Moscow revisited.

My first visit to Moscow was in 1999 and it did not bring me fond memories.  I had spent most of my days that trip in a small village outside of Bryansk staying with a family whose daughter came to live with us for one year in the U.S.  At the end of the two week visit, we spent a couple of days in Moscow.  I confess, my memories of Moscow from that trip are limited to heavy traffic, Red Square and tourist vendors, and food poisoning.  I was not super into the idea of going back to Moscow except that some of my friends, whose opinion I highly value, speak very well of Moscow and I thought I needed to give it another chance.  In fact, I still need to give it another chance because the day I scheduled for us in Moscow was not enough time to really get to know the city.  So what can I tell you based off of my very limited knowledge of the largest city and capital of Russia?  The subway system is phenomenal – not only is it extensive, but it is beautiful.  If you go in the winter time, you may get to see snow in Red Square, which I am convinced is one of the most beautiful city sites to be seen (albeit very cold).  However, if you go in the spring or summer time, I’m sure the city is much more colorful and Izmailovo market is probably much more interesting – when we were there in January, it was like an abandoned circus venue….. but I got my fur hats and Russian scarf at the market there (beware of the market vendors – they are very pushy!)

You cannot compare Saint Petersburg to Moscow – at least I could not.  They are completely different types of cities.  The thing I thought was most interesting about Moscow was the remnants of Soviet past – it was not uncommon to see an old Soviet-style building next to a brand new facility or classic style architecture.  This is not common in SPB.  In case you are wondering if Red Square is really that impressive, yes it most definitely is!  It is one of the coolest government squares that I have ever been to and it is breathtaking.  I’m afraid we did not get to see Lenin – as we were standing in line during the 3 hours you can actually get into the memorial, Sean realized I had left my teddy bear in the hotel room (and we had checked out), so we raced back to the hotel to try and find him.  Teddy bear I’ve owned since I was four years old is much more important than Lenin’s body in my book!

Anyhow, I definitely want to pencil in more time in Moscow during my hopeful next visit to Russia because it is definitely a stellar city and I know we did not even touch the perimeters of its offerings.  One final story, we boarded the train for Kiev around midnight and landed in Kupe (second class accommodations) with an older couple – probably in their 50′s.  The poor couple looked at us like, “oh no, we got stuck with English-speaking foreigners!”  So, I tried to speak with them in Russian a little bit and got drilled with question after question about where we were from and what life was like in the U.S.  Needless to say, we made two new friends and I didn’t get to sleep until about 2:30 a.m.  Note to the anti-social: train travel in Russia is not for you (unless you buy yourself a ticket in first class isolation).  Additionally, for those of you who are curious, the train from Moscow to Kiev does not pass through Belarus (no transit visa needed).  However, the train from Kiev to Petersburg does, so plan accordingly if you find yourselves traveling these routes!

enter the Metro.

Izmailovo Market.

enter Red Square while snowing.

Izmailovo Market.

outside Red Square (during New Year).

Matrioshka - Izmailovo Market.

Red Square.

Red Square.

me in front of Saint Basil's.

 

Red Square during daytime.

a pensive Lenin in Izmailovo Market.

Red Square.

the little boy sliding down the hill outside the Kremlin - who needs a sled?

Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

Snow men in Gorky Park.

looking at Red Square.

Izmailovo Market.

Red Square in the afternoon.

Saint Basil's Cathedral.

Red Square.

Red Square in the evening.

Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

Izmailovo Market.

Izmailovo Market.

outside Red Square.

Saint Basil's.

Snowman in Gorky Park.

Murmansk, Russia: Part Three “the hike to Alyosha”

Being that I’ve already composed two posts about Murmansk, I need not say much in this final post – the pictures will speak more.  Due to the minimal amount of daylight that Murmansk experiences directly surrounding the winter solstice, you will find a beautiful daytime glow – almost like a few hours of twilight.  The sun actually never rises above the horizon and the result is this beautiful cool light that penetrates the city briefly and compliments the industrial glow.  In this short time of “daylight,” we made our way up the mountain in search of the soldier Alyosha, who watches over the city from his high perch.  We never actually made it to him before daylight faded, but we came very close.  These are the images from that hike up the mountain amidst the dirty grey snow-covered terrain.

the brilliantly red building with yellow "arms."

the thing - could not figure out what this contraption might be used for.

the car mechanics' garages.

ye old car.

Washing Cars is not Permitted.

winterland.

Glowing Apartment Windows.

Almost made it to Alyosha, but could never quite get there.

As the "sun" light quickly fades and the sky changes color, the city begins to glow.

illuminated ships, purple skies and the sound of creaking crane arms.

And as the sun sinks even further, the colors keep on changing.

the factory windows.

hillside dachas.

what I called "the spider dome".

Alyosha also begins to glow.

glowing flames and the yellow shack.

the frozen Lada.

back at the bottom of the mountain.

Murmansk, Russia: Part Two “The Aura of Industrialization”

There is no possible way I can actually describe our visit to Murmansk during the city’s darkest days – as Sean and I said, it is something that just has to be experienced.  You can look at my photographs but, for me, the photos don’t do the city justice.  The feeling we experienced in Murmansk was really strange.  Beginning with a 27 hour train ride that transports you into the northern most regions of inhabited land, you begin to feel a sense of “nowhere” and of coldness and darkness….. and then you reach the outskirts of Murmansk.  When we first began approaching the city, my eyes were bulging out of my head as I stared at the edges of industrial wasteland that led to this glowing port city.  Once in the city center, there is an aura of life – but not life lived by the people….. its industrial machine life.  Glowing lights, black smoke (the air-quality was really terrible!), ships, fishing boats and gasoline tanks – right away, all I could think to myself was, “you are in an industrial wonderland, Lindsay!”  It was quite breathtaking – being in the arctic circle surrounded by mountains, snow and experiencing the strongest source of light via the aura of industrialization.  Shortly after arriving, we began to notice the sound of cranes constantly moving and the regular sound of a muffled voice shouting out commands to the workers in the port.  When you paired all of this industrial light and sound with the giant hillside covered in Soviet-style apartment buildings and the giant “Мурманск-Город-Герой” (Murmansk-Hero-City) standing at the forefront, you began to feel like you were in a most surreal place.  I told Sean, if ever I felt like I was part of the book 1984, this was it.  It wasn’t that the people were strange – it was a completely normal Russian city on that note – it was just the feeling you got when experiencing minimal daylight, industrial glow, the soldier on the mountain watching over the city, the commanding voice and the sound of cranes – that left you feeling like you were in some sort of alternative universe.  As I mentioned, it is something that can only be experienced to be truly understood.  Because I took so many pictures, I will make yet another post following this one, otherwise it might be overwhelming to look through the nearly 50 photos I really want to show of the city.  This first post will be photos of our first and last impressions – being our early afternoon walk as the light of day finally made it’s appearance around 1 p.m.  The second post will be from our mountain hike to the overseeing soldier, shortly before daylight dwindled at 4 p.m.  Somewhere in between the two hikes up the hills, we had to change shoes and socks because our feet were frozen.

"Murmansk Hero-City" (Murmansk is one of the twelve former Soviet Union's hero-cities; I've now been to four of them).

The glowing lights of evening - as viewed from our apartment window.

Rotting balconies.

Apartments on the hillside.

more apartments.

the green door I had to take a picture of.

Roadsigns - Watch for Children!

The glowing red ship.

The mountainside.

Sean in awe of the city view.

The Panorama Restaurant.

The Church on the Hill.

Another of the Panorama Restaurant.

Me jumping in front of the Church on the Hill.

Daisies on buildings.

and Tulips on buildings.

what other city would make a New Year's tree from an unused crane arm?

The Murmansk seal, right next to the Meridian Hotel.

The Statue of Lenin - this was the day we left Murmansk, around 11:30 a.m.

The New Year's Tree in city center - notice the glow off to the right...... another morning shot.

Although it's hard to see from far away, it's the "Murmansk-Hero-City" sign in the distance.

Only in the Ukraine (только когда в Украине)…..

While I understand that I still need to compose another post regarding Murmansk, I currently feel the need to interrupt that story with some most recent events which occurred while traveling in the post-Soviet space.  You see, shortly after coming back to Saint Petersburg from Murmansk, we departed again on a train to Moscow and then continued onto Kiev, where we spent the past 6 days.  Yesterday morning, we departed the central Kiev train station at 9:40 a.m. and were very excited to have finally gotten tickets with a top and bottom bunk in platzcar (a.k.a. the cheap tickets)!  The beds were great and I was all excited for the comfortable train ride home when the ticket man came to collect our tickets and the most dreadful words I could have heard passed his lips (in Russian, of course) -  “Excuse me, but do you have a Belorussian transit visa?”  For those of you who are not aware of Belarus and transit, please allow me to explain.  Similar to Russia, tourists traveling from many Western countries are required to have a visa to both visit and transit Belarus.  It’s not always easy to figure these things out ahead of time, for some reason – we tried searching train routes to see if this might be a problem and I had bought the tickets at a travel agency….. the woman there failed to mention the train passed through Belarus, although she knew I held an American passport.  Fortunately, the young man working on the train was kind enough to inform me before we got to border crossing.  Additionally, we could not buy a transit visa because I held tickets purchased in Russia and not in the Ukraine (for some reason, this is problematic?)  Some might say, why did you not just buy tickets and a transit visa in Kiev (where there is probably a map showing the transit route)?  Answer: we departed the last day of the New Years holiday (when most people have time off from work)….. everyone needed the train and I wanted to be sure we actually would have tickets.

Anyhow, following our discovery, we exited the train at the first stop – it was in the middle of nowhere.  I finally worked up the courage to approach one of the ladies at the ticket office and I tried to explain everything to her in my broken Russian.  The women behind the ticket counter seemed quite tickled by our debacle and explained to me that I would need to try and exchange the tickets back in Russia and then she asked me if I had money to buy new tickets?  Sean and I did not have enough and so we went searching for a place to change my Rubles or withdraw Ukrainian Hryvnia, but we were in the middle of nowhere.  I finally stumbled upon a place with a sign that said “Обмен валют” (Money Exchange).  I walked in and asked the women if I could change rubles – she said yes and then sent me into this room full of angry women yelling at people wanting to change money.  When I gave them my passport (apparently they document everything), the women couldn’t read it and got really mad.  Meanwhile, the young woman next to her was yelling at the old woman changing money next to me.  I finally got my Hryvnia and we went back to the train station.  I walked up to the counter and told the woman I now had money and could I please buy tickets to Moscow for that day….. sorry, only one ticket left.  Sean and I had previously discussed the situation and were anxious to get home, so we declined tickets for the following day (which would have been today) and went to hunt for a taxi driver.  Here’s where the story gets real funny.

So I walked out to the parking lot, approached the first taxi driver and ask him how much it would cost to go to the airport.  Which airport, he asks?  I don’t know the name of it, I tell him – just the one in Kiev.  He looks at his taxi driver friends and chuckles and tells me how far it is and how much it will cost.  I turned to Sean and translated everything for him and then we agreed to his price.  Meanwhile, I’m feeling like I got ripped off but I don’t care because I did not expect a 120 kilometer ride to be super cheap.  We got into the car and headed off with our taxi driver and by this time, I could barely speak anymore – my brain had reached its point of exhaustion.  But, our taxi driver wanted to talk to us and continued to make conversation with us – mostly in Russian and with a little bit of English thrown in here and there.  Two hours later, after having made a few wrong turns, we arrived at the airport in Kiev ready to search for flights.  We said goodbye to our driver, who told us we were very good people – he thought it was quite funny that a former enemy country’s citizens could now come to the Ukraine and Russia and communicate in broken language with the taxi drivers….. Slava, our taxi driver, I believe said he was a retired pilot from the Soviet era….. he doesn’t receive a large enough pension, so he needs to be a taxi driver to supplement his income.  I have had another “taxi” driver in Russia who had a similar story.

Moving onward, as soon as we were in the airport we dropped our luggage and went searching for plane tickets, both on the internet and at the travel agencies.  No flights for that day (yesterday), but we could leave the following morning (today).  One flight had an early option, the other was mid-morning.  Not wanting to stay in the airport all day/night, I went searching for the information booth to inquire about hotels and prices.  The woman told me how much the airport hotel would cost and we decided to purchase the mid-morning tickets and get some rest.  After purchasing the tickets, I went back to the information desk and told the new woman there that I had spoken to the previous clerk and that I wanted to reserve a room for me and my husband.  Again, I must remind you that I was speaking with her in Russian because it seemed easier for us both to communicate that way.  Somewhere in the midst of our conversation she told me that it would cost a little bit more for two people in a private accommodation and then she made a quick phone call – this little old man appeared from out of nowhere and she said, you can go with him and pay him for transportation to a “Частный Дом,” which I have since learned means “private house” (similar to a rental or in-law apartment/guest house).  We got into the man’s car and, I confess, I still thought I had booked a private room at a hotel….. my brain was tired of the translation and I only realized later that she mentioned the old man would take us to our “хозяйка,” which I know means landlady in Russian.  After about 15 minutes of driving through Soviet block-style apartment housing, we arrived in a small dacha community amidst the Soviet buildings and were escorted to a small private dacha apartment to meet our landlady.  Meanwhile, the taxi driver assured us that he would arrive early in the morning to take us to the airport and that I could pay him then.  I spoke for a few minutes with our хозяйка and apologized to her for speaking terrible Russian, but thanked her and said maybe we could just have some rest.  She left and Sean looked white as a ghost – he was tired and hungry and just wanted to be at a hotel with a hotel restaurant in view.  So, we put on our coats and headed to town to find a restaurant.

To conclude the tale, our little ”Частный Дом” was great and we awoke quite early this morning to the tune of the rooster next door   Our driver came to pick us up on time and I paid everybody, thanked them all and said goodbye.  It all worked out very well – plus it was an interesting experience, speaking very little Russian myself and trying to communicate with people who do not speak my language but keep talking to me as if I completely understood their language.  Honestly, I wouldn’t have changed a thing – it was an experience that I could only have had here and which Sean and I just chuckled about when all was said and done.  Plus, it appears that I gave all of the Ukrainians a good laugh as well   My favorite part was in the end when we were on the way to the airport and our taxi driver asked us if we were from the Baltic states….. At that point, I should have just said yes

Here are a few photos of the interior and back yard of our private home rental.  Hope you enjoyed our not-so-touristy tourism tale

this kitchen.

The New Years tree in the hallway (yes, I mean New Years tree).

where we slept.

the greenhouse in the yard - I bet the yard is beautiful in spring and summer.

And one last photo, only found in the Ukraine (to my knowledge) – McFoxy’s!

A McDonald's rival right next to the McDonald's at the train station in Kiev. Ever since the Anthony Bourdain episode in Kiev, I've wanted to see this.

Murmansk, Russia: Part One “Via Train”

Sean in his top-bunk.

Going to Murmansk – Hero City – was a very last minute decision for myself and my husband.  We had already planned to make a long excursion to Kiev and Moscow via train during the three weeks Sean is here, and we didn’t know if we would be able to handle two more days on the Russian rail – only this time, heading to the Arctic Circle.  But, we decided that since we are only young once and may never have the opportunity to “just do” something like this again.  Sean booked the apartment and I bought the tickets – it was a done deal.  The day after Christmas, we boarded an 11 a.m. train and began our rail excursion into an area of the world that seemed foreboding and intimidating.

The train to Murmansk is very slow – 27 hours and without a cafe on board.  For those of you who have ever traveled Platz-car (third class) on the Russian rail system, you know how difficult it can be when occupying two top bunks.  Needless to say, we really missed the cafe – where you can actually sit up and not be confined to a narrow space for 27 hours.  I wanted to divide my Murmansk posts into two or three parts because I took so many photos.  This first set of photos is dedicated to our train travel and arrival in Murmansk.

Let me please say a few words about Vanya – he was Sean’s lower bunk mate and new friend.  He and his mother were on their way to Murmansk to visit his father, who he will be staying with for the next three months.  His mother lives and works in St. Petersburg.  Vanya immediately took to Sean when he agreed to play LEGO’s with him.  From that point on, whenever Vanya was awake, he was asking Sean to play.  He asked me to take his photo at one point – you will find that photo below along with the one I took while he was sleeping.

We also met a young man of 25 years who had been on the train for 2 days already and was on his final day of train travel to Murmansk where his wife and young son live.  He works in Sochi and his wife and one year old son are in Murmansk – he will be staying with them for one month during the New Year and he was very anxious to see them.

I could go on and on about the train travel and all of the wonderful experiences of riding third class with the Russians, but I will leave it to your imagination and just allow you to look through the photos that transpired along the rail – our first trip to the Arctic.  As for Murmansk, you will be able to see a brief glimpse of it and where we stayed, but a full account will definitely need to wait for my next post detailing this industrial wonderland.  Happy New Year – or as they say in Russia, С Новым Годом!

Scenes from the window.

Trying to fall asleep.....

Sean's lower bunk mate - a.k.a. "Vanya"

Vanya and Sean playing LEGO's during the night.

Scenery in the "early morning hours" (a.k.a. "Noon" this far north)

Scenery from the train windows.

the common remnants of "Soviet" architecture - you see a lot of apartment buildings like this when riding on the train.

Sean.

Vanya.

Sean, Vanya and Vanya's Mother.

Are we there yet?

Gazpromtrans! First one I had seen from the train windows.

we're getting closer......

and closer.....

almost there.....

but first, more industrial imagery.....

at the train station, FINALLY!

the mad rush to get home before darkness hits.

we rented an apartment in this building.

it happened to be that we stayed at an address which matches my birthday - 25 Октябрьская Улица.

this was our courtyard - even had a playground!

Sean and I really liked the green car parked in the courtyard.

11:15 a.m. in Murmansk..... the view from our apartment window.

Remembering Summer…..

As the hours of daylight diminish here in SPB and winter settles in, I just want to briefly remember the beautiful Russian summer months and hope that it will help us all get through the cold, dark months ahead and maybe even embrace them as if they were spring or summer….. dark skies does not have to mean life stops – in fact, 20 hours of seeming night and twilight can be just as romantic from time to time…..

2 a.m. twilight at Scarlett Sails.....

I can never forget the dancing babushka

nor can I forget seeing numerous wedding parties in every park, every day of the week.....

and lots of LADAS!

many dancing babushkas.....

Laughter.

the art center in Piter…..

This gallery contains 19 photos.

I recently stumbled upon this little art center, not far from my university.  When I noticed it first, I did not have my camera with me, so I made my way back down to the center one dreary Saturday and … Continue reading →