly!

 

I'll give you some short information about Petrozavodsk just to get this thing started!

- Petrozavodsk was founded in 1703 and celebrated 310 years this summer

- It is founded the same year as St Petersburg and by the same person - Peter the Great

- In the 2010 census it had 261 987 thousand inhabitants

- In the same sensus it was the 71st largest city in Russia (it would be the 4th largest if it were situated in Sweden)

- Being the capital of Karelia it also has a Karelian/Vepsian/Finnish name: Petroskoi

- The city was occupied by Finland in 1941-1944

- It's situated by the Onega lake