Novgorod and Moscow

Velikiy Novgorod was an enjoyable little town. Smaller than either St. Petersburg or Moscow, Novgorod still holds an important place in Russia's history: it was the cradle of Russia. It was where the country began. We did a tour of the Kremlin (fortress) and learned much from our local guide, Irina.  I could see myself living there. It was a quiet, attractive town with several things to see and do.

Worst sleep in Novgorod, though. We accidentally left the windows open and there were mosquitoes in our room. Did they bother S? Nope, just me. I was covered in bites when I woke up. No air conditioning in our room and the blanket was scratchy, but I had tried to stay covered up. Obviously to no avail. I had even woken up several times in the night because they were buzzing around my ears. Ahhhh! No sleep made for a very long day.

Although the drivers are crazy, driving in Russia is relatively peaceful because nobody uses their horns. Although many people do use their cell phones - Goran says that it is not allowed, but obviously they are still working on that. :)

The first night we arrived in Moscow, we had dinner at our hotel and then went out for our first excursion: to tour the metro. During Soviet rule, the metro was designed to be the "working man's paradise," and you can see how.  Elaborate chandeliers for lighting, sculptures, mosaics and paintings. It makes you feel as if you are in a museum (but like anywhere with crowds, when you are standing around staring up at things, you have to keep your bags secure to avoid pickpockets).

We ended our excursion by walking to Red Square. As we walked along, we saw the department stores lit up in lights (Gum {pronounced Goom} being the most dominant and extravagant), the new pedestrian walkway, the towers of the Kremlin, and the church with the golden "flames" on top. So beautiful!

But then we turned the corner.

St. Basil's Cathedral is simply amazing. I was totally dumbstruck by the sight of it down at the far end of Red Square, and I think I ceased to hear anything that the guide was saying at that point.  I just kept walking forward. The colours, the shapes, the design and patterns are so unique and distinctive. So many of our group said that THIS is what they came to see. It was so exciting, and our group celebrated with, yes, you guessed it, champagne and vodka. I took a lot of photos and I'm pretty sure that I had a grin on my face for the rest of the day (maybe that celebration helped a little, ha!).

Lenin's tomb is in Red Square too, but you cannot see it anymore. You used to be able to go in and look at him because he was embalmed, but supposedly he's being moved to the family plot soon.

The next day was a full day in Moscow with our local guide, Vera. She was born and raised in Moscow and had so much information about the city and the rest of Russia; I learned so much and came away with a different impression altogether (as I thought I would). All of the stories I'd heard about Russia were generally negative. Now, seeing it from another insider's point of view, I was impressed and enlightened again. 

Moscow is pretty awesome! Despite not being able to drink the water (as with anywhere in Russia), it is very clean.  There is only 1% of unemployment (compared to 15-20% in the rest of Russia) and there are 250 McDonalds! That's a true measure of success, no? ;) Some of the main streets had eight lanes on each side! Talk about busy. Traffic is a problem in Moscow, but not one that we experienced, luckily.

Before the trip, I didn't know much about Russia's history, politics, relations with other countries, government, or standard of living. We are given so much information and it's pretty fascinating! There are many perspectives that I was surprised to hear. For example, apparently the Russians did not like Gorbachev very much. We were told 3 reasons for this:

1) When changing from a communist system to a market economy, people suffered because they could not buy food. They would have to line up from 6am at a store just to get any food they could. People didn't care about democracy, they just wanted to eat. People were starving under this poorly effected changeover.

2) Gorbachev put an anti-alcohol law in place that limited the amount a family could buy in a month to a ridiculously small amount. So people went from buying and drinking freely (which apparently was quite common during Soviet rule), to having almost nothing, overnight. Again, the consequences of this poor transition were dire; people suffered and in the worst cases, died from ingesting toxic substitutes. Viktor in St. Petersburg told us that after Gorbachev closed bars and liquor stores, there were more casualties in lineups for alcohol than there were in the Russian troops sent to Afghanistan in 1979 (perhaps an exaggerated remark, but still, it was significant).

3) Gorbechev's wife, Raisa, appeared with him everywhere. This had never happened before in Russia. No former leaders' wives made any public appearances. The Russian people felt as if it was inappropriate and "showing off."

Something else I learned was that many Russians are quite liberal, but due to the size of the country and the population, they struggle to make change. For example, the populations of St. Petersburg and Moscow are apparently quite liberal, but the rest of the country are not. The people who live in the country and in remote villages are quite orthodox and conservative (in both their religion and politics).  And the country is so large that even though Moscow and St. Petersburg have a combined population of about 20 million, it is still outweighed by the rest (another 120 million).

When we went to the armoury section of the Kremlin, I was pretty blown away. There are so many authentic artifacts in there it is mind-boggling. Most amazing were the ten Faberge Eggs, and the actual carriages used hundreds of years ago to transport Catherine the Great and other leaders. There were also dishes, elaborate coronation outfits, crowns, costumes and thrones. All original, hundreds of years old, and in wonderful condition. In times of invasion, these items were moved to Siberia so that they escaped destruction and plundering.

We also did a tour of the famous Novodevichi convent and cemetery. The cemetery was run by the government who decided which people would be interred there. There were many famous Russians in there, like Boris Yeltsin, Raisa Gorbachev, government ministers, military leaders, scientists, artists, and the like. What is different about this cemetery is that it was basically a sculpture park. Each tombstone was a work of art, most of which were sculptures or images of the person's face or body. It was very different. I enjoyed it very much, though. 

Russia has so many beautiful buildings, museums, artifacts, parks and special attractions. I can't forget, however, that all of it came at a cost. Most of this beauty came off the backs of the people, by taxing or withholding or punishing. And sometimes it cost human lives too, as in the example Goran told us: There is a tower on St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg which is gilded with gold, and the method of infusing the gold was deadly (it used mercury) and killed over 60 workers before it was finished.  But, if the leader in the 1830's wanted a gold tower, so be it.

I don't pretend that this only happens in Russia (indeed it has happened every place in history, and still happens today!) but when you find yourself surrounded by so much extravagance and opulence, you can't help but think about it. I can see why communist theory was such an attractive one.

Dinner was rushed, and the clutz in me came out when I was going up stairs in my flip-flops and tripped on the top step.  I literally fell into the arms of the woman leaving the restaurant (to everyone's delight) but not before I had bashed my foot (to my dismay). I went to the washroom to clean off my foot but there were no paper towels and only a Dyson airblade hand dryer - you know, the kind where you put your hands in vertically, up and down, and it dries them in 10 seconds? Well let me tell you, it is rather difficult to get a foot in there!  Yup, that was me in the WC, with my foot in the dryer.  :) I think I surprised the next woman that came in.

Our last evening in Moscow took us to the circus, which was quite different than I was expecting. It was a show of acrobatics, clowns, and animals. At first I thought the animal shows would be like seeing Superdogs at the PNE (which is my favourite!) but alas it was not. The stunts they had the animals doing were certainly impressive from a training point of view, but some of them looked unsafe, and as the evening went on, the "wow" feeling quickly turned sad.

They had all these animals in the lobby and were charging $30 to have your picture taken with a tiger cub, an elephant, Dalmatian dogs, a young jaguar, a muzzled bear tied to a chair, a kangaroo/wallaby (don't know which), exotic birds, a monkey, and more. Just seemed wrong. Not my kinda entertainment. (Although, I do try to suspend judgement where I don't know all the facts and conditions. I remember visiting a zoo in Chicago where I spoke to an employee who gave me much more information than I knew about zoos and it totally changed my perspective.)

Next we are off to Belarus, and as far as I can tell, it's mainly a stop on our travels. We travel all day from Moscow to Minsk (Belarus), and the next day we travel all day from Minsk to Warsaw (Poland). Two long travel days!

Cheers, 

Xo

Elaan

From Russia With Love

So, we reached the Finnish-Russian border and everything proceeded fairly smoothly. Despite being told it could take up to 3 hours, we got through lickety-split!

As soon as we were driving on the Russian side, it was like being in a ride at Playland. Not only were the roads way bumpier, but the drivers were crazy. We were swaying and swerving and generally trying not to watch. Just the way it is in Russia, it seemed. Things mostly improved once we hit the city.

St. Petersburg is amazing.  SO much to see, SO much beauty and culture.  It looks like Amsterdam with its canals running throughout, connecting the many islands that make up the city. Huge buildings, sculptures, statues, history all over the place.  And a very different feel than Scandinavia.

In Russia, the average wage is $800 per month. 60% of men smoke, retire at age 60, and have a life expectancy of 62 years.  Pretty awful. We were given a little forewarning by Goran (our travel director) about what it would be like and what to expect.  He emphasized that we need to think that it is "different," and not "wrong."  True of travel anywhere, I suppose.

I think he said something like, "If people seem stern or somber or miserable, it's not because they don't like tourists. It's because they do not have much to be joyous about."  Isn't that telling?!  And I guess he would know, since Goran's wife is Russian.

We did a city tour along the main drag, and got to see Peter and Paul Fortress. Then we checked into our hotel. In the evening we took a riverboat canal cruise (with all the champagne and vodka we could drink!) which was just lovely. It was nice to be on the water and sail around the city. We didn't take the metro but were told that some of the underground stations go as deep as 80 meters into the ground!

The next day was very busy, and we were up very early. The Hermitage is totally amazing and is comparable to the Louvre in Paris. You could spend all day in there and not see everything. Our local guide, Viktor, took us around and showed us all the highlights. I have decided that I really like artwork by Vincent Van Goh and Claude Monet.  It is quite the experience to stand back when you look at a painting, and then look again close-up. I enjoy that change in perspective! However, not much time for that in the Hermitage. It was quite overwhelming in there.

During our free time, we walked the main drag of St. Petersburg and it's quite the scene. The thoroughfare is littered with sculptures, churches, statues and monuments amongst the stores and coffee shops. Keep in mind that nothing is in English. It is all Cyrillic writing everywhere and it's very rare to see something in the English alphabet. Almost nobody speaks English either (we are told that young people may have had a little of it in school) so we are mainly gesturing and pointing.  Sometimes it makes for rather funny conversations, heh.

We were lucky enough to have another museum later on (note my mild sarcasm) that was the former home of the Romanovs (Russian royal family in power from 18th c. to 1917) and also learned the story of Rasputin and saw where he was poisoned and then shot.

Before heading back to our hotel for dinner, we saw St. Peter and St. Paul's Cathedral which was located inside the fort that we had seen yesterday. Important Russian leaders are entombed there, such as Peter the Great, his daughter Elizabeth the first, his wife Catherine the first, Catherine (the second) the Great, Alexander the second and his wife, Nicholas the second and his relatives, and others of course. By this time of day I was feeling rather exhausted, physically but also mentally. This is a lot to process!  Each time we see a sight, we are led around by a guide that does not stop talking. I can handle it for one or two sights a day but more than that is rather draining.

We ended our day by seeing a Russian Folk Show, which had all traditional singing and dancing. It was very lively, and at intermission there was more vodka and champagne for our group. You had to pay a small sum to take photos, and I got a few nice shots of their colourful costumes and instruments.

Our last day in St. Petersburg started with the Gardens of Peterhof, comparable to and opulent like Versailles in France. All of the fountains run without pumps, and only operate on the principles of gravity. Not sure how that works, exactly. :)  Then off to the palace of Catherine the Great, which had been mostly burned down and destroyed by the Nazis as they were leaving the building.  It had been built in 9 years, but it has continued to be restored from 1945. 

Speaking of WWII, it has left its mark in this city, and we crossed over the front lines a few times, taking note of the monuments marking where the Germans were stopped by the Russian army. Hard to believe we are so physically close to this history.

Our local guide, Viktor, talked to us not just about the sights and historical leaders, but also the more recent history and Russian philosophy. He was open to all our questions and tried to explain Communism philosophy (and why it doesn't work). He shared with us the following:

The paradoxes of Communist Russia; found in The Russians by Hedrick Smith

1) everybody has a job, but nobody works

2) nobody works, but the economic plans are fulfilled

3) the economic plans are fulfilled, but people have nothing in their apartments

4) people have nothing in their apartments, but have many luxury items (black market)

5) people have luxury items, but most are unhappy

6) people are unhappy, but 99% vote for communist candidate

On to Novgorod for a night and then Moscow...

Xo

Elaan