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[ate_the_paint]

As a Canadian currently teaching in Moscow after 2 years of experience teaching in Korea, I can empathize with some of your questions.

There are ovens in the apartments here. No more cooking small chunks of chicken in an oven-toaster!

Beer and wine and liquor are sold at convenience stores and supermarkets and little all-night stands called "produkty". The problem I encounter at these places (the produkty in particular) is the language barrier. While it was possible to get by in Korea with limited language abilities, it is nearly impossible in Russia. Russians are fussier with pronounciation than even Koreans, so I strongly suggest learning the Cyrillic alphabet and some vocab before coming over.

This is my first winter in Moscow and this past week the temperature plunged to -25 C! I am from Ottawa originally where it gets very cold and snowy but the cold snap in Moscow was a biting, windy, dry kind of cold that froze my bones. If you're from Calgary or anywhere in the prairies you will be fine. If you're from BC then good luck!

There are bars and such where expats hang out, but it's not like in Korea where expat ESL teachers would practically own the bar. Most of the expats here are not ESL teachers, and the expat hangouts are few and far between. I used to love hanging out at the bars with fellow teachers in Korea but here in Moscow I've stopped doing that and now just a couple of friends, whether foreign or Russian, and I will randomly go to different restaurant-bars.

Russian grocery stores offer food that is closer to European dishes than you are used to in Korea; a surprising and comforting change. Italian pasta dishes are difficult to make here, except for the standard spaghetti, but if you start to miss Korean food you can find Ramyun noodles with Han-gul writing on the package! My problem at the grocery store is, again, the language barrier as most of the meats and cheeses are kept behind counters and you must ask for a measured amount. I usually run into some idiot clerk who refuses to understand what I'm asking for, even when I point and write the amount down.

Russia doesn't have the ridiculously excessive customer service that Korea has. In fact, it has the exact opposite! There is NO customer service here! Every clerk, waiter, driver, cashier, etc that you deal with will sigh and scowl and act like you've interrupted something really important in their lives with your consumer needs. I miss the cute happy girls in short skirts bowing and waving you in to the store, like they have in Korea...

Russian adult students are much different (the kids are the same, but kids are the same around the world) than Korean adult students. They are much more engaging and entertaining. They also grasp English easier than Koreans and I have had some fascinating hour-long conversations with my adult students here in Russia, which would have been impossible in Korea. Russians also have a much dryer and more sarcastic sense of humour than Koreans, so I find I laugh a lot more in class here.

The main difference I found is that it is tougher to live and teach in Russia than it was in Korea, but that's not entirely a bad thing. There is more history and less American culture in Russia, and for the most part I've been very fortunate with my employers (a McSchool...I have a very nice salary because of my experience in Korea), my flat and my colleagues.