Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauk_slon/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dmitry.Kolyagin
EyeEm: https://www.eyeem.com/u/dmitrykolyagin
VK: https://vk.com/pauk_slon

I am Dmitry. I am currently living in Saint Petersburg, Russia and working as a software engineer in a company developing solutions in the field of digital television.

My hometown is a little-known small Russian city where they cook the best North-Chinese food in the whole Russia. The city is called Blagoveshchensk and located on the Russian-Chinese border. There are a lot of exotic things in Asia, but this hardly pronounceable for a foreigner name is not related with such Oriental location. It's related with the Russian culture and translated from Russian as the Annunciation. Why do I write about it? Just wanna share with you, that somewhere far, far away, there is a city with so beautiful name Blagoveshchensk.

Well, let's proceed with the location. The location determined my most common directions of travels. This is, of course, China and Southeast Asia. As any ordinary tourist I enjoyed the beautiful seas and mountains of this region, delighted in eating delicious local food, visited the sights. I spent in the wonderful Oriental world each my vacation from the first day to the last. That world was totally another in comparison to my typical habitat. Exactly this thing made me fall in love with traveling. I understood that it's a great opportunity to look at the life from a different angle (in my case — from a totally different angle) and to see something which had been out of my sight for a long time. The locals and culture became for me those things which I want to know better when traveling.

To understand world cultures better, I would like to live for a while at different parts of the world. I cannot say I am successful in achievement of that wish. But I had some experience like that. For about an half year, I've lived on the Philippines. Probably, awesome white sand beaches are pictured when you hear the name of this country. I wont take offence if you decide I am a little bit crazy, but my choice was Manila.

Manila is one from the most populated and, in my opinion, dirtiest cities of the world. It's a city that is full of contrasts like any megacity of Asia and multicultural like any megacity of the world. I learned a lot of new things, I met a lot of people from different countries. It was not only a time of marvellous discoveries, but a time of disappointments as well.

My Filipino life had a big impact on me and maybe later I'll add more details to this essay. Or, if anyone's curious about that, ask me, I am still alive and can answer. Now I am gonna just summarize. It allowed me to realize how much I like my national (Russian) culture (especially food!) and to make good friends. It was an unbelievable time. And, yes, I learned how to cook Adobo.

As I said at the start, my current place of living is Saint Petersburg. It's a city of rivers and bridges, of marvelous architecture and amazing history. To be sure in my words you can just type "St Petersburg" on Google Images. But it's better if you come here. I'm gonna be your guide and, of course, I can show you a place where they cook the best North-Chinese food of Saint Petersburg!

Unfortunately, now I cannot accept guests, my current place is too small and doesn't allow it (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=869394609841171&l=32e18487ac). But I am working on that.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Staying with locals is the best way to feel the place. I don't say about making new friends, it's an obvious (and the most important) thing.

Interests

Long-time walks on foot or bicycle rides around beautiful places.
To look at a sea.
To listen to live improvisational music.
Theaters.
Taking pictures of beautiful places.

• culture
• architecture
• dining
• cooking
• chinese food
• traveling
• music
• history
• tourism
• beaches
• rivers
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, John Lennon
Yuriy Norshtein, Julio Medem, Mikhail Kalatozov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Kurt Vonnegut, Stanislaw Lem

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach how to cook borsch!

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Russian Federation