Russia: Moscow, Novgorod and St. Petersburg

This past week I visited the Russian cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. What an amazing opportunity to say the least. My group left on Monday, March 26th early in the morning. From there we went to a nice restaurant near red square where we were exposed to the Russian way of dining not only in the type of food (which is actually difficult to specify because we had a lot of different food) but the techno music. After that a police man made me delete photos that I had taken of the President’s building… he was being a prick in my opinion. But none the less it was funny after I walked away without paying him off in rubles. Yes you have to pay off policemen sometimes in Russia; it happened 2x to two other guys on the trip. Almost every meal I had, eve n breakfast had techno music in the background… ‘om ste! om ste! om ste! om ste!’ haha.

The second day we toured the world famous Kremlin which is the original fortress of Moscow including several orthodox churches within… one even including singing monks. We also visited what I regarded as my favorite event on the entire trip, Lenin’s mausoleum. It was his actually body encased in wax and placed delicately in a glass coffin with soviet symbols and dim red lightening to add additional effects…. It was unbelievable!

Then we went to the tallest eastern orthodox church in the world, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It was destroyed by Stalin back in the day to instill an atheist regime. Other cathedrals were used as storage units. That is sad. After that visit we went to the Royal Danish Embassy and were able to meet the Deputy Head of Mission and Minister Counsellor. He basically reports on Russia’s political and economic matters to the Danish government, so he was well informed on all Russian issues. It was a great opportunity.

Wednesday we visited State Tretyakov Museum with our student guides. It was basically a museum of all classical Russia art. It was fairly interesting; I think having a theologian as a guide definitely helped the interpretation of the paintings, etc.

Moscow in a nutshell from my perspective: Beautiful sites near and inside the Kremlin including the world famous St. Basil’s cathedral, BUT the people are not that friendly, the city is so huge it takes forever to get from point A to point B, there are cops everywhere and that is a little intimidating and it is SOOO dirty! I actually had trouble breathing there, I kid you not. A lot of smog and cars plastered with dirt. Also the communist apartments/ flats are the same everywhere so you get lost easily and no one speaks any English and the Russian is difficult to read because it is not written with Latin letters. BUT visit it if you have the chance, especially the Kremlin and Lenin’s mausoleum.

Later that night we had the privilege of hopping on another ‘soviet made’ train and taking a trip to Novgorod. It was an overnight train and it was tight quarters. I also think that the water made some of us sick…. BLAHHH! and Pffffff! Not a good situation. But it was another experience… don’t drink the water. We then toured Novgorod, a town built by a Swedish Viking prince called Rurik in the 9th century, it was fascinating. We also met our new tour guide here as well Varya. We then visited St. George’s Monstery were we met an orthodox monk. We also received some insight from him as well.

Then we traveled to St. Petersberg, settled into our NICE hotel… modern, clean and friendly staff. That night we had a group night out at this bar/club called Fidel (a.k.a Castro). The next day we met up with our new guides and they took us to Peter and Paul Fortress which was nice… there were actually people sun bathing in bathing suits there in the 55 degree F weather we had. Got to love those tough Russians! We finished off the day with our ‘St. Petersburg behind the façade’ tour with our guides. This was one of the highlights of my trip and one of the most humbling experiences I have had thus far. You see, behind all the glamour of these beautiful European like buildings are ugly, out of date buildings/ slums were most of the population lives. We visited an apartment that was inhabited by 9 different individuals or families even though it was originally designed to suit 1 family. You can buy one bedroom in these apartments for roughly $25,000 or rent… which most people obviously do. Wealthier individuals will buy up rooms as they go for sale until eventually they can purchase all the rooms in the apartment. If this is not the case, then fairly wealthy individuals often find themselves living with very poor individuals or families. On top of this everyone has to schedule when they use the bathroom and kitchen and they usually have a reserved space in the kitchen for their own utensils etc. and they sometimes even bring their own light bulb to the bathroom so they use their own and are not subject to paying for a new one once everyone else has worn out the older bulb…. It is REALLY bizarre and sad… but this is reality.

Later that night we made dinner, had pirogues (if that is how you spell it) and vodka with pickles and herring… yes, Russian style…. Drink a shot of vodka, chase with your choice of a pickle or piece of herring fish. Both were disgusting and I would personally suggest using a lemon to chase…. BUT when in Russia I suppose.

The last day I went to the St. Petersburg Ballet to see “Swan Lake”. Think whatever you want but I will be the first to admit that I really enjoyed the performance. The only thing that was slightly annoying was a group of tourists who were taking flash photos and videos the whole time…. It was ridiculous!

After that we went out to a Russian cuisine type joint and ate dinner, had a few beers and some hookah! It was a great way to end and reflect on the trip. The next morning we were off to Copenhagen.

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PS: if you get the chance to go to Russia go with an open mind... it really is an amazing experience!