Final week in Moscow

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We were pretty exhausted after two four hour train rides in two days, coupled with the fun that we had in Suzdal over the weekend. I woke up around 10 or so to find the ESPN headlines attempting to start my day off poorly, so I opted to go for a run around Paul's neighborhood again. One of the better travel ideas that I have come across, for the purpose of running in unknown places, is mapmyrun.com. Essentially the website uses googlemaps to allow you to either search for running routes in whatever city you happen to be in, or it lets you create your own. I prefer the latter of these two options, and have been using this program so that I do not get too lost along the way.

Of course, I still have managed to lose my way each time I have run around this labyrinth of a neighborhood, and Monday was no exception. My goal was to journey down to a nearby convent with had the graves of a few Russian bigwhigs, and then loop back around. Luckily I made it to the convent, but my attempt at looping around on the adjacent street apparently failed, because I ended up near the river (opposite direction). O well, used some sign language and got my way back. Then I headed up to the Arbat (think Boulder Pearl Street, Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Carnaby St. London, etc), to find some Lonely Planet books for the rest of my trip. 2500 Rubles later... I then headed down to find a metro after patrolling the length of the plaza, but when I couldn't find one I simply opted to walk, which ended up taking close to an hour. Needless to say I slept well that night.

On Tuesday morning I woke to an email from a Russian student on couchsurf, completely out of the blue, asking if I wanted to hang out sometime. Needless to say, it came as a bit of a surprise to get a random request to simply chill, but I talked to Paul about it and we agreed that it could not hurt. So I packed up my stuff around 3 and headed to the agreed upon meetup metro station. The metro ride over was filled with daydreams about movies like Taken where young travelers get kidnapped by locals and sold into slavery. Didn't think it would be tooo hard to get out of a trap like that. After all, I was only a lone American without a cell phone in a city where I had not yet learned the words for "Help, I am being kidnapped, call my parents or the US embassy." I reckon that was part of the fun though.

However apprehensive I truly was, Evgeniy turned out to be very cool, and he came with a British girl who was in the exact same situation as me: he had messaged on CS and invited her to "hang out". Turns out he was only trying to practice his English, while dually attempting to get away from Russian people who he described as "unhappy and frownful". Sounds familiar. We walked over to the Novodevichie Cemetery and Convent (yes, that makes 2 in 2 days), and saw the remains of famous Russians such as Yeltsin and Checkhov. It was nice to converse in English with two similarly aged students, and even better to have a fluent Russian translator to help me discern the various gravestone engravings. Afterwards we walked up to the convent, which was unfortunately close because it was a... Tuesday... before trekking up towards the Arbat (again) to sit and have drinks and a light snack. Great conversation, and Evgeniy also invited another Russian friend who was a week away from travelling to the states to start an internship in the one and only city of Dover, Delaware. She knew much of Rehoboth, as she had been there before, and we all had a great time talking about the various differences in our respective education systems. One note, Russian college students often take upwards of 20 courses at a time, and they attend school 5 days a week from 9 until 6. Then, come exams, they take 5 or 6 of those courses more relevant to their course of study for actual grades, and the rest for pass/fail. Incredible.

Wednesday I agreed to meet the group again at a carnival of sorts on the northern part of town later in the afternoon. I started my day with a run to the Kremlin to see Lenin in the mausoleum. Ran all the way there before being stopped by a set of barricades, which I of course opted to bypass under the logic that they were only for cars and tour buses. Got all the way to the middle of the square before I heard sirens coming up behind me. At that point I started to notice that there were almost zero people within the square, for whatever reason, and that near the historical museum they were in the process of building a giant stage. At this point I heard the sirens stop, and a bunch of angry Russians started yelling out some... angry Russian. Turned around to see two rather large popo hauling towards me, and I immediately put up my hands and started yelling back, "Nyet Ruski, American." Immediately I started to envision an ugly judicial process followed by a conviction and a one way ticket to a Siberian Gulag. Wouldn't that be a cool story to tell? Fortunately my thoughts were not met by correlating actions, on the part of the police, but rather by angry R...anglish, "Let's go! Let's go!" to go along with stern pointing out of the square. I said thank you --spasiba-- and hightailed it towards the river, away from the scene of my almost demise. In typical fashion, I then ran around the entire Kremlin to see if the other side was open, and when my hopes were tarnished I spent a good 15 minutes walking up to random people and trying to ask why the entirety of the city center was closed to pedestrians. My attempts at crumpled Russian completely failed, so I was forced to run back home without the memory of seeing a crudely embalmed former Russian leader.

Showered up and then caught the metro up to the sight of the carnival to meet my new Russian friends. Turns out that this site was the location of a past world's fair/exposition, and it was comprised of immaculate Greek and Roman architectural pieces.... filled to the brim, in classic Russian style, with ugly commercialized shops vending everything from watches and sunglasses to vacation trips. Thus, I spent a lot of the time barking to my Russian companions about how Russians took capitalism too far, for these buildings could very well have entertained quality museums anywhere else in the world. The carnival was very similar to one we would experience in the states, and we opted to go for a ride on the ferris wheel so as to allow us to catch a glimpse of the city from the top. Came home pretty late and got a decent night of sleep.

Woke up this morning after an amazing 12 hours of sleep -- at least 5 more than I had managed all trip. Put all of my clothes in the laundry (in one load!) and then went to the train station to attempt to buy my ticket to St. Petersburg. When I finally got to the ticket counter, I was met with a lady that spoke not an ounce of English, so I turned around me to find the nearest youthful looking person. Right behind me a very kind Russian girl who was probably somewhere around my age offered to help, and I managed to buy a ticket on the 9 hour train to St. Pete for tomorrow at 1. I also thanked the girl and exchanged information, for she was heading up to St. Petersburg too to attend some big rave concert on Saturday. We agreed to meet up for the train ride, and then possibly figure out a way for me to get a ticket to the event she was hoping to attend with her friends.

Left the station for my final experience in Moscow, the banya. This word refers to a bath house, and in Moscow there exists one extremely famous, and rather posh, house in the middle of the city. I had been trying to go for the past week, but today forced myself to seek out the site. Spent about 30 minutes asking around/searching for it, and then had to pay 400 rubles over what I had been expecting because I had passed the early bird (before work ends, apparently) deadline for entry... by 4 minutes. Grabbed a towel and then headed into the MASSIVE TWO STORY SAUNA CHOcKABLOCK full of naked. Russian. Men. Uhhh. Went over to a corner next to two rather normal (and by this I mean not entirely naked and more western looking) guys who were conversing in what appeared to be French. I said hello and (thank god) they responded with a laugh and asked if I was an American (in English). Wahoo. They then proceeded to explain to me the whole process of a banya. Usually heated to about 90 celsius, the sauna is only a small part of the banya experience. After you reach your breaking point, you are supposed to go outside and try for one of several different cold water options: a large jacuzzi style tub, a shower, an actual bath tub, a wooden barrel, or just simply fill a wooden bucket with cold water and dump it on yourself. I lasted no longer than 5 minutes, and then jumped in the, rather green, jacuzzi for a few seconds. When I went back into the sauna (as your are supposed to switch between the two options multiple times) I saw what appeared to be two naked men beating each other with palm fronds. What the hell? I sat down, this time rather timidly, for I did not want to get too comfortable in case one of these Russian mafiosos came screeching towards me with a fleet of bamboo straws (the possibilities seemed endless at the time). The two guys were laughing by the time I had situated myself and explained to me that the palm frond smacking was actually normal for a banya. It is supposed to circulate the blood or something. Very odd. Whole experience was quite odd, but that's what makes it Russia I guess.

Head out for St. Petersburg tomorrow. Will miss Moscow but am ready to get the journey started.

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Photos

boris yeltsin gravesite
supposed to be a russian flag, looks more like a big blob