Ending with the Russian Capitals

Folks, it's over. I've finished my journey and am back home again, and you probably guessed I've been a little busy and so my last update is coming several weeks after the end of my trip. But better late than never, I always say. The last couple of weeks in Russia were less of a wild adventure - I crossed into the European part of the country, and things definitely got more developed. People were just a bit blonder and the food options were a bit more varied (try Georgian food if you get a chance), and best of all I got restocked with clean clothes that did NOT include my torn up hiking pants.

I spent a few days in the Golden Ring area not far from Moscow. This is a bunch of small towns that were originally the seat of the leaders of Russia, before Russia was a country. Now the towns are known for their historic quaintness and their wealth of colorful, onion-domed churches and monasteries, of which I saw more than I can count in Vladimir, Suzdal and Sergiev Posad. I sampled medovukha, the local specialty brew made from honey, and wandered through the gorgeous countryside.

Moscow was not what I would call a particularly charming city, but it wasn't as bad as some other communist capitals. The highlight for me was the stunning St. Basil's Cathedral, a Disney-esque explosion of multi-colored onion domes, plopped right at one end of Red Square, which also features dead Lenin (a disturbing and waxy sight - see him while you can, as they are considering burying him in a few years) and the graves of Stalin and many others of his cohorts, and borders the biggest and swankiest mall in the city on one side and the Kremlin on the other. After repeated warnings about the police and the scams they like to pull on tourists, we were impressed by how many of them were around but they did leave us alone.

We stopped in Novgorod on the way up north, mainly the site of more churches, including the one that started the onion-dome trend way back when.

Two overnight trains in a row and a round trip hydrofoil ride took us to the island of Kizhi, in the far north of Russia, where the second (and sometimes first) language is Finnish. Perhaps the finest wooden church in Russia is located there, and although I was a bit "churched out" and didn't expect to be very impressed, I must admit, it was breathtaking. Returning to the nearby city of Petrozavodsk for our train, we decided we had to try the local "tex-mex" restaurant out of sheer curiosity. Aside from surprisingly good food, they had a hilarious English menu including such gems as "The United States is famous for the skills to cook fast... Attention! Fast food can lead to unexpected death! Bon appetit!!". Between our scantily clad waitress and the offensive and definitely un-PC place-mats featuring crack dealers in Tijuana, we laughed all the way through dinner.

And of course the one-time capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, was the most charming city I saw in the country. This is not entirely surprising, as Peter the Great, its founder, went to Europe and attempted to bring back European customs and ideas to Russia, basing the design of his city on them. So it's not quite such broad avenues and boxy buildings as the other Russian cities are. There is an amazing food scene - we came to think sushi was actually more Russian than borsch - and of course the Mariinsky (formerly the Kirov), where I talked D. into sitting through both an opera and a ballet. We spent the better part of the day at the Hermitage, a place I had always heard about when reading about and visiting other countries, because I had often seen the reference: "this piece is now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg." So it was a treat to finally see where all those works and artifacts had been collected. We also spent a day wandering the gardens of Petrodvorets, which houses a palace and several smaller buildings formerly used by the Russian royalty.

St. Petersburg was a city where I could have enjoyed spending a full week or more, with a wealth of museums, from famous to obscure (they have one with a collection of two-headed fetuses and children's arms and heads tied up with lace and preserved in jars, and another in which they have whole woolly mammoths that they dug out of the Siberian ice, and yet another we didn't visit that houses Rasputin's reputedly mammoth penis), plenty of cultural activities, and excellent food options. Plus the metros in St. Petersburg (and Moscow) were built to double as bomb shelters, so they have the deepest escalators I've ever seen! Although people were not friendly, and we got a ticket on the first day for bringing our luggage onto the metro without paying extra, it was a fun and very charming city to visit.

And that about wraps it up. Russia far exceeded expectations, and although I was nervous about visiting it, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it now that I've been there, though learning the language would be infinitely helpful if you are going to the eastern part of the country. You'll be hearing from me once more when I get my photos online, which might be a while, but the travel stories are going to be quite a lot calmer from now on, as I buckle down to my studies Thanks for tuning in, and I hope I've inspired some of you to go out and see someplace you've never been before.

Riding the Trans-Siberian Railway

Over the last couple of weeks I've travelled more than 6000 kilometers by rail, crossing 5 time zones. Some would call it an epic journey through the world's biggest country, on the world's longest continuous railway track (although to be fair, I did not ride the entire length of it by any means).

Interestingly, for most people the journey itself seems to be the point of it all. Most travellers get on the train at Moscow (or earlier) and continue on straight through to Beijing or Vladivostok, a 7 to 10 day journey, though some stop at Irkutsk or Ulan Bataar briefly. I hear from them that the joys of rail travel -- attempting to converse with the Russians on the train, sharing your food, playing chess -- are what make the trip worth it. Perhaps these people are rail enthusiasts, as this was not the case for me. In fact, I found Russians on the train to be summarily unfriendly, the journey itself to be hot and relatively boring. For me, riding the train in one shot all the way to Moscow would have been an utter waste of time. The joy, however, lay in the stops along the way.

Siberia, I was somewhat surprised to find out, is not a snowy wasteland. In fact, it is characterized by taiga - a dense conifer forest - and in the summer can reach incredibly high temperatures. Much of it is uninhabited, although several indigenous peoples still make their home there, and of course the population soared when the government got the bright idea to send convicts (many of whom worked on the railway) and political exiles there, and later populated the area through forced migration.

I entered Russia by way of Ulan Ude, capital of Buryatia, a region dominated by Mongol people, not surprisingly, given its proximity to the border. Ulan Ude was your typical communist-looking town, with sprawling avenues and boxy buildings, its biggest claim to fame being the world's biggest Lenin head (seriously) in the main square.

From here I went to Irkutsk, a charming city in itself, where I ended up staying with a family and being shown utmost hospitality by them and their kids, who insisted not just on taking me grocery shopping but on helping me pick out each item that I bought. Never have I been so self-conscious about my pot noodles! Siberian homes are usually either log cabin style or ornately carved wooden houses (for the richer people), and many of the latter can be seen in Irkutsk, often belonging to political exiles such as the Decembrists. It's a great city to get a feeling for Siberian style and history.

I used Irkutsk as the jumping off point for Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is the world's deepest lake, reaching an incredible 1637 meters at its deepest point, and containing one fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water. Expecting just another big lake, I was amazed at how beautiful the scenery was, with soaring cliffs and jagged rocks rising out of a perfect light-blue surface that went on forever. This was also, however, the site of my first real "Russian experience."

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that Russians are famous for their love of alcohol. The guidebook claims that when Russians offer you alcohol, it's almost impossible to refuse, and once you've started, there is no stopping. Hard to imagine till you've tried it...

I stayed in a little guesthouse that was very basic (i.e. no plumbing), rather than in the big resort on the island. The first thing I noticed was that the house's cat had very short ears - which I later found out was because in the Siberian winter they freeze and break off! As luck would have it, Sergei, a stock broker from Moscow, was also staying there to celebrate his 33rd birthday. For some reason I didn't understand, he came all by himself, so he decided that everyone staying in the guesthouse would be his guests at the birthday party, whether we liked it or not. I arrived one afternoon and was met with a bottle of cognac, which luckily was almost empty, as he and his new friend Sasha had been drinking since 3am, so there were only(!) 3 shots left for me. There was then a break till 10pm, when a big table was set with many local goodies, and shots of vodka were distributed all around. All in all there were 4 bottles of vodka for about 10 people. And the toasting began.

Since I am female, I was off the hook for taking my vodka a whole shot at a time, but if I didn't drink fast enough, I'd get urged on by those around me. In the end, the old Buryat woman who owned the guesthouse decided that she was my "buryatka mama" and wouldn't stop kissing me and putting her cheek out for me to kiss her. And then there was Sasha, who was the author (as he wouldn't stop telling us) of what, as far as I could deduce, was a new-age, philosophical, self-help book that made reference to everything from New York City to Al Capone. (Olkhon Island is considered an important center of Shamanic energy, so it attracts all sorts of characters). One of Sasha's key tenets was that if you stand on one leg with your eyes closed for 30 seconds and then repeat on the other leg, you achieve the "Golden Middle"... of course he insisted that I try this after I don't know how many shots of vodka, and actually I think I did pretty well (though honestly I don't remember very clearly...). And then, after Sasha kissed me on the cheek, too - "for good luck" - we all went out to a local disco. A French couple who were with me the entire time both protected me from Sergei and can attest to the fact that nothing inappropriate happened... Amazingly I wasn't hung over the next day... though I did still feel a little drunk. Not something I'd want to do very often, but now I can say I've experienced the real Russia!! (Oh, and I do have a copy of one of Sasha's books for anyone who reads Russian and is curious...)

After Irkutsk things calmed down a little bit. I spent a few nights on trains, visiting the large cities of Krasnoyarsk and Yekaterinburg. The latter is in the Ural Mountains and is a source of many precious minerals, which were on display at a funny little museum where I ended up getting a private tour. Then I went to visit the ice cave at Kungur. The cave is unique because the cave formations (stalactites, etc) are made of ice, rather than stone. In the first bit of the cave they were pretty spectacular, but unfortunately I think it would be better visited in winter. On the way out of here, though, I met some incredibly nice and helpful people, including one guy who seemed sad that I hadn't bought any souvenirs and gave me a little wooden sculpture of a dolphin who is, I believe, drinking a cocktail.

Another overnight train put me in Kazan, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. Kazan is known as the "Istanbul of Russia," a place where Europe meets Asia, and this turned out to be true in many ways. Mosques mingle with onion-domed churches, and the architecture seems somehow to have escaped the ugly influence of communism.

Russia is actually a mishmash of various semi-autonomous republics and many ethnic groups, as a result of centuries of expansion, migration and invasion. These republics have had varying degrees of autonomy depending on who was in charge of Russia at the time. One of the most interesting things about travelling across the country has been to see how the faces change. At first it was a lot of Mongolian-looking faces mixed with some blondes, and then it became more blonde, and then an interesting mix of Muslim/Turkish looking, as the Tatars are a Turkic people. The Tatars even have their own president, laws, and language, which is on all the street signs above the Russian, and they are campaigning to change to a Latin, rather than Cyrillic, alphabet.

Actually Russia has surprised me in many ways. I think what I expected was a fairly developed country of unfriendly and pushy people (thanks to my experience at the consulate and reports from other travellers), and a relatively barren landscape all the way across Siberia. In fact what I have found is that Russian people (importantly excluding all those who work in train stations or in the service industry, who are, as the Lonely Planet accurately puts it, "obstructive goblins" at best) are incredibly kind, friendly and hospitable, and that there is no single face or ethnic look that can sum up a Russian (though love of vodka does seem to be a universal trait!). Of course there is a predominance of tiny, blond, European-looking people (and the women do live up to their reputation - in fact, if anyone knows how you tell an actual prostitute from a regular Russian woman, I'd be interested to know...), but there is also an incredible mix of Mongolian, Turkish, indigenous and otherwise. And interestingly, in many ways the country is quite advanced, though it is still mired in ridiculous bureaucracy left over from the communist days, and I've been amazed at how many people in their early 20s I've met who don't even know how to use the internet!

So Russia has actually been an incredibly fascinating and enjoyable place to visit so far. Rather difficult with only the tiny smattering of Russian I've got, but definitely a place I'd like to return to after I study the language a bit. I have seen only two other tourists in the past week or so, and it's been at times unbelievably frustrating but also remarkably rewarding. My rail journey is not over by any means, however, and the last leg of my trip takes me to the more famous and touristed parts of the country. I'll be back with one last report in a couple of weeks...