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Published: March 31st 2007
It's hard to describe my six days in Russia without writing a novel! What you may have heard about Russia is true: it can be dangerous; the people can be cold and unhelpful; you should not travel alone unless you speak Russian; and it is a place of contrasts. What people might not tell you is how warm Russians can be. Our tour guides are Finns who speak Russian fluently and are in the country more than they are in Finland. Kaisa was one of our guides and she's part owner of the company we travelled with. She told us that when you get to know a Russian, he or she will be extremely loyal to you and will give you absolutely everything he or she has. When I needed help with something (e.g. how to navigate the complicated metro system in St. Petersburg), the random metro users I asked were not only helpful, they were friendly (maybe not in the typical smiley way, but friendly nonetheless).
I'm going to split my blog up into two different ones - one about Moscow and one about St. Petersburg. There's too much to tell you about for one entry!
We
arrived in Moscow on Saturday morning after a fairly decent night train ride from Lahti (near the Finnish/Russian border). During a meeting before departure, our guides told us to expect anything and everything in Russia. This wasn't an exaggeration. During the train ride, one of my friends had a pretty traumatic experience with the conductors of our car. I won't go into detail out of respect to him, but this experience put things into perspective very quickly for us! Despite the incident, I was determined not to let one bad experience taint the rest of my trip, which was a good attitude to take because overall, I had a great experience in Russia.
Our first day was a whirlwind of tours (the whole trip was). Even though the night train was decently comfortable, none of us had had much sleep. Nonetheless, we went on a tour of the city centre where we were introduced to Russian architecture, history, and monuments. There were so many monuments! I guess I don't have a lot of experience with old European cities (other than Riga and Helsinki), but I couldn't believe how many statues and monuments I encountered in Moscow!
The tours
for the day also included stops at the Red Square, the Kremlin and of the metro system. Because I want to keep this entry as short and interesting as possible, I won't give you all history lessons on these three sites. I'm sure you've already learned something about these significant places in school and if you don't remember, there's always wikipedia 😊!
I was expecting to be impressed by the Red Square and Kremlin but I was not expecting to enjoy the metro tour as much as I did. First of all, I had no idea that the metro system of Moscow was anymore special than any other metro system in the world. Now I know that it was Stalin's gift to Moscovites - he wanted to give the Russian people "underground palaces" and commissioned world-class architects and artists to contstruct and design these stations. In addition, other countries sent artists of their own as gifts to Stalin. Every station has its own theme, whether it's an art style from a certain time period and country, or a period of Russian history. Absolutely amazing.
The second (and last day) in Moscow was spent wandering around the city centre.
I spent the day with two of my friends and we had a great time just walking around and exploring. During this time, we saw some of the many contrasts that make up Russia - very expensive designer shops in fancy malls that are just kilometers away from old, run down and beat up neighbourhoods. We had lunch in a restaurant that was recommended to us by our guides and expected that the servers would be speaking English to us. Wrong! We quickly learned that body language and hand gestures are universal. This knowledge would serve us well for the rest of the trip.
There was a market near our hotel and this is where it became really difficult to communicate. It's easy enough to point to things on menus (menus are available in English in most touristy areas). At the market where you need to be able to barter, things become a little more complicated. Again, hand gestures became very handy, as well as the use of calculators and showing vendors student ID cards! I found a very traditional/symbolic Russian hat (you've definitely seen them - the furry winter hats from the movies) for 230 roubles (about 10
Inside the metro car
My seat neighbour who at first was just sitting with his head slumped...this was followed by him full out passing out on the floorCDN).
Probably one of the most disappointing moments of the trip occurred after lunch. I was expecting to see a ballet at the world famous Bolshoi Theatre that evening and met at the appointed place and time only to find out that the guide didn't have any tickets. At first I thought it was an April Fool's joke, but then he started talking about other options (either going to the circus or getting a refund) and that's when I realized, this wasn't a joke. Some people were furious! The ballet was probably the event that I was most looking forward to - Russian ballet dancers are internationally known as being some of the best in the world. Adding to the aura of the Russian ballet was a conversation I had with a professor in Jyväskylä. He told me that he had visited Russia right after the end of Soviet rule. He was with a group of students and by the end of a ballet performance they attended, everyone was in tears. He said that even at a distance, he could tell that the dancers were giving the performance absolutely everything they had and were themselves, very emotional. He told
me that it would be a crime for me not to see a ballet performance during my stay in Russia - well, it was out of my control. After I learned why the guide had no tickets, there was no point in staying angry.
You've all heard of the "black market". Well, opera and ballet tickets are sold through the black market. Retired Russians are given huge discounts on tickets and are given a pretty high number of tickets that they can purchase for each performance. They pay about 2 euros for every ticket they buy and in turn sell them for about 30 euros. They effectively control the market because there are no tickets available after these people have bought them. I spoke with the person responsible for buying the tickets for our group (he's sort of a middle-man between the initial buyers and tourists). Miko (the other head tour guide) has been working with this man for years and has never had a problem getting tickets. Both the seller and Miko were at a loss for words about what had happened. When I spoke to the seller, he was extremely embarrassed and upset about the situation -
Lenin's Mausoleum
If you look closely, there's a dog sitting in front. He was fully alert and definitely more into manning his post than the guards the people he buys tickets from had promised long ago that our group's tickets were guaranteed at 30 euros per ticket. He found out the DAY OF the performance that they had sold our tickets to another group at a higher price. So goes the ongoing corruption in Russia.
Another black mark occurred that night. I met one of the German students from Oulu (a different university town in Finland) during breakfast the next morning and he told me that his cab had been stopped on his way back to the hotel from clubbing the previous night. We were told to expect to be stopped by the police and to always have our passports on us for these instances. The cab was pulled over and the four students inside handed their passports over to the police. For 20 minutes, the police were speaking Russian to each other, to the students, to the cab driver - none of the students could understand what was going on. Eventually, the German student decided to try and give them some money so that they could go on their way. He made the mistake of taking his whole wallet out of his back pocket, which was promptly taken from his hands by one of the officers. All 2000 roubles were taken as well as money from the other three in the cab.
Despite these two incidents, there was a positive occurrence that night. The ballet ticket seller offered to find us tickets to the circus for half the price of the ballet tickets. I decided to go, even though I'm not big into circuses. I ended having a great time! The performances were much more entertaining (save for the ones that included animals) than I had expected and the calibre of the performers surpassed my expectations. I guess I only have the Shriners Circus to compare to (no offense to anyone who loves this circus but I really didn't enjoy it when I went!), but I got so into the performances that I had no idea that three hours had passed by the time the circus ended. There was one clown in particular who was in quite a few of the skits (skits came in between the more acrobatic performances). During one of his skits, he did a comedy routine where his only prop was a whistle. It was an interactive routine where he had the audience do things (e.g. half the audience would clap while the other side would have to be silent). It's really difficult to explain why and how, but his comedy routine (which included mocking the crowd) was hilarious! He only had his facial expressions, whistle and hand gestures but he had the entire place cracking up! He easily got some of the loudest applause out of all the performers that night. At the end of his comedy routine, he did a drum solo and I can honestly say that it was the best drum solo I've ever seen.
After the highs and lows of Moscow, I was ready to experience the multi-cultural and artistic city of St. Petersburg!
Up next: my three day adventure in St. Petersburg!
By the way, if you're one of those people who I haven't heard from in a while, feel free to comment! I'd like to hear about how you've been doing 😊.
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Lina
non-member comment
Sounds wonderful/scary/exciting
We talk all the time, but your blog was so great it deserved a comment!!! Lina wishes she could see all those things with you. Lina is happy choo had a good time. Lina is sorry about the ballet and promises you a performance in her mom's basement.... if choo want. Lina also loves choo, gyes!! Miss ya!~