I woke up at 8 am. This is my last day in Russia and I am leaving tomorrow.
I headed to the Mcdonalds for breakfast. So there was another drone attack, and the hotel receptionist said there is no Internet in Kazan. At least there is no Internet in the hotel. Mcdonalds still has Internet. My mobile data is very, very slow.
So today I went to a tourist center and three people helped me there. They kept trying to speak English to me. They even gave me a Chinese poster. I should have thanked them, but honestly, I prefer an "authentic" experience. They said the excusion is only in Russian. I said it's fine.
We will visit 3 locations: Свияжск, остров недалеко от Казани, and Иннополис.
Храм всех религий
Иннополис
This is Russia's "youngest city", a high-tech park with self-driving cars. We didn't stay long, we just got off the bus and then got back on. There is also a university here. Overall it's newly built and quite beautiful, and it looks like many high-tech parks in China.
We visited the island of Sviyazhsk. It was a fortified site during Ivan Grozny. Now it's a tourist destination.
The tour guide babushka walked me to the bus. I walked around the island shore for a while.
The Internet is back on, though it's still slow. I'm the only one in the hostel room now.
And I'm leaving tomorrow. I don't want to leave! I still have 3700 Rubles.
There are 3 people in this 10-people hostel dorm.
I woke up at 9 am the next morning.
What happened? I booked a plane departing at 11:40. There are 2 flights from Kazan to Moscow, and I thought I had booked the one at 2 pm. It was 9:50 when I was at the metro station, and I realized I was late.
I quickly downloaded Yandex Go and called a taxi, it was my first time calling a taxi here. The driver isn't a Russian speaker, he just speaks basic phrases. The ride cost 700 Rubles. Fortunately, he didn't scam me for more money and said, "До свидания". I arrived at 10:20.
It looked like there is chaos again. There are massive flight delays - the previous 0:00 flight is delayed until 21:00. And drones are arriving again. But fortunately my flight went normal.
The plane approached Moscow, but it didn't land immediately. There was an annoucement that there is a congestion. Anyway, it finally arrived at 2 pm and I went boarded the flight back to Shanghai.
До свидания, России
A bit more detail: I bought some Shanghai snacks - the white rabbit candy, pineapple cakes, and other traditional snacks - and sent it to Alex via CDEK.