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My mom and I since January have been scheming and planning and hoping to go to Russia and after a few months of jumping hoops and preparations... We actually went!
We had both been looking sooo forward to this trip and had been arranging and planning it for months! Thanks to some amazingly generous relatives and a lot of arrangements from visas to visa invitations to train ticket and hostel reservations, we were on our way! We both had mini-adventures at the Russian embassies, mine required me to first go to Amsterdam twice to drop off and pick up my passport to get more pages so I could fit another visa, then to the Russian Embassy in the Hague 15min from my place. I inadvertently ending up sort of having to sneak in but in the end it all worked out...
... so I had dropped off my passport and was told I could only pick it up between 12-1 this one day a week later, and a week before I was supposed to leave (and there were holidays around it, so i really only had that day to get it). So I went at 12pm sharp to pick it up but realized I had forgotten my receipt from the week before when I had dropped it off. So by 12:30 I waded to the front of the massive crowd of people hoarding around the door to ask the man if I needed the receipt and he only answered in Russian, so someone kindly translated that into Dutch, which I still didn't understand, and finally someone translated to me in English saying maybe I could get in but it would have to be after the rest of the crowd- which I knew would not happen in the remaining 30 minutes, considering they let 1 person in every 5-10 minutes or so.
...So I biked like a banshee the 15min to my apartment, tore it apart looking for the receipt even to the point of sorting through the garbage on the curb which I had taken out hte day before, but to no avail. So I biked back as fast as I could, as I passed the Peace Palace right next to the embassy the bells struck 1pm so I knew it would be close. As I got to the door though it was completely empty- no one. So I buzzed the door and received no answer (I think the doorman went to lunch). After about 3-4 tries a man left teh building and left the door open just a crack... considering the doorman's absence and the time sensitivity of my situation, I looked both ways and slowly opened the massive wooden door of the embassy. No one was there, so I asked the first one where the visa desk was, went up to it and looked in my wallet for my residence permit to show my identity, and LO AND BEHOLD in a hidden pocket of my wallet, THE RECEIPT. So gracias a Dios... I had it ALL ALONG!!! Long story short, I got the Visa and was off!!!)
My mom and I started off in Moscow- embracing the public transport we trained and metroed it to our hostel and thanks to the Cyrillic spelling of the street name we were able to ask people find our way! We spent a day there, then headed up to St. Petersburg on the day train through the countryside- lots of gorgeous forests, little villages with log cabins and soviet remnants of massive concrete buldings, industrial centers and red and white smoke stacks. Mostly though, there was beautiful forest. We got up to St. Petersburg, navigated our way to the hostel by 10pm to find that it was overbooked!! But they graciously arranged to send us in a taxi to another place for the night, which ended up being the flat of some very sweet elderly people who had two rooms with a bunch of bunks in them. The hot water didn't work but it seemed clean and even though we couldn't speak eachothers language, they were some of the most sweet people making us feel at home. The next am our first hostel came and picked us up and trucked us to a third hostel which despite the delapitaded exterior was the nicest inside! Besides the brown water, it was perfect and even served a meaty breakfast!
Durig St P's we went to the Hermitage, one of the largest and most impressive museums in the world, from the building itself (Peter the Great's Winter Palace) to the massive collection of masters and fine art from the ancient to more recent centuries was absolutely fantastic. The tsars certainly invested a lot in making the place look nice! We also went to the Peterhof, Peter the Great's summer cottage... just look at the pictures and you'll see what I mean when I say I am impressed... The fountains have been functioning since the 17th century! All of my childhood readings about palaces and grandeur really came alive seeing the majestic beauty of these places... gold everywhere seriously large impressive buildings... spectacular. Sadly though this grandeur did come at a massive public cost which unsurprisingly led to the Revolution and search for a greater equality and distribution.
We saw this transition through the present in the Russian Political History Museum- from Stalin's propaganda of him smiling with smoke stakes and industrial progress in the background, to stained glass windows of plow shears meeting industry, and people's opera of women singing and happily, fervantly working in the factories to boost moral (I saw a verrrry similar one in China acually!). Probably the heaviest image besides all of that though was a large painted picture of the last tsar, Nicolas the II, that had been repeatedly slashed by soldier's bayonets- the violent, abrupt end to an era. The museum really honestly captured their last century in particular's progress, not at all glazing over the great human catastrophes that occurred in their political past, but presenting the bad and the good and lessons they have learned. It was really poignant and I would hope other countries including my own can be so honest about both the good and the bad of what has happened in our histories.
Back in Moscow we went to Red Square and the Kremlin (which isn't the dark writhing dark pit the US had impressed me to think, haha!) It actually just means 'walled city' and is a collection of beautiful museums and buildings including the famous onion domed St. Basil's cathedral. We also went to the outskirts of the city and saw this magnificent medieval monastery that is still in use. Wow. It is also walled and has various churches, a grave yard, and a massive church that is not exaggerating, the most impressive church interior I have ever seen. Massively high wall to ceiling gold and Icons, dark stained glass, incense, worshipers. It was truly impressive.
That was about it for the main sights of our trip- I was delighted to see and experience a place with such mystery and infamy in the popular (at least US) mindset. It wasn't at all the dark looming mafia-ridden, moral adverse backwardness I had picked up from popular impression left over from cold war era sentiments. Winston Churchill described Russia as a "riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma." It was certainly enigmatic in the sense that I couldn't read any signs and certain cultural customs like a still massive bureaucracy (ie every small restaurant or business had at least 6+ workers, a security guard, and constant paperwork). But the people even with a communication gap seemed very helpful and kind. The few around us who did speak english were welcoming and curious to talk to us. We even met a man who is a Pastor who invited us to come visit anytime and help out with his drug rehabilitation center his church runs! From what I saw in public settings men seemed to be gentlemen, and for the most part we had very positive experiences. I am sure there is also an oppsotie side to every coin, but we didn't see any mafia or any of the negative social problems that we so often hear about in US news. I am sure the rural areas as well are much less well off than the urban, but from what I could see it really seems like the urban classes are flourishing- the people we interacted with in the subways and in the areas of the city we walked around seemed to be happy and content in their style of life. (I know there are also problems with severe poverty, drug, alcoholism, organized crime and social problems like any country, but what I at least witnessed was very positive).
Russia is also the least english speaking place I have ever been though, even more so than China! Luckily my Mom had learned the Cyrillic alphabet so she could sound out things, thank God!! That and the bit of Russian she had studied beforehand + our guidebook and massive preparation beforehand were truly our saving graces! The language itself is actually very beautiful (at least compared to Dutch, haha!) and the people were very well dressed and polite, refined even moreso than much other parts of Europe.
The subways were not only the most reliable and rapid system I have ever been on in the world (every 50 seconds in Moscow), they were also the most beautiful! Thanks to the concept of "people's art" there were gorgeous painting adn frescos, light fixtures and marble walls and columms- they are museums in themselves! They are also the deepest ones in the world-- they double as bomb shelters~!
Other observations, the vodka was definitely a flowing, and the funny thing is if you look at a menu grey goose is like 1/2 way down in the quality section haha!
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