Operation Baltica

Phase I - Russia

Day 1: Dmitry

After three days bumming around Almaty, I finally made it to Moscow, stop one of six before I fly home. I got in late at night and spent a little over an hour getting to Dmitry's house. Dmitry came through Petro in the summer and I met back up with him through CouchSurfing.org. Once I had managed the Express Airport train and two metro lines, he met me right outside the metro stop a block from his house. His friend Alec was with him and seeing how it was early (only midnight), we bought a couple beers and sat in his kitchen talking for a few hours. And talk we (mostly they) did. They talked about the political mess that still is Chechnya, the hassle that is avoiding mandatory military service in Russia, the risk that is jumping a metro turnstile and the ineffectiveness that was prohibition under Gorbachev. Dmitry pulled out a wall0sized map of Russia and gave me a crash course in Russian history and geography. I learned that people go on cross-country skiing expeditions for weeks at a time on a northern peninsula - a completely flat two weeks of skiing through interminable flatness and unbelievable coldness. I learned that a big problem with dealing with Chechnyans is that their culture praises the ruthless, warrior-types of the society. According to my host, they would rather steal and bully their way to success because that's what men are supposed to do. And to control the feuding clans of the Southern Caucasus, the Russian government simply gives enormous amounts of money to the strongest leader so they can dominate the weaker groups. The leaders pocket the money and continue to bully their way around. Dmitry told me about his travels to Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky, a Russian town on a peninsula near Alaska where he spent weeks hiking and camping in complete wilderness. "Some places," he says, pointing to the northern and eastern expanses of Russia, "show that mother nature is still winning against us humans."

I forgot to ask him about Rasputin.

Day 2: Story

They haven't confiscated my horse meat yet.

My first impressions about Moscow: Really wet. Big version of Petropavlovsk. Strong counterculture. In the first twelve hours here it hasn't stopped raining. All the street signs and stores look like they do in Petro, only bigger. And there are lots of kids in leather jackets, piercings and multi-colored hair and dreadlocks.

I met Bryan Story at the airport and we checked into our hostel after buying train tickets for the night of the 9th. That gave us 36 hours to see and do everything there is to see and do in Moscow. Today we just went souvenir shopping on Arbat Street. I bought some cool coasters with USSR slogans and we ate traditional pancakes (blini) in a boxcar in the street.

MacDonalds has clean bathrooms with a button on the wall you can push if you're not satisfied with the cleanliness. Customer service does in fact exist in some parts of the world.

*sigh of relief*

On our way back to the hostel, we cut through a back alley and the cops strolling along stopped us. *gasp of apprehension* Story was scared. "I ain't scared," he claims, bravely, hours later from the comfort of the hostel kitchen. But I could tell. It was a routine check: "Where are you from? Why do you know Russian? Why do you smile in your Passport photos? Aren't you cold?"

I love Russia. First round of pictures are here.

Day 3: Moscow Marathon

We went to bed at 9:30 and slept hard. Story had been up for 36 hours. By the time I woke up at 7:30, I felt energized and ready to go, a feeling I haven't felt again since. Story slept another hour and I had a chance to chat online with G-money for a while. By 9 we were packed and out the door to see the rest of Moscow in one day. We had tickets for that night's 1am train to St. Pete, so we had to do ALL of Moscow. Now.

We saw the monument to Peter the Great on the river, a towering ship with a disproportionally big Peter straddling the entire deck. We walked from there through the foggy, drizzly mist to the Kremlin. November isn't tourist season in Moscow, and all the stalls for the outdoor markets we passed were skeletons of what I can imagine is a lively and raucous place in good weather. The Kremlin itself, containing several cathedrals, the President's residence and some other old things, was closed for the day, and we were left outside to admire it's big red wall. The towers on the corners rose to high green points with a red star on top. Our guide book described them as "adding a touch of whimsy to the structure," but I'm not so sure about that. The whole impression was formidable. Our day's plan, which had included a few hours within the walls of the Kremlin, was simplified greatly upon seeing the CLOSED sign on the main entrance. Instead, we took a stroll to Moscow State University and had a cup of coffee across the street from the Department of the Interior, followed by another short walk to Red Square.

Red Square is pretty cool. The red brick of the Kremlin wall towers forbiddingly to the right, while the multi-colored cupolas of St. Basil's Cathedral shimmer (as much as they can on a rainy day) straight ahead. The other sides are bordered by the GUM (State Department Store) and the National Museum. We walked around and took pictures - some of them in mid-air - until we stumbled upon Lenin's Tomb, a square red and black marble mausoleum. Unfortunately that was closed too. Lenin himself is still on display... ewww.

The day was getting colder and our limited hours were ticking away, so we decided to walk up to Pushkin Square for lunch. There, Bryan experienced the wonder that is pelmeni. From lunch we decided we could use some more souvenirs from Arbat St. So I picked up a KINO CD and we looked unsuccessfully for stickers with flags or emblems. We were told only car part stores carry stickers and there were no such stores nearby. Lame.

Our next project was to see Gorky Park. Now, I've known for a year now what "gorky" means in Russian - a ride or roller coaster - but for some reason we didn't connect the roller coasters we we saw early in the morning near our hostel with the name we know it has on the map. We walked for thirty minutes toward the park, only to stop short laughing about how many times we could see Gorky Park in one day.

With five hours till our train, we decided to undertake one more adventure. We rode the entire Koltsevaya (Circle) Line of the metro and rate all the stations. The metro is known for cool underground platforms and each station has its own style. Novoslobodskaya was the best. We rated them on a scale from one to five with three being the lowest possible score (like grades in Kazakhstan) and the stain glass of Novoslobodskaya gave that station the only 5+ of the day. Komsomolskaya was also cool, with its tiled ceiling mosaics of Lenin and other CCCP-themed art. The last honorable mentionable was Taganskaya, a station devoted to the different military divisions that fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The walls were covered with impressively detailed marble busts on light blue backgrounds. We left the metro at Belorusky station to have doner kebabs for dinner and walk around the station for Story to get acquainted with the area. He would be returning to Moscow by himself and would need to navigate the metro and train to the airport solo.

Another hour of walking brought us back to the hostel where we grabbed our stuff. We passed Gorky Park one more time (third of the day) on our way to the station where we caught our night train to Saint Petersburg. Phew!