Republic of Tatarstan
This Friday began sunny, and the morning light immediately caught my attention as soon as I woke up. I looked out the window, and everything appeared so bright and vivid. The sky was a deep blue, the sun warmed the rooftops, and the streets lay peacefully beneath it. I felt calm and happy, absorbed by the beauty of the morning. It was the kind of scene I could watch endlessly—but I had my morning routine to follow, so I reluctantly left my bedroom to start the day.
The temperature was -11°C, and the wind was extremely cold. I only really felt it during my walk. Until that moment, I had spent the day at home and thought the weather outside was comfortable. However, I decided to continue my walk and didn’t want to spend my evening inside. I chose to spend an hour outside, even though the weather conditions were far from ideal. The city streets were quiet and almost empty, and I met only a few people along the way. The wind blew directly into my face, making it feel frozen. At that moment, I tried to walk as fast as possible because I wanted to find somewhere warm to thaw my hands and face.
During the day, I had two meetings. The first one was our daily meeting and lasted about thirty minutes. The second meeting was with our CEO, and it was the first one this year. It turned out to be quite long — around an hour and a half. Usually, these meetings last about an hour, but today the CEO decided to spend more time discussing work-related issues. Fortunately, during the whole meeting, I mostly just listened. At times, I was literally staring at a frozen screen because Google Meet wasn’t working properly. It was really distracting and annoying. I kept trying to fix it, but without success. As a result, I started feeling tired, skipped lunch, and decided to just keep listening and watching the frozen screen, hoping that nobody would ask me about my tasks.
I spent the day at home completing my work tasks. In the evening, I couldn’t rest either, as I worked on my freelance project. Although the project wasn’t large or difficult, it took me around two hours to finish, and by the end, I felt a bit tired and had a headache. To refresh myself, I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood. The air temperature was around -20 degrees, but it didn’t bother me. The fresh air helped me feel much better, and I rested a lot during the walk. After returning home, I was ready to finish my routine and relax properly. I made myself some fresh, clear water with lemon and began my final daily routine.
Today started off cloudy, with the temperature around -6 degrees. Surprisingly, it felt quite comfortable and suitable for walking. However, the weather changed very suddenly and unpredictably.I honestly didn’t expect it, but after lunch, the clouds disappeared, the sun came out, and the sky gradually turned a clear, bright blue.It really made my day, and everything felt much more pleasant and positive. Despite the sunshine, the temperature kept dropping throughout the day. By evening, it reached -20 degrees, and it felt more like -25. Because of that, closer to night, I decided to bring my car battery inside the house instead of waiting for it to die. I’ve already had a bad experience with this before, so I know how unreliable car batteries can be in extreme cold. I didn’t want to repeat that mistake again.
Over the last two days, I slept a bit longer than usual — until about 10 a.m. This happened because my bedtime had also changed. My first weekend night was Saturday. I went to bed around 2 a.m. and fell asleep without any problems. On the second night, however, I had trouble sleeping and couldn’t fall asleep after 2 a.m. During that time, I was scrolling through Reddit and reading posts one after another. I came across several interesting discussions, but one post in particular caught my attention. The author wanted to move to Tatarstan from Turkey and was asking for advice.
Honestly, I don’t understand who would want to move to Russia right now, or why. I have no idea what this person is hoping to find there. Usually, people want to leave Russia, not move to it. In my opinion, Russia is one of the most unstable countries at the moment. It is the most sanctioned country in the world, and these sanctions seriously affect everyday life. You can’t easily send money abroad, buy many foreign products, or use Russian bank cards outside the country, along with many other restrictions.
Yesterday, I shared a post about public parking spots. There was a situation where one woman cleaned snow from a parking space and announced that it was her private spot. Today, when I went to my car, I saw something even stranger. The same woman had placed an orange road service cone on that parking spot. I honestly can’t understand her behavior. Does she really believe that a public parking space belongs to her? And does she truly think that a cone will stop other people from parking there? If so, she seriously believes she can make this plan work. I honestly feel sorry for this unhappy woman.
I live near a public parking area and usually park my car there. Today, an unusual situation happened. One person cleaned a parking spot and then told others not to park there, as if the place had become her private property. However, cleaning snow or dirt from a public parking space does not make it belong to anyone. A few hours later, other people who parked there started doing the same thing. They cleaned only the spots they were using, and soon the entire parking area was informally “divided” among residents.
I remember that time very clearly. I was a second-year student studying information technology in Kazan. It was only my second year living in the city, and for the first time, I was living without my relatives. That period of my life felt very exciting, and I was eager to explore every corner of the city.
After long hours of studying, instead of going straight back to our rented apartment, I usually took some time to walk around. Most often, I walked through the city center, which was very close to my university building—only five to ten minutes on foot. Around me, there were many of the city’s main attractions, so every walk felt like a small adventure.
Today turned out to be a surprisingly calm and comfortable day, and I understand quite clearly why. The main reason was how my morning started. I woke up early, around 7:45, and from the very beginning the day felt fresh and balanced. The area where I had dental surgery didn’t bother me at all, my mood was noticeably lifted, and my overall condition felt positive. I still find it a bit surprising, especially considering that I went to bed at 1 a.m. the night before. Despite that, I managed to start my day early and without difficulty. Because of this good start, I completed my morning routine calmly, without any rush or unnecessary worries, and smoothly transitioned into my workday.
Yesterday I took a day off, and today, during my lunch, I went to Kazan. I had an appointment at a dental clinic for surgery to install dental implants. You probably remember that I previously installed Brazilian dental implants (Riellen) in my upper jaw, under teeth 24 and 25. Honestly, those teeth were covered with crowns, and their condition was not good enough. I realized this when one of the crowns fell out. After that, I had only two options: install dental implants or use dentures. I really didn’t want dentures. I’m still young, and I can’t accept using them at my age. I’m not sure how comfortable they are, but people who use them say it’s okay.
This time, I chose dental implants from South Korea (Osstem) and installed them in my lower jaw, in the places where teeth 35 and 37 used to be. Those teeth were removed back in 2020, and until today those spaces were empty. They didn’t cause me any discomfort, and they weren’t visible, so I postponed the treatment. These two implants cost $2,152.71, or 165,000 Russian rubles, including all the work.
During the day, several unusual and uncomfortable things happened at work. Because the workday was quite fast-paced, I handled many tasks. Usually, I take one or two tasks and complete them at my own pace. But today, I constantly felt rushed, and I really didn’t like it.
It bothered me a lot. I was forced to switch between tasks all the time and try to figure out many things at once. These were the same feelings I had last summer when I was traveling around Thailand. I couldn’t take a proper break during the entire day and worked nonstop, barely lifting my head from the screen. I think it was my mistake. Next time, I shouldn’t allow situations like this to happen.