Hi! This is the shared account of Alexandr Medved and his wife Alya Davydova. We travel tougether for over five years and host guests in our flat in Samara. We usually travel by hitch-hiking, especially in Russia, but we've also been to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, Alexandr was also in Turkey and Belarus. We are open to new acquaintances and adventures, we love taking risks within reasonable limits. We also enjoy warm company and polite people, never drink and never smoke.

I (Alexandr) have a master's degree in psychology and bachelor's one in slavic philology and I want to pursue my career in science. My research interests lie in the field of psychedelic studies, and I regularly publish articles and speak at conferences on this topic. I enjoy industrial tourism (URBEX) and contemporary art (I'm passionate about street art myself). I'm happy to engage in conversations about culture, history, independent cinema, and neuropharmacology. I am also interested in philosophy and Islamic culture.

Alya is a positive person with good sense of humour. A few years ago she started to paint, and she totally fell in love with it. In her future she want to be a good artist with a dachshund (this is her favourite dog type). She is currently studying Spanish for herself and doing aquascaping.
She also loves cooking and her dishes are really works of art)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Once we had read an article about adventures with Couchsurfing and found it interesting. We into the process of meeting new people. Alya even was working as a barista in specialty cafe for 10 months. Connecting with people is wonderful!

We think, people are making our cities. Meeting new people, we start to know the culture and details of the city, which we would not know as a tourist.

Interests

• street art
• contemporary art
• sketching
• coffee
• painting
• neuroscience
• psychology
• psychedelics
• hitch-hiking
• spanish
• industrial tourism
• aquascaping
• rockclimbing
• buying clothes in second-hand
• waffles cooking

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:

Alexandr:
-classical music (especially Bach and Rachmaninoff)

Alya:
- Los Espiritus
- a liiiiitle Rammstein and Lindemann
- alt-J

Alexandr:
Independent cinema:
-Emir Kusturica
-Andrey Tarkovsky
-Sergey Paradjanoff
-Ingmar Bergman
-Kira Muratowa
-Akira Kurosawa
-Lars von Trier
-Abbas Kiarostami
-Asghar Farhadi

Alya:
Movies:
- La casa de papel
- One Piece
- Blue period (anime and manga)
- Bakuman
- The Darjeeling Limited

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

- skydiving alone
- rock climbing on real mountains
- speleology
- hitch-hiking
- one night in a tent in Murmansk

Teach, Learn, Share

Our own stories from life and maybe we can inspire each other in painting/art theme

Alya can teach you some Spanish, and I, as a industrial tourist, may tell you about unexpected location (maybe even in your country))

What I Can Share with Hosts

We can cook waffles for breakfast, make good coffee (or help you with it). Perhaps Alya ask you to pose for her sketches :D

Countries I’ve Visited

Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Turkey, Uzbekistan

Countries I’ve Lived In

Russian Federation