This last week has been busy, between finals, last minute souvenir shopping, and saying goodbye to the city and my friends, I haven't had time to write or post anything new. Tonight I am frantically packing and resigning myself to the fate of over-sized baggage.
I still have a lot to say about my experience here and my impressions of the motherland, so I will continue posting through the winter break all the backlog of essays I've written or started to write.
From Russia with Love, Laura
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Word is Pronounced Bábushka not Babúshka
There aren’t too many things in this country that I really dislike, but the aggressive babushkas take the top of the list. The stereotype that comes to mind when most Americans here the word “babushka” is a bent over old lady with a head scarf. I am going to shatter that stereotype (and possibly build some new ones). Although there is a fairly high usage of head scarves and bonnets, there are many shapes and sizes of babushkas. I tend to put them into two categories: the aggressive and not-so-old, and the really old and crazy. While I enjoy being talked to randomly by 80 year old women, and could probably write a fair amount about this, it is this first category that I especially want to talk about.
These babushkas aren’t all that old (although perhaps by Russian standards the are. The average life expectancy for women is 68). They are women somewhere in the range of 45-60 who haven’t aged particularly gracefully. The association that comes to my mind when I see them is alternately tank, armadillo, and sometimes turtle. Basically anything that is compact with a hard exterior. Their uniform of choice is some sort of large unflattering coat and the silliest hats I’ve ever seen people wear seriously. The babushka hat is a bonnet, a Little Miss Muffet-style bonnet, that inflates the size of their heads to give a very mushroomy appearance. I wish I had photographs of this unique style choice, but I would fear for my life if I tried to snap a picture of one of these ladies.
The reason I am writing about the babushkas is because I am finally fed up with being pushed and shoved and yelled at by them every single morning. These women have an amazing ability to compress crowds of people into train cars and trolley busses so that they can squeeze their tank-like mass onto a train. Trains come every two minutes, but why wait when you can force a crowd? They achieve this by alternately pushing with all their strength, and by sticking an elbow into the back of whoever is directly in front of them. They also manage to make very speedy exists out of train cars using the same strategy. If the pushing isn’t enough, they do not hesitate to scold whoever is nearest and under the age of 30. Usually it is something about having a bag that is too large, or not filling up the 2 inches of personal space left to the person. Once in a while it is a complaint about how no one is offering them a seat.
How exactly has such a character been formed and turned into such a large percentage of the population? How does the beautiful 5’8’’, 120 pound, stiletto-strutting, mini-skirt wearing Russian 20-something turn into a course and angry babushka? My theory is that somewhere in her late 30s time suddenly catches up. Between the cigarettes, the alcohol, the children and most especially the husband (who may still be a lazy couch potato, may be dead, may be an alcoholic, may have left for a younger wife, or some combination of the three), she is angry and tired and has shrunk about 3 inches. The abuse that is exhibited on myself and others my age is the result of about 30 years of stored up anger and aggression. I feel it very keenly on my back or in my rib cage when I am compressed to the point that I can’t breath.
If my theory proves anywhere close to reality, I does make me feel sorry for the babushkas. They have had a hard life and are still very hard working ladies. However, I don’t think it gives them an excuse to abuse their fellow commuters. I have almost face-planted in the snow after being pushed out of trolley busses, and I have had to run away from babushkas yelling at me for accidentally bumping them. There is nothing more comical and frightening than having to scurry away from a woman in a bonnet who is making a scene, while every other commuter turns to watch with curiosity and pity. A basic summary of my feelings towards the babushkas: I would be more inclined to give them my seat if I didn’t feel like they were stronger than me.
From the Morning Commute with Love(?), Laura
These babushkas aren’t all that old (although perhaps by Russian standards the are. The average life expectancy for women is 68). They are women somewhere in the range of 45-60 who haven’t aged particularly gracefully. The association that comes to my mind when I see them is alternately tank, armadillo, and sometimes turtle. Basically anything that is compact with a hard exterior. Their uniform of choice is some sort of large unflattering coat and the silliest hats I’ve ever seen people wear seriously. The babushka hat is a bonnet, a Little Miss Muffet-style bonnet, that inflates the size of their heads to give a very mushroomy appearance. I wish I had photographs of this unique style choice, but I would fear for my life if I tried to snap a picture of one of these ladies.
The reason I am writing about the babushkas is because I am finally fed up with being pushed and shoved and yelled at by them every single morning. These women have an amazing ability to compress crowds of people into train cars and trolley busses so that they can squeeze their tank-like mass onto a train. Trains come every two minutes, but why wait when you can force a crowd? They achieve this by alternately pushing with all their strength, and by sticking an elbow into the back of whoever is directly in front of them. They also manage to make very speedy exists out of train cars using the same strategy. If the pushing isn’t enough, they do not hesitate to scold whoever is nearest and under the age of 30. Usually it is something about having a bag that is too large, or not filling up the 2 inches of personal space left to the person. Once in a while it is a complaint about how no one is offering them a seat.
How exactly has such a character been formed and turned into such a large percentage of the population? How does the beautiful 5’8’’, 120 pound, stiletto-strutting, mini-skirt wearing Russian 20-something turn into a course and angry babushka? My theory is that somewhere in her late 30s time suddenly catches up. Between the cigarettes, the alcohol, the children and most especially the husband (who may still be a lazy couch potato, may be dead, may be an alcoholic, may have left for a younger wife, or some combination of the three), she is angry and tired and has shrunk about 3 inches. The abuse that is exhibited on myself and others my age is the result of about 30 years of stored up anger and aggression. I feel it very keenly on my back or in my rib cage when I am compressed to the point that I can’t breath.
If my theory proves anywhere close to reality, I does make me feel sorry for the babushkas. They have had a hard life and are still very hard working ladies. However, I don’t think it gives them an excuse to abuse their fellow commuters. I have almost face-planted in the snow after being pushed out of trolley busses, and I have had to run away from babushkas yelling at me for accidentally bumping them. There is nothing more comical and frightening than having to scurry away from a woman in a bonnet who is making a scene, while every other commuter turns to watch with curiosity and pity. A basic summary of my feelings towards the babushkas: I would be more inclined to give them my seat if I didn’t feel like they were stronger than me.
From the Morning Commute with Love(?), Laura
Friday, December 3, 2010
Weekend Update: Kalashnikov, Or How I Learned to Love the Bomb
I finally made it to the Artillery Museum and it was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be! Every Russian has laughed when I told them I wanted to go to this museum, and I guess I can kind of see why. It is basically a museum for boys between the ages of 3 and 13 because it is jammed full of giant guns, bombs, and all the vehicles needed to transport said guns and bombs. What I tell every Russian when they laugh is that we don’t really have the opportunity to touch missiles and climb on rocket launchers in America, therefore I was going to take full advantage of it while I was here.
Before going into the museum we spent about 20 minutes outside climbing on all kinds of giant killing machines. This was made slightly difficult by an air temperature of 10 degrees and about two feet of snow on everything, not to mention a lack of ladders on most of the really cool big stuff. I’m not sure if we were supposed to climb on any of this stuff, but there was no one around to yell at us. After all, when will I ever get another chance to climb on top of a giant missile or be able to so perfectly recreate that Dr. Strangelove scene?
The actual museum was what you would expect of an artillery museum, a lot of fire and killing power dating from the 14th century to the Cold War; however, it also has a lot of historical displays, uniforms, and random other stuff that pertains to wars and fighting them. The most interesting exhibits were WWI, WWII, and the Cold War stuff. Russia is really proud of its role in the World Wars, especially in WWII and especially Saint Petersburg because it survived a four year blockade. Naturally, these rooms not only had the most stuff, but were exhibiting full commie décor. It felt like stepping back in time due to all the military stuff and all the red flags with Lenin’s face and CCCP embroidered on them. The weirdest thing was the glass case filled with pictures drawn by school kids showing swastikas getting smashed by Russian flags or hammer and sickles. It was strange imagining a 10 year old girl drawing something like that.
Second in weird to the bleeding swastikas was the Kalashnikov exhibit. Russia is ridiculously proud of the man who invented the most widely used assault rifle. They had an entire room dedicated to him and his gun, which had on display in it, of course a bunch of AKs and variants. It also had a bunch of random things that Kalashnikov owned, including a spin bike that he apparently had in his office. The best part of the exhibit, by far, was the table where a babushka was teaching visitors how to disassemble and then reassemble an AK-47. A large portion of these visitors were 9 year old boys.
The Artillery Museum definitely induced that “I’m in f***ing Russia” feeling. It was all really cool, but also really bizarre. My friends agreed with me, that for the few hours we were there it felt like we’re stepped back into the Soviet Union, or at least what we imagine and understand the Soviet Union to have been like. It was a pretty complete experience between the national pride, the red flags, and the ridiculous amounts of Cold War weapons that looked like they could really mess some stuff up.
From the Front Lines of Russia with Love, Laura
Before going into the museum we spent about 20 minutes outside climbing on all kinds of giant killing machines. This was made slightly difficult by an air temperature of 10 degrees and about two feet of snow on everything, not to mention a lack of ladders on most of the really cool big stuff. I’m not sure if we were supposed to climb on any of this stuff, but there was no one around to yell at us. After all, when will I ever get another chance to climb on top of a giant missile or be able to so perfectly recreate that Dr. Strangelove scene?
The actual museum was what you would expect of an artillery museum, a lot of fire and killing power dating from the 14th century to the Cold War; however, it also has a lot of historical displays, uniforms, and random other stuff that pertains to wars and fighting them. The most interesting exhibits were WWI, WWII, and the Cold War stuff. Russia is really proud of its role in the World Wars, especially in WWII and especially Saint Petersburg because it survived a four year blockade. Naturally, these rooms not only had the most stuff, but were exhibiting full commie décor. It felt like stepping back in time due to all the military stuff and all the red flags with Lenin’s face and CCCP embroidered on them. The weirdest thing was the glass case filled with pictures drawn by school kids showing swastikas getting smashed by Russian flags or hammer and sickles. It was strange imagining a 10 year old girl drawing something like that.
Second in weird to the bleeding swastikas was the Kalashnikov exhibit. Russia is ridiculously proud of the man who invented the most widely used assault rifle. They had an entire room dedicated to him and his gun, which had on display in it, of course a bunch of AKs and variants. It also had a bunch of random things that Kalashnikov owned, including a spin bike that he apparently had in his office. The best part of the exhibit, by far, was the table where a babushka was teaching visitors how to disassemble and then reassemble an AK-47. A large portion of these visitors were 9 year old boys.
The Artillery Museum definitely induced that “I’m in f***ing Russia” feeling. It was all really cool, but also really bizarre. My friends agreed with me, that for the few hours we were there it felt like we’re stepped back into the Soviet Union, or at least what we imagine and understand the Soviet Union to have been like. It was a pretty complete experience between the national pride, the red flags, and the ridiculous amounts of Cold War weapons that looked like they could really mess some stuff up.
From the Front Lines of Russia with Love, Laura
Monday, November 29, 2010
Selected Shorts: The Icebox
They don’t do the most terrific job of plowing in this city, which is strange considering how much it snows. The sidewalks are all covered, which makes walking a very slow and exhausting process. The plowing processes I have seen doesn’t involve plows so much as excavators and other construction vehicles scooping up snow and dumping it into trucks. There is too much snow here for them to simply plow it, it has to be carted out of the city. In addition to having to worry about slipping and falling, I also have to worry about ice falling off buildings. All the roofs and drain pipes are starting to amass huge icicles, which, I have been told, impale and kill about twelve people each year.
The snow wouldn’t nearly be so bad if it weren’t for the very cold and very dark factor. It is currently 1 degrees Fahrenheit outside, the high temperatures have been hovering around 15 during the day and dipping down to below 10 at night. Add some wind, especially where I live because I’m on the Gulf, and it is frigid. There is a reason all the walls in this country are about 3 feet thick. It has been so cold that all the canals froze over in 2 days and the Neva is on its way. This last part is actually pretty cool; the Neva is a huge river and to watch it freeze over is fascinating. Over the course of the weekend it went from having giant sheets of ice floating down it to being a complete ice pack today.As for the light issue, sunrise is around 9:30am and sunset is around 4pm. However, even during the day I don’t really see the sun because it is always cloudy because it is always snowing. When I flew back from Spain, I jokingly said goodbye to blue sky and the sun before the plane descended below the clouds; turns out it was an appropriate action. This is not to say I won’t be seeing sun or blue sky for the next 3 weeks. After 2 weeks of clouds, it all finally broke today because it finally got cold enough that there was no chance of precipitation. I never thought I’d be living somewhere where I can’t decide between wanting 20 degree temperatures and constant snow and clouds, or single digit temperatures and sunshine.
Despite the weather I am managing to keep warm. A good hat, lots of layers and my goofy LL Bean boots are doing the trick. As for my personal sanity, it’s more or less in tact. The hardest part of the day is getting out of bed; it is dark and the wind and snow aren’t very motivating. However, once I am out of the house, some part of me does kind of enjoy all this nonsense. If I didn’t get to experience a few weeks of miserable cold, I would feel a little bit cheated by the Motherland.
From the 9th Circle (Dante reference anyone?) with Love, Laura
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| Ice on the Neva |
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| Thats a jail... |
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Barcelona Dreamin’ Part 2: Walk all Day, Dance all Night
Now that I’ve gotten the who out of the way, it’s time to try to organize the where and what of my Barcelona break. Looking back it all seems like a big blur, probably because I thoroughly enjoyed every minute and because I was very sleep deprived by the end of the week. Barcelona’s living schedule is slightly off from everywhere else I’ve ever been, which after my quick assimilation, really threw off my sleep schedule. At the beginning of the week I was waking up at around 10, eating breakfast at 11, lunch at 3, dinner at 8. However, after two days of starting to party at 10, going clubbing from 2am-6am, and going to bed at 7:30am, my wake up time got pushed back to 2 or 3pm. Needless to say, Saturday was not a very productive day.
Barcelona by Day
Before I go into detail about what I did, keep in mind that every day it was sunny and 15 (60 fahrenheit); which meant I was walking around with in skirt and maybe a sweater. I don’t want to go into detail about everything I saw and did each day, so here is the quick rundown of my week.
• Tuesday free walking tour of Gothic City and Picasso Museum (Picasso/Degas exhibit)
• Wednesday Gaudí day. Sagrada Família, La Pedrera, Casa Batlló.
• Thursday: Park Güell and stroll all the way from the north of the city to the ocean
• Friday: Market, walking around, and laziness
• Saturday: Extreme laziness, ate breakfast/lunch at 4pm, watched TV, napped, dinner at 11pm
I could write a page or two on everything I did and saw, even my lazy Saturday. The two things that really stand out in my memory, thought, are the Gaudí buildings and going to the market. Sagrada Família and Casa Batlló were absolutely amazing and completely worth the 10 and 14 euro, respectively, that I paid to get to go inside them. I don’t know a whole lot about architecture, but there is something really fluid that I like about Gaudí’s work. Sagrada Família is a massive cathedral that photographs do not do justice to. What I liked the best about it was that even though it seems huge and imposing and heavy on the outside, from the inside it seems skeletal. I’ve never been in such a huge space that felt so light and airy; it is basically the complete opposite of the Onion domes. As far as Pimp my Church goes, Gaudí takes the prize (sorry Church of Spilled Blood). Gaudí also takes the prize for Pimp my Life with Casa Batlló (even though nothing was covered in gold or amber). Except for some door frames, I don’t think there was a single straight edge or line in Casa Batlló. Everything was very ocean inspired and the mosaics, glass, wood and plaster all fit together beautifully. I love Gaudí’s work because it is weird and interesting, but also very beautiful in a purely aesthetic and pretty way.
The Mercat de la Boqueria was one of those weird things that was both a tourist trap and still highly functional in terms of being a place to get food. It had everything from fish and fruits, to really fancy candy and rare mushrooms. Many of my breakfasts lunches and dinners came from the stands and I was very happy to have vegetables and fruit back in my diet, if only for a week. In addition to being a cheap food option, it was also a lot of fun to just walk around in the market and look at everything. In particular, it was a lot of fun to walk around with Aussie Dylan in the market. He is a chef and could tell me what one does with chicken embryos, rabbit hearts, and really expensive mushrooms. I also learned that dragon fruits are an absolute waste. Thanks to Dylan the market was changed from something pretty cool to something really fascinating and was one of those unexpected awesome moments in my trip.
Barcelona by Night
There is a lot less to talk about in terms of what I did at night, because it was basically the same thing every night. Kabul had a set up with some of the nicest clubs in town; around 2 am they would take a group of us with stamped hands to places that would normally charge a 15 euro cover after deciding if someone is attractive and well-dressed enough to go in. Coat checks and 10 euro cocktails were definitely an improvement over the dive bars and canned gin and tonics on Dumskaya. Like I mentioned earlier, we went out every single night. After four nights of dancing from 2am-6am I was completely sleep deprived and brain dead, hence the lack of activity on Saturday.
Besides the clubbing, the two best night activities were the football game on Wednesday and my last dinner on Saturday night. That I went to my first football game in Barcellona has its positives and negatives. The positive is that I was watching the guys who basically won the world cup for Spain, they slaughtered the opposing team 5-1. The downside: they were really good. Now between the cold weather and the prospect of bad playing, I am completely unmotivated to go to a game here in SPB.
Dinner Saturday night was the result of a recommendation from the Aussie (there are a lot of them in Barca) who owned the restaurant Dylan and I had “breakfast” at. We dinned at a tapas bar where I ended up eating more weird and expensive food in one sitting than I ever have. The menu included sea anenome, some very expensive peas that tasted very normal to me, and razor clams (google them) that were moving in the glass case in front of me while I ate their friends. I haven’t really been out to eat since I got to Russia and it was a lot of fun and a good way to spend my last night in Barca.
I could keep writing about everything for pages because there isn’t really a way to sum up this trip. It was an amazing 5 days in the sun with friendly people and a significantly smaller language barrier. My Spanish, as it turns out, has not been pushed out by the motherland and I didn’t have a single person switch to English on me all week. For about five minutes I seriously considered missing my flight back to SPB; unfortunately I didn’t and arrived to the gloom very tired and very satisfied with my vacation.
From Barcelona with Love, Laura
Barcelona by Day
Before I go into detail about what I did, keep in mind that every day it was sunny and 15 (60 fahrenheit); which meant I was walking around with in skirt and maybe a sweater. I don’t want to go into detail about everything I saw and did each day, so here is the quick rundown of my week.
• Tuesday free walking tour of Gothic City and Picasso Museum (Picasso/Degas exhibit)
• Wednesday Gaudí day. Sagrada Família, La Pedrera, Casa Batlló.
• Thursday: Park Güell and stroll all the way from the north of the city to the ocean
• Friday: Market, walking around, and laziness
• Saturday: Extreme laziness, ate breakfast/lunch at 4pm, watched TV, napped, dinner at 11pm
The Mercat de la Boqueria was one of those weird things that was both a tourist trap and still highly functional in terms of being a place to get food. It had everything from fish and fruits, to really fancy candy and rare mushrooms. Many of my breakfasts lunches and dinners came from the stands and I was very happy to have vegetables and fruit back in my diet, if only for a week. In addition to being a cheap food option, it was also a lot of fun to just walk around in the market and look at everything. In particular, it was a lot of fun to walk around with Aussie Dylan in the market. He is a chef and could tell me what one does with chicken embryos, rabbit hearts, and really expensive mushrooms. I also learned that dragon fruits are an absolute waste. Thanks to Dylan the market was changed from something pretty cool to something really fascinating and was one of those unexpected awesome moments in my trip.
Barcelona by Night
There is a lot less to talk about in terms of what I did at night, because it was basically the same thing every night. Kabul had a set up with some of the nicest clubs in town; around 2 am they would take a group of us with stamped hands to places that would normally charge a 15 euro cover after deciding if someone is attractive and well-dressed enough to go in. Coat checks and 10 euro cocktails were definitely an improvement over the dive bars and canned gin and tonics on Dumskaya. Like I mentioned earlier, we went out every single night. After four nights of dancing from 2am-6am I was completely sleep deprived and brain dead, hence the lack of activity on Saturday.
Dinner Saturday night was the result of a recommendation from the Aussie (there are a lot of them in Barca) who owned the restaurant Dylan and I had “breakfast” at. We dinned at a tapas bar where I ended up eating more weird and expensive food in one sitting than I ever have. The menu included sea anenome, some very expensive peas that tasted very normal to me, and razor clams (google them) that were moving in the glass case in front of me while I ate their friends. I haven’t really been out to eat since I got to Russia and it was a lot of fun and a good way to spend my last night in Barca.
I could keep writing about everything for pages because there isn’t really a way to sum up this trip. It was an amazing 5 days in the sun with friendly people and a significantly smaller language barrier. My Spanish, as it turns out, has not been pushed out by the motherland and I didn’t have a single person switch to English on me all week. For about five minutes I seriously considered missing my flight back to SPB; unfortunately I didn’t and arrived to the gloom very tired and very satisfied with my vacation.
From Barcelona with Love, Laura
Monday, November 22, 2010
Barcelona Dreamin’ Part 1: Flying Solo
My Barcelona trip is proving to be a tough thing to write about. It is ranked up there in top 3 best weeks of my life, and a few blog pages is not enough to properly convey it. Before I get into all the details of the cool things I saw and did, I have to talk about the social aspect of my trip because I think that that is what really has defined the week for me. I’d never been to Europe (ok Estonia for 3 days) or traveled without my parents; so it was kind of a big deal for me to just decide to go to Spain for a week by myself and with no real plans. Originally I had planned on going with someone, but all my friends at CIEE were either indecisive or didn’t want to spend the money to go to Barcelona. After debating for a few weeks I decided that I might not ever get the opportunity to fly to Spain for so cheap again ($380 flight), and that I would go and make friends there. I’ve never made such a great decision in my life; traveling solo is liberating. I did exactly what I wanted every day without having to make plans or motivate or convince someone else to go see something. And I also made a bunch of friends that I probably wouldn’t have gotten so close with, if I had had a travel companion and hadn’t been so eager to find company.
The only point when I regretted my decision was the first night and second evening. The first night I finally arrived at my hostel around 8pm. I was completely exhausted from having traveled 21 hours from Moscow to Saint Petersburg to Barcelona, with only a 3 hour break at home to unload and repack. Going out to dinner solo that night was kind of rough; it was made worse by the fact that I had three waiters flirting with me and asking me why I was eating by myself. After being accustomed to Russian wait staff who completely ignore you, it was a little bit much. I also realized rather quickly that my hostel would not be a good place to meet people due to its quiet nature, lack of a bar, and small de-centralized common room. That put a huge damper on my original plan of making friends in my hostel.
My first full day in Barca I went on a free walking tour in the hopes of meeting some people, which I did. What I discovered was that it is a hard to merge into groups of friends who are traveling together; and to come off as wanting to make friends without seeming weird and desperate. It didn’t help either that my cell phone didn’t work in Spain, so I had no way of making plans with the people I got acquainted with. That second night I had to force myself to go out with plans of eating alone a second time and then heading to the Kabul hostel (200 bed party hostel); which, I was told by my guide, was party central and a good place to meet people.
The Barca Crew
Luckily I didn’t have to eat dinner solo a second night after acquainting myself with two girls (Florida and Quebec) and aNorwegian guy who had added himself to their party. Nice people, glad I got to eat some tapas and drink some cocktails with them; what is more important is that they were staying at Kabul and led me straight to where I wanted to go. Within five minutes of me sitting in the lounge/bar I became acquainted with the first of what became a group of 8. There were the four Canadians, Adam, Andrew, Robby and Cody, the San Diegan Tyler, and the two Australians Lee and Dylan. Besides the pairs Cody and Robby, and Adam and Andrew, everyone else was on their own, although some of the party had met in other parts of Europe and were reuniting in Barcelona.
The best way I can describe most of these guys is that they were nice young men who were down to hang out and party and who acted a little bit like older brothers to me. They, like almost everyone else, were a little surprised and concerned that I was traveling by myself and they took it upon themselves to be my protectors. I didn’t really need any sort of looking after, but I can’t say I am sorry to have had people to walk me home to my hostel every night (more like 6am in the morning). As a group, we all just sort of clicked and the entire week was full of a lot of positive energy and good laughs. The majority of the group was supposed to leave two days before I was, but they all ended up extending their visits because we were having too much fun to cut it off after 3 days.
It was really weird saying goodbye to the group at the end of the week. The thing about making friends while you travel is that, because you are in a new place where everyone is a stranger, you open up and want to have a group as fast as possible. Even though none of us knew each other that well in the larger scope of things, we got to share an experience that no one else can understand. Saying goodbye was really difficult, because the reality of things is that we most likely will never all be in the same place at the same time again. I like to think, though, that I now have 7 friends traipsing the globe, and next time I set out maybe I can arrange a run in with a few of them. This entry doesn’t do justice to the people I met or the time we spent together; like I said, it’s hard to explain and you just had to be there. In any case, what is important is that my time in Barcelona was radically shaped by my acquaintances there, and all of this had to be told before I get on to the details of what I saw and what I did.
From the Rooftop of Kabul with Love, Laura
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Moskva
We left SPB at midnight on Thursday to take an 8 hour sleeper train to Moscow. I’ve never been on a sleeper train before, and while it wasn’t a completely unpleasant experience, it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The beds were ridiculously narrow and it got really hot and claustrophobic in the room. Still, in a lot of ways it was a lot better than taking a plane, less stressful and more opportunity to move around.
We spent the first day in Moscow taking a bus tour. Unlike Saint Petersburg, the first thing that comes to mind when one sees Moscow is: Communism!!! Personally, I like a choice of décor better. I’m much more a fan of the Art-Deco-ish, imposing, angry, communist, Stalin era compensation for a stature of 5’4’’ décor; than the pastel cake look that Saint Petersburg has going on. Everything was massive beyond necessity and covered in red stars and hammers and sickles. Moscow is the Russia people are making fun of when they say “In Soviet Russia…” or the depressing totalitarian utopia that guys like Orwell wrote about. Most of the CIEE group hated Moscow and thought it was really ugly, there are a few of us that are pessimistic enough to have liked it. Via bus I saw just about everything important there was to see in Moscow. Bus tours are frustrating like that, because you see everything but you don’t really get to go check them out. It just made me aware of everything cool I was going to miss out on and not have enough time to visit in the two days we had to explore. When I wasn’t sitting on the bus, I was using the metro system which completely trumps Piter’s system. Moscow’s metro almost deserves it’s own Pimp my Metro entry. If you like communist chick, the Moscow metro is the place for you. Although slightly frightening, the angular chandeliers and mosaics of Lenin and people happily working in grain fields and factories was pretty awesome. They also did a good job of embodying the Russian-ness that we so love to make fun of in the states.
Second day in Moscow we got up very early and had a tour of the Kremlin….yet another episode of church building frenzy and Pimp my Church. I did get to go into the cathedral where Ivan the Terrible is buried, so that is kind of cool. The Kremlin comes complete with the world’s biggest cannon and the office of President Medvedev. I saw the first one, not the second... I didn’t even get close to Putin’s office (sorry Niko and Matt). We also went on a tour of a building that contains all the accessories of Pimp my Life. Everything shiny, gold, and unnecessary that the Tzars ate off of, prayed in front of, sat on, wore, and put on their horses, was in this museum. Yet another day that I wished I could have been born a Tzar’s daughter in the early 19th century. 
After the tour I went souvenir shopping at a really out-of-the-way market/ bazaar place. It looked like a depressed Russian Disney Land. The first thing someone tried to sell to me when I walked through the gates was a taser; the man advertised his product by turning it on and letting it buzz and crack really loudly. Sadly, I didn’t buy one because I didn’t think I’d have enough money for both a taser and all the stuff that I plan on getting you lovely people who are stuck in the states. It is really scary trying to argue with mean babushka’s who have been standing in the cold for hours about the price of a painted wooden box. I managed to argue the price down about 200 roubles on everything I bought though, the trick is to stubbornly stick to Russian so that they know you aren’t a complete idiot of a tourist. I haven’t mentioned anything about Red Square yet, which is as Russian as Russia gets. Unfortunately Red Square was closed on Saturday and most of Sunday because they were practicing for, and then having, some sort of military honoring WWII vets parade. I eventually got onto the square and had an “I’m in RUSSIAAAAA!!!!!!” moment; however, I am very sad to say that I did not get to go to Lenin’s mausoleum and see his embalmed body. Red Square is pretty cool though, in that is surrounded by structures that kind of tell the story of the Motherland. You have the Kremlin: old Russia where you had to build a big fort, St. Basil’s showing the religious frenzy, Lenin’s Mausoleum which speaks for it’s self, and the giant Mall, full of the consumer-whoreism that is so present in new capitalist Russia.
Sunday, while I was busy not seeing dead Lenin, I hit up the main Tretyakov Gallery and a second location Tretyakov Gallery. The first Tretyakov had a really cool Vrubel exhibit. I’d learned about a bunch of his work during my freshman year Russian Fairy Tales in Translation course, and it’s always exciting to see the real deal. The second Tretyakov had a bunch of modern art, particularly Russian modern art from the 20th century. As culturally enriching as SPB
Like I said, 3 days is just enough to create a Moscow teaser. I liked the way the city felt and the décor didn’t depress me, so I image that I’ll be headed back there at some point in life. For now though, most memories of Moscow have been pushed out by much more exciting and sunny memories of Barcelona which you will be hearing about shortly.
From Moscow the Hero City with Love, Laura
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