Roza Ivanova, a professional tour guide in Kazan: “I am interested in everything in the profession!”
February 21 is World Tourist Guide Day, or World Tourist Guide Day, we congratulate guides and guides on their professional holiday!
Portal "Personal guide" presents an interview withRose Ivanova.professional tour guide in Kazan!
How did you become a guide?
To be more precise, I became a guide by accident. 15 years ago I met a classmate who said that she changed her profession and worked as a tour guide in the Kremlin.
And I thought, "Why don't I try it?" I like to study history, I like to walk around Kazan, I like to tell my fellow travelers about my native city.
I tried it and liked it in this profession. And most importantly, tourists also liked me as a guide. This is very important.
What is the most interesting thing about your profession?
Everything is interesting to me and therefore I am comfortable in it.
Communication with tourists, traveling with them around their native region, familiarizing tourists with the history of their favorite city, endless study of history, and even the opportunity to be on an excursion a little bit of an artist. Any tour guide is a bit of an artist.
If the guide is afraid to speak in public, then in this profession it will be difficult for him.
What's the hardest thing about your case?
Communication with people can be the most difficult in the guide profession.
You can learn the text, you can learn the dates, names, names of streets, routes, but if you do not know how to communicate with people and speak in front of an audience, then this profession will be very difficult.
Leadership skills are also needed in this profession. Try to manage a group of 59 people for three hours and get their attention.
What excursions do you remember? Do you remember interesting stories from your practice (unexpected, funny, etc.)?
For almost 14 years, so much has been funny and unexpected.
Unexpected, funny stories - there have been many in almost 14 years in this profession.
Remember the most stressful, for example, a tour for a small group of foreign VIPs. They were accompanied by Kazan representatives and guests from Moscow.
Time was strictly limited by regulations. And so I tell Muscovites in Russian, and at the same time, the citizens of Kazan ask me questions about something completely different and demand an answer. At the same time, foreigners shine with wide smiles, to whom I tell through an interpreter about the history of this region since the time of the dinosaurs.
But I did it.
Dinosaurs were not a joke, they lived here.
Not all VIP tours are so stressful.
For example, with Emir Kusturica it was very comfortable. There were funny moments - I tell him in the summer about the harsh winter in Kazan, about frosts and snowdrifts, about the boots in which I go on excursions. And Kusturica says, "Valenki?" Where are they sold? Can I buy it?
And we changed the route of the tour - went to buy valenki for him. I wonder if he's wearing them now.
Or a funny story about mushrooms and a man with a goat. A few years ago, a large corporate group, sixty people, came to Kazan in the summer.
Very cheerful, friendly. We looked at Kazan, checked into a hotel, had a delicious dinner, drank vodka, some very much.
In the morning we went on an excursion to the neighboring forest region.
Driving far, long, I give travel information, behind the windows a luxurious pine forest. And one of the tourists is interested in asking "What mushrooms are collected here?".
I'm starting to talk about mushrooms, how to harvest them. And so tasty told about salty cargoes that at the sanitary stop several men ran into the woods in search of... No, no, no. Loads were sold at the most stop site. The tourists ran for vodka. It wasn't sold at the stop.
And while the bulk of tourists stormed the small toilet, the accompanying group did not notice the historically important moment of meeting the thirsty vodka and the man with the goat. A man with a goat on a rope came out of the forest and to him, as to the local, rushed suffering vodka with the question “where to buy?”.
The man waved his hand deep into the dense forest and said, "There's around the corner."
Around the corner!!
Around the forest, pine trees to heaven, the road is a small boardwalk toilet with a hole in the floor like fu-fu, local old women with mushroom nuts, roots, jams, herbs and brooms for baths.
But vodka was so desirable that tourists rushed along the path into the dense forest. The man with the goat did not have time or forgot to specify that the place of sale of vodka is a forest village and a couple of kilometers walk to it through the forest.
Tourists bought vodka and returned happy, but while we waited for them for a long time and were very worried. Considering that in the forest where they fled, there was no telephone connection and they could not reach them.
Very exciting excursions with children. With a large group and a small group. There was a little girl on the tour. At the beginning of the tour, she trusted me with a tiny hand and I took her hand.
We walked with her around the Kremlin for a couple of hours, studied the ancient fortress, watched the ants on ancient stones, the rays of the sun through the beautiful stained glass windows of the mosque, I told about ancient legends, about our dragon Zilante.
Then her mother sent me a picture of her daughter with a picture of this dragon, and next to it I was drawn and it said, "Rose is our guide."
This is the recognition of me in this profession as a small guest of beautiful Kazan.
What to advise tourists who are going to Kazan
I advise you to book everything in advance. First of all, the hotel. The city is very popular with tourists and sometimes it is difficult to find an available hotel room or apartments. Especially on long weekends and summer. Tourists visit the city all year round.
Book and restaurants, especially if you want to try dishes of Tatar national cuisine.
As a souvenir from Kazan, you can take away Tatar hotels-Kuchtenech and souvenirs made by local artisans, for example, products made of leather, silver.
And be sure to entrust your excursion to Kazan to a professional guide with Russian certification.
Your favorite places in Kazan
Difficult to choose one or more locations in your favorite city, given how much the city has changed over the past 20 years.
Who was in Kazan today the city will not know.
I like to walk in tourist Kazan - this is the Kremlin, the Tatar settlement, a very cozy embankment of Lake Kaban.
I also love the non-tourist places of Kazan, those streets where tourists do not usually walk.
Friends!
Order unique excursions in RussiaandelsewhereYou can visit the guides on our website.
Allow yourself to travel in a popular and popular format - an individual tour with a private guide.
Read other articles:
World Tourist Guide Day 2024. Benefits of Traveling with Private Guides