Rolling Stones Gather No Moss

But I wouldn’t mind gathering just a little! For a girl who spent 25 years of her life in the one house in a leafy suburb of Melbourne, moving is not something I have ever been very fond of, or experienced at. Until June last year I had only lived in four houses in my entire 41 years, and we only moved as a family unit once, several years ago. But, in the last 18 months we have completely moved our ‘home’ and our lives 9 times, not to mention a few house sits and other home stays. In total we have stayed in 22 places. That’s a lot of packing and cleaning and recalibrating of our lives – not to mention a LOT of different beds and pillows. It’s no wonder the family has felt somewhat unsettled at times, and that we’re keen to just normalise a little. When we arrived in Krasnoyarsk we were very exhausted from the long journey, but had to hit the ground running with our first experience of “document stress” – registering our arrival here with the authorities. A few days later we were very grateful to be able to move into an apartment just a couple hundred metres away from the building where my brother and his family live. Very, VERY few apartments that are large enough to house us become available in this area – at least not at an affordable price. It is one of the older areas of Krasnoyarsk, but it is relatively nice, safe and walking distance to the university, as well as to many of our daily activities and needs. My brother and his wife were actively looking for an apartment for over a month before our arrival, so when a 3 bedroom one came up, we took it, even though it was at the top of our budget and we felt it would stretch us, because it really was an answer to prayer to be in this location. The rental market in Russia is very different to that in Australia. There is no property management, and I doubt there is even a tenancy tribunal here, so there is a lot of variation between arrangements, however most leases are for 11 months, and most places come furnished to some degree or other. (Mind you, “furnishings” can mean the stove!) The place we moved into had very little in the way of furniture, but thankfully it had a fridge and a washing machine. We began the mammoth task of setting up home in a city we didn’t know, with shops we weren’t familiar with, and trying to achieve just about all of this without access to a car. We had to buy crockery, cutlery, kitchen utensils, saucepans, linen, towels, pillows, doonas, mattresses, consumables – the list goes on. I found it an incredibly stressful time – physically and emotionally. It was very hard to find many things, especially on a tight budget. And you can imagine how many trips it took when we could only buy what we could carry home ourselves on crowded buses. All this at the same time as beginning full-time university studies, tackling Russian bureaucratic procedures and trying to find ways to occupy and educate the children. It’s been a busy time! Finally we thought we could settle in one spot for a while after so much movement and upheaval for our family, however, this was not to be. The story is quite long, but the very short version is that our landlords were not the honest, upright citizens we thought them to be. Not only did they deceptively change our contract, but they sold the flat less than 2 months after we moved in and gave us notice. We felt devastated. We were sure we were in the location where God wanted us, and we had finally started to feel like we could become a part of this community. We had very little hope of being able to stay in the area. The previous search for an apartment revealed that most of the ads online are indeed fake. Apparently the real estate agencies flood the sites with fake ads (often even using the same photos from one ad to another!!) so that people will call them, exasperated after being unable to find anything genuine! We cried out to God and asked Him what we were supposed to do now, but we still really felt we were meant to stay in the area, so we began looking online straight away. While there were no 3 bedroom apartments available, we found a 2 bedroom one that had the same amount of floor space as our current one due to the way they had renovated it. We felt we needed to look at it as our options were limited. Incredibly, the ad was real and we arranged to see it the next day. When we walked in, we knew it would be a big sacrifice to lose a bedroom, but there was more living space as a result. It just felt right, and it was so nicely renovated for roughly the same price as we had been paying. Two days later we were moving in! And what made this all the more amazing was that the apartment was in the same building, in the same stairwell (out of 6 possible options), and only 1 floor higher – directly above where we had been. Our old ceiling is now our floor. So although the move could have been an incredibly stressful process, it was made much easier by only having to carry everything up one flight of stairs! To top it all off, the view out of our kitchen window is almost exactly the same!! We still believe we’re meant to be right in THIS location  🙂

Our first kitchen. Eating at an old desk, sitting on broken chairs and sharing two forks! Just like camping 🙂

Quilts and pillows for 6 – and that’s with them squeezed and taped down!

Balancing Bedding on a Bus – sounds like Dr Seuss!

The girls’ room before we could buy all the bedding. Good thing it wasn’t that cold yet.

Our entrance is in the corner, at the middle of the picture.

Four floors of these and we’re home!

The lounge in the first flat. We have only had enough furniture to sit on in the lounge since we moved into the second apartment. Very happy that there were couches here already!

This is the view outside our kitchen window. It’s so great to be able to see so far and not be closed in by other buildings.