Hi there! Welcome to Saint Petersburg!
I`m Nataly) I teach languages and musical theatre, wich used to be my hobby and recently has become more than that. I love singing and dancing, hiking, adventure sports like mountin-skiing and rock-climbing, reading (mostly sci-fi and fantasy), live action role-playing games, travelling (surprising, huh). I love meeting new people, exploring new places, telling and listening to stories. I hope we`ll become friends.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I`ve travelled a lot living in hotels, but one day in a small village in Okinawa, Japan, due to double-booking I found myself in the street with no place to stay. There were no other hotels or hostels (it was a really small village), so money couldn`t help. I went to a nearby pub, and there I told my story to a stranger girl. And suddenly she offered her help - she took me to her grandmother`s and asked her to give me shelter. The old lady agreed. It was so touching! I stayed in her traditional wooden house, watched her everyday routine (her husband was a fisher and they had a small restaurant) and even helped her a little in the yard! And later I realized that these few days ware the highlight of my trip. So I decided to try it again. By the way, 6 years later the girl who helped me, the granddaughter came and stayed at my place in Saint Petersburg.

Interests

I love singing, dancing, travelling, volunteering (firefighting and looking for people lost in the woods), mountain skiing (and tempting my friends into it), surfing (only tried once, falling every ten seconds, but still love it), learning languages, psychology and religions (always wondering, what`s happening there inside people`s heads), role-playing games (you know, those strange people waving swords and all that stuff), reading, making things (pottery etc.), having long talks with my close friends, and everything that I haven`t tried yet.

• #hiking
• #musicals

Music, Movies, and Books

My favourite movies are:
"Good Omens", "Newsroom", "Firefly", "King`s speech", "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lowrence", all Martin McDonagh`s movies, "Being Erica", "Interstate 60", "Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", "Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind", "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead", "Star Wars" (old ones), Hayao Miyazaki, some of the Marvel movies such as "Iron man", old Russian Sherlock Holmes, Jean Cocteau`s "Orphee", a lot of musicals.

Favourite books:
Roger Zelazny, Gilbert Chesterton, James Curwood, Lois Bujold, Ursula Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, "Harry Potter and the methods of rationality".

Favourite music:
Mostly rock and folk music, Broadway musicals.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Took part in staging a real musical from scratch in Japan! I remember making a huge Wizard-of-Ozz`s head decoration in the yard of an old Shinto shrine - one of our team was a young Shinto priest.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I can tell you a lot of stories about living in Russia and Japan, make some traditional Russian food for you to try, teach you some Russian songs if you like, bring you a postcard or a souvenir.

Countries I’ve Visited

Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Japan, Malta, Slovakia, Spain, Tunisia

Countries I’ve Lived In

Japan, Russian Federation