Day 1: Arrival in Moscow
We had just flown across Russia, nine and a half hours from Vladivostok to Vnukovo Airport in Moscow. When we landed, we found out that while we had been in the air, there had been two suicide bombings in the Moscow metro. Instead of fearing for our safety, the first thing that we all worried about is what time our parents back home would be waking up and seeing that there had been two explosions in Moscow, the day that we were supposed to be arriving. We were all okay, of course, but we wanted to contact home to make sure that our parents weren’t worrying about us. After we retrieved all our bags, we piled into a private bus and drove into Moscow in the middle of five-o-clock traffic. We finally made it into the center, drove around a little, stopping at the main campus of MGU (Moscow State University). We then drove to the Arbat (a pedestrian street with shops that is closed to traffic). We walked around the Arbat for a while, found a McDonalds, and ate my first Big Mac since I left for Russia. We then found an internet café and were able to use that to email our parents at home and say that we were okay. Then we went to the train station, where we boarded our train for St. Petersburg, which left at 11PM.
[picture: me, Gabi (US), Margeaux (France), and Joao (Brazil) at the airport in Vladivostok]
Day 2: Tired
Our train arrived in St. Petersburg at 6:45 AM. We were all tired, dirty and wanted to take showers (we had just flown across 7 time zones, and then took a night train ride with little sleep and no showers). We just wanted to go to our hotel, but we were told that we would be going on excursion until afternoon. The sun was just rising over Petersburg, and despite my sleepiness, I couldn’t help noticing the beauty of the city from out the window of the bus. It has a lot of low buildings, rivers and canals, and I couldn’t help comparing it to Paris or even DC, with all of their historic architecture. After we ate breakfast, we went to see the Petropavlovsk Fortress, some statues and monuments, and an old Russian battleship anchored in the harbor. We went to a café, went to the “House of Books” (a large bookstore), where I bought some books. We returned to the hostel where we were staying (located in the middle of St. Petersburg). We took showers, relaxed, and bought some food from a nearby supermarket, which we ate for dinner.
[picture: me standing along the banks of teh still-frozen Neva river, with the Hermitage Museum in the background]
Day 3: Peterhof
Today we went to go see Peterhof, which was a big palace outside of St. Petersburg, built by the last emperor of Russia. In the summer, they have amazing fountains that all run off gravity, but they were still all covered from the winter. I also found out from my parents today that Georgetown is giving us $25,000 in financial aid for next year! I was so excited when I found out, as this will help us a lot. Despite my tiredness, I decided to start a new approach of always being positive and finding the bright side of things. Have to walk a long way? Good exercise. Tired from the flight? That means I sleep great tonight! I’m in St. Petersburg with my friends, what more can I ask for? It’s really nice to be in a good mood, so I’m going to use it for the rest of my last three months of exchange so I really enjoy them.
Day 4: More points of interest
Today we say Yusupov Palace. It was in the center of the city, and very interesting. I liked it better than Peterhof, and it was where Rasputin was killed. We also saw the Isaac Cathedral. It was Holy Thursday today, and it was interesting to see. Then we saw the Church of Spilt Blood. In the evening all the exchange students went to a Chinese restaurant together.
[picture: Pachera (thailand), Ethan (US), and I along a canal in Peter]
Day 5: Hoofing it
Our excursion today was on foot. We walked along one of the many canals, went to Kzanskiy Cathedral. Then we went to the Hermitage Museum. It is a huge museum (one of the largest in the world). It the square outside the museum, they have a tall pillar that stands without foundation of any kind. It is the only of its kind in the world. For dinner, we ended up buying food from one of the local supermarkets and bringing it back to the hostel. It was cheap, and it was delicious (especially the lavash – like a big long tortilla that costs < $1)
[picture: me with lavash]
Day 6: Last day in Peter
In the morning we went to Catherine’s Palace, and then went to the train station to drop our bags off at the luggage locker. Then we had the rest of the day, until 9PM, free to walk around. I went with Ethan (American), Pachera (Thailand), and Mauricio (Columbia) to go walk around. We walked around Nevskiy Prospect, the main avenue in St. Petersburg. We watched people. We went to a music store, McDonalds, and saw all the expensive cars parked outside the Grand Hotel of Europe. Basically, we just walked around for about 7 hours straight. But it was a great way to spend our last day in Peter, just walking around the streets, watching the people. That for me is sometimes even better than doing a tour-guided group. We boarded the train, and set off towards Moscow once again at 11 at night.
Day 7: Moscow in the Morning
Our train arrived at 6:02 AM. From our red-eye arrival, we all packed onto a private bus right away. It was Sunday morning, the sun was just rising, and it was still cool and damp in the streets. We drove through the almost empty Moscow streets (enjoy it, they said, while you can—Sunday morning will be the only time that the streets are this empty). We stopped at different areas around Moscow to walk around for 15 minutes at a time and then move on the next spot. We saw some monuments (see picture of me with famous Russian actor), the home of MosFilm (think Russian Hollywood), Moscow City (a development of brand-new, high-tech, bright and shiny office, residential, and shopping skyscrapers along the bank of the river), and Victory Park. We went to go eat some breakfast, and then we went to Red Square. Red square actually isn’t really red at all, except for the walls of the Kremlin. The reason that it’s called “red square” is because the current Russian word “red” krasniy, in old Russian meant “beautiful”, which is now krasiviy. Anyway, we waited in line for about half an hour, and then were finally admitted to the Mausoleum where the (real) mummified corpse of Lenin is kept. No one really knows if he is real anymore, or if he is just a wax dummy. Either way, it was serious business. You can’t even take electronics into the mausoleum, you have to go through a metal detector and security check, and there are guards that stand on every corner on the inside, and you are not allowed to stop, talk, or wear hats. They honestly probably have better security for this corpse than they did at the airport on the way here. So I saw Lenin. He actually looked pretty good for having been a dead body for almost 90 years, but his complexion was a little, ahem, waxy.
We finally got back to the hotel, showered, rested, and then got hungry. All the restaurants around were expensive, so we just went to a supermarket and bought food there to last us the week. We bought cereals, water, bread, cheese, meat, juice, snacks, pastries, and other stuff.
Day 8: A cemetery, GUM, and a really good cheeseburger
In the morning, it was raining a little, and we went to a beautiful cemetery where famous Russians like Chekhov, Yeltsin, and Molotov (who invented the Molotov cocktail) are buried. After that, we went back to Red square, went inside the church with the big colorful spires, and then were free. I went with Gabi (one of the other Americans) to GUM, or Glavniy Universalniy Magazin (Or Main Department Store). It is a HUGE shopping mall located right on red square. It is beautiful inside (see picture), and has a lot of expensive shops (some were so expensive that they didn’t even put price tags on their products… if you have to ask, you can’t afford it). After being in there for a while, we wandered a little around the streets and happened to find a “Steak Café”. Being Americans, and seeing that they also had hamburgers made with steak meat, we had to go in and eat lunch. We were served some of the most delicious cheeseburgers I have eaten in a long time (it’s the first real burger I’ve had since America). And it only cost about $11 which isn’t bad considering it came with fries and is right in the middle of Moscow, where everything is really expensive. That evening back at the hotel, all of the exchange students reserved the spa area in the basement of the hotel. They had a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, a sauna, and billiards. It was a fun and relaxing way to spend 2 hours.Day 9: the metro a week after and the Gulag museum
So today was another walking day, but we didn’t just walk, we also used the metro. Some of the students were a little concerned about using it a week after there were 2 suicide bombers on it, but they reassured us saying that “you can also die at any time by a brick falling off a building and hitting you in the head, so don’t be afraid.” Which is true.
So we went on the metro, and there was actually so much security and such that we didn’t really have to worry. We went inside the actual Kremlin, and saw the almazniy fond, where they have a hug collection of diamonds. There they have the second largest diamond in the world, and a lot of other precious stones, gold, and platinum. Then we walked around inside the Kremlin, saw all the churches there, and saw the big tsar bell and tsar cannon. After that, Gabi and I decided that we wanted to go see the Gulag history museum. No one else, especially the Russians, wanted to go with us to see that. So we went, got lost a little, and finally found it. It was very interesting, and very sobering at the same time. There were gulags all over Russia, including, I found out, in my host city of Blagoveshchensk. They had artwork, artifacts, and information. And the museum only opened a few years ago, so this is all relatively new. It was a really nice warm day out (+20 C), and I spent part of the evening sitting outside in the park near our hotel without a coat or sweatshirt, enjoying the nice weather.[picture: self-explanatory]
Day 10: Tsaritsino and an old acquaintance
Today, we went to Tsaritsino, which is a palace/park compound outside the city. The grounds themselves were very beautiful, and the palace was as well. The palace had sat as ruins for about 200 years, and they finally within the last decade or so decided to rebuild it. So it was all finished just a few years ago, so everything inside was new. When we were back at the hotel, Mauricio, the Columbian exchange students, was talking to one of his cousins through Skype. He said that his cousin had actually been in Ohio a couple years ago through Rotary youth exchange. I started talking to him, and found out that he lived in Sunbury and Galena, right next to Westerville! I asked him when he was there, and he said in 2007-2008, which was when I was preparing to do my short term exchange to France. I asked him what his name was, and he said “Juan Pablo”! I knew this guy! We went to all the exchange weekends together 2 years ago. Of course, the first thing he asked me was “what the hell are you doing in Russia?!” It’s so funny how small the world is sometimes. That night, I went with all the exchange students to the Jazz club “BB King”. It was a fun way to celebrate our last night in Moscow.
Day 11: Tretyakov Gallery and going back home (to Vladivostok)
This morning, we packed up everything, left the hotel, and piled onto a bus. We first went to the Tretyakov Gallery, a famous art museum in Moscow. After that, we drove to the airport, went through security and such, and then boarded the plane back to Vladivostok.
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