Way to Russia Talk Lounge

renwan · Talk Show Host Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 204

im going to UFA for a year,can you give me some info about it?

DennisF · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:00 am Post subject: USA?

USA? or UFA

AliceFromMoscow · WayToRussified Joined: 10 Jul 2004 Posts: 411

i guess (s)he means Ufa, the capital of republic Bashkortostan..

DennisF · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 10:08 pm Post subject: UFA

Oops! My mistake! (I feel stupid)

DennisF · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 10:10 pm Post subject: Alice from Moscow

By the way, I LOVE your new picture!

Keoki · Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:30 pm Post subject:

I've visited Ufa twice and was bored out of my mind both times. I hope you can change your decision about which city to go to. It's clean and relatively polite, but there's not much to do there. A whole year would probably put me in an asylum. If you're set on seeing this general region of the Russian Federation, go to Kazan instead. Much more interesting.

wavetossed · WayToRussified Joined: 27 Jun 2004 Posts: 337

Use the trains to get into the surrounding area. Visit the city of Chelyabinsk. Spend a few days in Magnitogorsk at the aquapark there. Go to Zyuratkul national park. Visit the Ural jeep factory in Miass.

Make some Bashkiri friends, learn a bit of Bashkir Turkish and visit the small villages surrounding Ufa where the ancient rulers of Manchuria live.

Keoki · Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 1:24 am Post subject:

Or you could go to Yekaterinburg, especially if you're a US citizen, since there's a US consulate there.

The remains of the U-2 spy plane, Ipatiev House (where the last tsar and his family were killed), and lots more.

vorteks · Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:22 pm Post subject:

Stay at the holidays resort on the drink water deep Tugoyak Lake near Miass. Wonderful views on the Oural with the perfume of pine trees and relaxed atmosphere. As stated by others, Ufa has few to offer and is overpriced. In summer, you can make shashliks on the beach while watching the sun set..at midinight!

deeper · Just Starting Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 2

I need an information about ski areas and hotels which are in Ufa.

Skip · Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:00 pm Post subject: Re: Ski areas

deeper · Just Starting Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 2

Thanks for the websites, but I knew them. I found websites which are about ski areas, but they are all in russian.

Skip · Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:17 am Post subject:

wavetossed · WayToRussified Joined: 27 Jun 2004 Posts: 337

Good advice.

I travelled in the area near Ufa. In Satka, Mezhevoy, Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk and Ekaterinburg. I never ran into anyone who could speak English except for a few sample phrases like "Hello, how are you doing". Even when I was struggling with ordering train tickets or understanding the price in a 3 star hotel next door to the U.S consulate, nobody offered to help me in English.

Russian is the language that people speak in Russia. Learn as much as you can if you are going there without a tour group or tour guide to support you. It is not at all like visiting Europe or Thailand or other tourist destinations.

On the other hand, learning Russian is much, much easier than most people think it is.

vorteks · Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 1:01 pm Post subject:

Wavetossed is very right, but sometimes you can get lucky. Speaking about UFA, I rested at a lake east of the town where locals were gathering for bathing and I was approached by an older lady...in french. I was surprised and asked her how she found out about my native language, she answered she thought my motorcyle s plate was belgian (it was australian). Her husband was working in Belgium and she learnt the language there. Her son was fluently speaking english and german at the age of 17.

Generally, the more european languages you can babble, the more chances you get to communicate.

Ufa was a strange experience. We had booked some accomodation ahead on a lake side and when we arrived there, the hotel was closed. The reason given was very odd. They said some tchechnians stayed in the hotel and they had to desinfiect it., so we had to camp. I think the real reason was more that this nature area was used by locasl for tariffed encounters, since the woods nearby were maculated by thousands of used condoms.

If you see some guys on the side of the road waving, don t think they are hitch hiking. Actually they are selling faked travel cost bills to truck drivers so that they can get some few extra cash from their employer.