Going towards Ulan Ude

July 18, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Birobidzhan » Train station

At one of the stations that the train stopped at, the platform was nothing more than the room between two neighboring tracks. Just like on all other train stops, people where selling all sorts of food just to make a little bit of money.

Here, a little kid, 9, maybe 10 years old, dressed in rags, was begging for some change. Nobody gave anything to the child, and everyone just shook their heads when he came by. That is, until the child held out his hand in front of another kid his age, who was traveling on the same train as I was. That child looked at the beggar-child, thought for a couple of seconds and dug up a five ruble piece from one of his pockets to hand it over to the less-lucky child. Touching.

Almost in China

July 17, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Khabarovsk » Close to the China border

Khabarovsk is very close to the Chinese border and, according to the Planet, its possible to take a day trip, by boat, across the border. If you manage to go there and back again within one day, you don't even need a visa. Unfortunately, that changed in the last couple of years. Now, only Russians (and Chinese, going to Russia and back) don't need a visa. Foreigners do need one, even for a day trip.

I decided that I still wanted to see China, and luckily, a taxi service from the Intourist hotel (filled with Japanese, Chinese and Koreans) allowed for a two-hour trip to the border and back. Not a very interesting trip, although I did come across Butterflies the size of sparrows, but still fun, for being on the far side of China.

The border crossing is quite regular, manned by several soldiers, who needed to be bribed with cigarettes for me to take pictures (but not of them). At the Amur river, separating China and Russia, three men where swimming. One, covered in scars from fighting in Chechnya, tried to talk to me in all the languages he knew. Knowing no more than 5 words from each of the 10 languages or so he tried.

Moving

So I had decided to keep on moving, leaving today preferably for Ulan Ude, but settling for Irkutsk or any place near by. For a change, the people at the Intourist where very helpful, although speaking only French and Russian, but no flights where available to almost any destination and the trains where quite full as well.

After some checking, double checking and even triple checking, an empty seat was found. I was to take the train, second class, to Ulan Ude. A 52 hour train ride, parallel to the Chinese border over some 3000 kilometers. Again I was lucky: Only the day before the policy to have foreigners pay up to 5 times as much for train rides as locals had been abolished. I was to travel for next to nothing!

At the train station, waiting for the train to arrive, munching on some bread and cheese I had bought, a very blond fellow, backpacked and all, came out of the train station, looking somewhat bewildered. I immediately understood how easy it is to spot a tourist and minutes later Charles and me where chatting away about traveling through Russia. Charles spoke perfect Russian and was traveling through Russia, prior to taking a temporary job at KPMG in Moscow. I convinced him of Khabarovsk being a very boring town and he decided to get a train onwards as soon as possible. Getting a ticket for the train I was on seemed impossible and we decided to meet, in Ulan Ude, the day after my arrival.

A few moments later, I boarded the train. I shared my cabin with a mom, two curvy teenaged girls and a dog. None spoke anything but Russian, so I ended up, talking to the dog.

Khabarovsk is

July 16, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Khabarovsk » Downtown

The trip was pretty uneventful, occasionally coming within 20km from the Chinese border. In the 'old' days, the Trans-Siberian train on which foreigners where allowed to ride, always did this stretch during the night, so as to avoid spying eyes as much as possible. My spying eyes where mainly focused on the babe with which I shared the cabin.

After arriving, I didn't have a hard time finding the hotel I specifically was looking for. A hostel, housing students from Khabarovsk's pedagogical academy seemed perfect for meeting locals, speaking English. Of course, since it was summer, no students whatsoever where there and I was stuck with a whole bunch of mildly friendly but very old, Russian-speaking babushkas. I did have small friendly cockroaches to keep me company though.

Khabarovsk has one main street from which all other streets fan out. It's the main shopping street and everyone who is worth anything here, can be found walking up and down the boulevard. It's not an ugly street, just plain boring. Very long, it ends up (or starts) at the river, where leafy parks and beaches make for a nice destination during summer months.

After I had finally posted the cards I had obliged myself to send home (the same cards that where given to me in Moscow), I headed for the beach and hung around there for the rest of the day. When lounging on one of the benches, after some time, I was approached by two young girls (young meaning in their teens) who wondered if I could spare them a cigarette. I could, and because of me being a foreigner (surprise), we started talking.

For a change, these two girls, Lena and Tanya, between the two of them, did actually speak a little bit of English. We spent the evening together, them wanting to know all sorts of things about Europe (and me buying them beer). When they tried to lure me into buying beer and snacks for some of their friends as well, I gave up, and after the obligatory goodbye kisses I went to my hostel.

Somehow, I had a feeling something was wrong before coming back. Unlucky for me, I was proven right. The doors of the building, and with them the hostel, had closed. Since the hostel was on the 4th floor of a 20-floor apartment building, the solution wasn't simply ringing the doorbell. There was none. I started to make a lot of racket, banging the door, shouting through one of the open but barred windows and, after some minutes, a very pissed off babushka opened the door for me. Strangely enough, the floor lady of the hostel wasn't surprised at me coming in so late (without having a key). Soon after, I joined the cockroaches and fell asleep. I decided I would move on the next day in stead of staying two nights.

Moving to Khabarovsk

July 15, 1999 • Blog

World » Russia » Vladivostok » Train station

It is amazing how often your passport is checked when traveling through the country. When buying a train ticket, when boarding a train, sometimes on a train, when buying a plane ticket, when entering an airport, when checking in for a flight, when checking in your baggage, when going through customs (if you can call it customs for an inland flight), when entering the plane, etc.

I took the train to Khabarovsk The train ride to Khabarovsk at times takes you as close as 20km from the Chinese border. In the past, when security was more of a hot issue than it is now, the Trans-Siberia express would traverse this part of its trajectory with blinded windows, to avoid people from snooping.

I shared my cabin with a lady with gorgeous legs but a (as I only noticed when developing my photos) very ugly face and an old man with almost only golden teeth. The girl spoke English, so for a change, I had an actual conversation on the train.

Beer in Vladivostok

July 14, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Vladivostok » Hotel Vladivostok

I had had a bad night's sleep. It was very hot and I had to kill over 20 mosquitoes before I had enough time between killing each two to have a chance of falling asleep before it was time to kill the next one.

After picking up the train ticket to Khabarovsk, I wanted to take the ferry to the other side of the bay. It being a total chaos on the piers, I opted for some Chinese food instead. A very small Chinese girl was selling bags of mushrooms, fish, peppers, etc on oil and sour at very high prices. Misjudging the cost, I ordered too much and I had enough to eat for the next two days.

Picking up the train ticket wasn't an easy task this time. Finding where I could by them (in the renovated train station) wasn't too hard. Finding the right line to stand in and communicating to the ticket lady what I needed, was. After waiting a long time and trying for what seemed a longer time to explain what I needed, a man jumped in, offering to help me. I asked if he spoke English, 'Of course', he replied. He started talking with the ticket lady, and I started to make clear, to him, what I needed.
However, he didn't seem to notice I was talking to him. After some time, he looked up at me, startled, as I asked if he understood English. 'uhh… no!' he replied.

I bumped into Kostia again. This time close to the hotel. I had a feeling it wasn't totally a by chance meeting, since again he was carrying something for me. This time, a 1942 book about Vladivostok. In Russian of course.

Being tired because of my short night, I headed off to the Krishna cafe again for a bite to eat and a lazy afternoon. It being busy inside, I shared a table with An. A girl from Russia who was studying medicine in New York and was hoping on finding a steady job in the States after finishing her studies. She was going to fly back to New York the next day. Via Moscow. She told me it was two hours longer to fly via Moscow, but also half price as compared to going in the other direction immediately.

In the evening, this time, I didn't meet Kostia. I did meet two Russian sailors (one of whom was called Viktor) with whom I spend most of the evening. Talking about Russia, beer, women, foreigners and all the stuff where young people talk about. It was a funny meeting, since they both weren't really interested in me buying beer for them (a first!) but far more interested in talking with me about whatever there was to talk about. (As so many Russians I now had met, Viktor was of the opinion that everyone 'official', from Boris Nicolajevich down, is a thief.)
Eventually, the sailors went to some bar. I went to the hotel, dead tired.

Not so old friends

July 13, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Vladivostok » Hotel Vladivostok

One of the few places in Russia to have one, I was able to visit a vegetarian restaurant the next day. Run by several Hare Krishna's, the food was very enjoyable and I finally was able to decrease my backlog of vegetables.

The woman behind the counter spoke nothing but Russian and although, by now, I had picked up enough Russian to be able to order food in a restaurant (at least I thought), she had no problem to misunderstand me completely, continuously. I finally resorted to pointing to someone's plate to make it clear what I wanted to eat. That person, a woman, also Hare Krishna, had no idea what I wanted either and invited me to share her food with her. I finally was saved by two Indian guys, one of which spoke Russian and English, who explained my wishes to the waiting woman. I was saved, I was about to eat!

The Indians came from Moscow. One of them had only recently moved to Russia (from New Delhi) and was to set up some sales office in Vladivostok. The other (the one who helped me out) managed a sales office in Moscow, actually selling Procter & Gamble products throughout Russia. He had flown, from Moscow to Vladivostok, for not more than $75! Much less as what I had paid for half that distance!

Walking back to the hotel, I met 'Andre'; an interpreter and guide at the hotel who thought about going to Japan and making loads of money there. He spoke some four languages of which Japanese was his first language after Russian and was surprised, every time, at how much money he could make when working for the Japanese. Telling me the story of his life in less than 10 minutes, I learned about his corrupt brother, his history as a drug dealer and user, the Russian mafia (Mr. Yeltsin being one of them), Vladivostok and his idea that it would take one generation for Russia to change. Remarkably, in front of the hotel, an old-skool 'beetle' with German license plates was parked.

Again!?

In the evening, I bumped into Kostia again. He very much came across as the classic 'troubled youth'. We talked a bit and I received a gift from him! A cassette from the German band 'Enigma'. When talking, a girl came up to us, asking for the time. I showed her my watch (analog), making it clear that it was Moscow time. She didn't seem to be able to tell the time from it but she took my interest with the white rat that was sitting on her shoulder. I asked if I could hold it for a couple of seconds. I could and I took it. When it started gnawing at my fingers though, I accidentally dropped the damn rat!

Vladivostok is the other side of the world

July 12, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Vladivostok » Hotel Vladivostok

Getting off the bus again, walking back to waiting room, one of the girls and the soldier where walking behind me. I asked why I couldn’t just wait with the other people traveling to Vladivostok. (I first believed I was the only one traveling there, but the same soldier told me earlier I wasn’t.) “It is Russian tradition, our way of saying goodbye to foreigners”, the soldier said, seemingly dead serious. I expected this guy to grab a club or knife at any moment and smash my face in or rip my throat open. Surprisingly, this didn’t happen…

Some time later, I finally got on the plane (the same one that had brought me to Irkutsk), and I was actually put on the plane before all other (Russian) passengers. From the convenient window seat I had chosen, I could see all of them running towards the plane when their gate (on the tarmac) had been opened, trying to be the first on the plane.

We took off just before sunrise. When the sun came up, we where just over Baikal, which gave an unparalleled view of one of the worlds largest lakes. I had no problem anymore with us leaving much later than planned.

Before disembarking from the plane, all passengers’ passports where thoroughly checked by a group of soldiers. *My* soldier had to go through my papers four times before he finally let me move on.

It was already past 9 o’clock and the sun was shining happily over the parking lot of Vladivostok’s ugly airport. I had learned that the airport was some 40km away from the city center and that busses only irregularly made the journey. Halfway. As in Irkutsk, immediately many people asked if I needed a cab. I finally agreed with the owner of a small bus that I would pay some $4 for the ride to town (instead of the $18 he asked), unless a city bus would come to pick me up within half an hour.

The driver managed to find two other customers and, after no bus had shown up (and probably only minutes before it would have), we left for downtown.

On the parking lot of the airport, I concluded that here, people had to be driving on the other side of the road, since all steering wheels where on the wrong side of each car. It took me some time before I
realized that that was because about 95% of the cars where imported from Japan. Now, they still drive on the right side, but they just happen to have the steering wheel on the right side as well.

Vladivostok is a very lively city and it immediately reminded me of a Mediterranean city, with the warm weather, the hills next to the sea and the many brick buildings everywhere. The major difference being the lack of Spaniards, Italians or Greeks and the surplus of Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese.

I had a hard time finding a hotel. Almost all where full and only the third one, the hotel Vladivostok, had a fairly cheap room for me, after I declined the expensive rooms in the hotel several times. The hostess first told me no cheap rooms where available anymore, but when I made it clear that I was not going to pay much more than $12 and was about to go to a cheap hostel on the outskirts of town, she accidentally “discovered” that there was still a cheap room available. Later, I learned that the cheap hostel I was about to go to didn’t exist anymore, so I was saved by the bell!

The hotel was a strange combination of old and new; the entrance looked like any other modern Best Western, Ibis or Novotel, even advertising sauna, a hairdresser and having a small art shop in the foyer. The floor I was staying on had your standard Russian floor lady with drab, 70s style carpeting, wallpaper and everything. Then, the TV in my room was able to decode PAL, NTSC and SECAM, had several sports channels, a music channel and numerous Chinese broadcasts… I was happy though, to have a view over the bay of Vladivostok from my hotel window.

Different but similar

For a busy and apparently international city as Vladivostok, it is remarkable that no international fast food places exist. There is a magic burger that is so popular with the locals, that you have to wait in line for several minutes before you can actually order anything from the drab menu of food-items they serve. Don’t get me wrong, the waiting isn’t Russian style, its like a McDonalds on its busiest hours.

But why these people where actually standing in line was a complete mystery to me when I sampled the food itself. I had some Hawaiian burger (buns, meat, pineapple), stale fries and a Pepsi. The Pepsi was okay, the rest was plain terrible. I was baffled to see so many people eat all they had with joy on their faces! And to think that this place had been there for numerous years already (the Planet already recommended not going there). How could this “thing” survive?

I had to cool off with some good ice-cream in a good ice parlor. Although Russians like cakes and ice-cream a lot, it’s not as if very good ice-cream is served in Russia. One exception is this one place in Vladivostok. Many choices, very good cakes and pastries and, what’s equally important, with an outside temperature of about 40 degrees Celsius, they manage to get the temperature inside as low as some 22 degrees.

One very nice girl, sitting opposite me at another table, had the nerve to flirt with me for more than an hour. I would have made a move if she wasn’t accompanied by another (equally gorgeous) girl and a big baboon.

In the evening, when lounging on the beach, a couple asked me for the time. I replied (in English) and minutes later a boy/young man came up to me with a beer. We started talking and Kostia told me he wanted to leave Russia and work abroad. If it was possible for me to give him some good advice. His English wasn’t all that good and when he told me he was working in some copy shop, I figured he was lost. Some time later, however, he mentioned he was going to start at a business school somewhere, so the future doesn’t have to be all that bad for him after all!

We where joined by some friends of his, a young couple of which the girl (21 years) already had a son of 5 and an older man with two German shepherds who couldn’t stop talking about Krishna. According to Ira (the girl), I was a ‘good man’.

Solving a puzzle in Irkutsk

July 11, 1999 • Blog

World » Russia » Irkutsk » Airport

With nothing on television but porn advertisements again, I had gone to bed immediately after getting to my room and first flicking a huge bug from my pillow. I didn’t have much to do in Novosibirsk anymore and spent the most part of the next day just reading a bit, lounging on some of the terraces, in the shade.

I went to the airport way too early but I also had the last bus service going there. The airport was quite a distance from the city center and consisted of two buildings. One fairly old one, almost coming apart at the seams, with some rotting concrete, check-in counters falling apart and one door at the back of this hangar being either closed or open, meaning it was either possible ( or not) to board some plane.

The second building was much newer and well kept. Completely prefab, it was also reasonably clean and had (gasp!) digital displays to show which planes where going where and when. When asking the bus driver and several other people where I had to go, they all pointed me to the second, newer terminal. There, they told me I had to go back to the first terminal, since I wasn’t flying international.

When I waited longer than expected, for some undisclosed reason, it started to rain. The dark sky started to give me visions of my plane, with me in it, exploding in mid-air or crashing at landing. Just then the check-in announcement came. I gave up hope, gave up my bag (but kept my cameras and valuables) at check-in and left for the plane. Close to 10pm local time when I left, I would arrive in Vladivostok around 9am the next day.

A puzzle

Only after sitting down in the ‘Sibir airlines’ plane did I notice that everyone had an assigned seat. Shortly after I had seated myself next to a window on the left side of the plane to be able to spot Baikal as we would fly over it, did I finally see that everyone walking into the plane was looking for the right place to go and sit. I figured understanding the writing on my ticket would actually be a good idea and, with some help from a young guy in the row behind me, I found out I had to move two seats to the right, to a place next to the isle.

What struck me was, that although the plane seemed big enough to house fairly more than the number of people that where boarding the plane, after only minutes all seats where already taken.

Having an isle seat, I asked to be re-seated to a window seat. I wanted to see Baikal! Feeling rather helpless, specifically when the stewardess who I asked to be reseated didn’t show any signs of understanding what I said, I finally was ushered to a seat in the back half of the plane. The back half was completely empty, save for significant amounts of bags, lying on the seats and in the train-like storage compartment above the seats. Apparently (I hadn’t realized it yet) you board a Tupolev (at least the ‘154’ kind) in the middle and you can then go in two directions; to the front and the back. Probably, these two sections where originally designed to hold first and second class, but now they where the same, with the minor difference that the front part was completely full (minus one seat, mine) and the back part was completely empty (minus the seat I was now sitting in). Anyway, I had a great view on the outside world. Baikal was going to be a treat.

After a ‘light’ supper (with 8 peas!) and some beverages, served on cheap plastic trays in cheap plastic cups with cheap plastic cutlery, I soon dozed off, but was awoken some time later when the plane was going down, head first and heavily shaking. I figured that that was it, I would die in a crashing Tupolev, somewhere over the middle of Siberia. The shaking continued for minutes but no panic seemed to come from the other half of the plane where everyone was sitting. It seemed to be dead normal for the plane to act like this. And it was, as several minutes later, we landed in Irkutsk.

A friendly voice told us, in Russian and in English, that we had landed safely, in Irkutsk, and that we all had to leave the plane. People continuing their journey to Vladivostok, like myself, would have to wait in the waiting room.

Slowly, we where all ushered out of the airplane. Over the tarmac, we had to walk to a door in a fence that said ‘Exit to the city’. I wondered what would be behind those doors and was more than surprised when it turned out to be the outside(!) of the airport. This city was a stopover for me, and now I was outside of the airport! Immediately, people where approaching me to change money, offering a hotel or a cab and a multitude of other services I had absolutely no need for.

I went into the airport, looking for an information stand and found it. To discover that the two happily chatting girls behind the counter did nothing but just that. Chatter, in Russian. They pointed me back to where I came from and I first thought that I had to pick up my luggage before continuing. However, the luggage claim area was closed. And it staid closed. Going back several times, I was finally appointed an escort; some soldier who walked me to another building, a couple of blocks away, with a large collection of (misspelled) signs in English. This apparently was the place for me to wait.

The waiting room was filled with Chinese who all left, minutes after me entering. I was alone. For some three hours. The plane had quite a delay and only after asking several people repeatedly was I told that weather in Vladivostok was too bad to try and land there. I decided to take a nap on the black leather, wooden frame, broken chairs lying around in the waiting room.

When they woke me, to go to the plane, a soldier and two girls escorted me to a bus, after which all four of us (and the bus driver) drove up to the plane. We had to wait several minutes before we drove back again. Since no one said anything to anyone I asked the soldier (who happened to speak good English) what was going on. “The plane does not go yet”, he said. I asked him why. “It is not allowed”, he replied, after which I decided to shut my trap.

Strange market forces

July 10, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Novosibirsk » Irish pub

The hotel room had a fridge as well as a bathtub the size of a walnut. The fridge made so much noise that I had a hard time sleeping. My next door neighbor dunking his head against the wall every two minutes or so didn't help either. After a long time of trying and watching what there was to watch on television (mostly porn-related advertisements) I managed to fall asleep.

The next morning, I tried to arrange a train ticket to Krasnoyarsk, it supposedly being my next step closer to lake Baikal. I had to change some dollars into Rubles and wanted to try that at the more up market hotel Sibir. They where able to change money, although at a very bad rate, since their regular exchange office was out of service and all they had was a money changer at the casino (it being already ten in the morning). They also could get me train tickets to anywhere in Russia. Them speaking English, it seemed to make arranging my next leg of the journey an easy one. That was, until I had to pay four times as much per kilometer as I had in the before.

There was this 'law' that obliged foreigners to pay 4 to 5 times as much for train transport as compared to Russians. It seemed that only in Moscow, when buying the ticket to Nizhni Novgorod had I paid this 'regular' fair. For the other legs of my journey I somehow had managed to pay the Russian's fair. Now, in Novosibirsk, they wanted me to pay the regular foreigner's fair.

Having to pay an astounding $40 for a ticket to Krasnoyarsk, in stead of the Russian's $10, I asked what it would cost to fly there instead. The air fair was a mere $18. I decided I would try to get a train ticket at low price from any one of several other ticket offices scattered around town, mostly since the next plane to Krasnoyarsk wouldn't leave for a number of days. Getting a low-fare train ticket, however, turned out to be very difficult if not impossible. Some of the offices where closed, and when I found the one that was able to sell me the right ticket, I had to wait an hour to find out it didn't sell any tickets to foreigners (although the waiting wasn't all useless since I had a nice talk with a very beautiful ballerina before I was kicked out). I had to get my ticket at the train station. There, they wanted me to charge the earlier mentioned $40. I decided I was going to fly.

Although the air fair to Krasnoyarsk was low, planes only left once a week. Since the last one had left the day before, I needed to figure out another destination, since I didn't want to be stuck in Novisibirsk (however nice) for a whole week. Considering Ulan Ude, Irkutsk, Severobaikalsk and other stops along the way, I finally decided that, if I was going to fly anyway, I might as well fly all the way to Vladivostok.

Luckily, the hotel Sibir also was able to get me a plane ticket. I wasn't completely happy with flying in Russia. Mainly because I didn't want to leave my luggage with anyone at the airport (especially security) besides myself. I started to ask a question to the lady who was helping me on the subject of luggage. I said "I have been told…", but I couldn't even finish my sentence. She immediately cut in: "Don't believe 'em!". "But should I believe you?" I enquired with a small grin. "Of course." she said. So I believed her. She said I could take a fairly sized bag with me on the plane but should leave anything over the top to be transported as regular luggage. The size of my backpack could not be described as fairly sized.

The ticket to Vladivostok was also very reasonably priced and I would already fly the very next day. The fact that the ticket was arranged in only minutes put the smile back on my face when I left the hotel again, in the blazing Siberian sun. The outside temperature was about 45 degrees, Celsius, 35 in the shade, so the smile came in handy. I decided to let the folks back home know of my change of plans, I went to the local telephone office.

An Irishman in Novosibirsk

Still with the smile on my face, I tried to arrange a call back to the Netherlands. Phoning abroad is something of an art in Russia. Depending on the city, you can either call from your hotel, or you need to go to an International phone and telegraph office, where you can place a call to a foreign country. You give the country and phone number of the person you want to speak to, to someone at a desk (behind a glass window) and then you wait. After some time (when your number's up and when 'they' have made contact) there's an announcement saying to which phone box you have to hurry. There, your call is waiting and you can accept the call by picking up the phone that's inside the booth. Sometimes, since you can't call from such a booth anyway, the phone is nothing but a horn on a thing that looks like a phone but has no touchtone or dial whatsoever on it.

So I was in this communication center, asking the (nice) lady at the counter whether she spoke either English, Dutch, French, German or Hungarian. She didn't. She did speak Italian. Of course, I don't, but just then a friendly Irishman (aren't they always) appeared out of nowhere and helped me out. John had been in Novosibirsk for about half a year and had arrived in December when the temperature was at a heart warming -45 degrees Celsius. We went for a drink in one of the Pizza places.

John, by circumstance, had come to Novosibirsk to teach English but was now working at some humanitarian organization doing Internet research. He had found a girlfriend here (or a girlfriend had found him) and was enjoying his time immensely, picking up some Russian in the process (probably to help stray cats such as myself in phoning home).

Having just bought a plane ticket, I was already short on cash. So again, I had to exchange some dollars. I didn't want to get fooled by the casino at the Sibir once more, so I asked John where I would have the best bet in changing at a good rate. He said he knew a couple of people that would be able to change money and indeed, after some time, someone entered the pizza joint where we where having some Pepsi, who John knew could exchange cash. We agreed an amount and some moments later, he came back with the Rubles. I wanted to change $200. He came back with the right amount all right, all in 50Ruble notes. That's about 100 notes all together. Great. John and I agreed to meet again in the evening, in one of the pizza places that doubled as a Jazz club at night. Next, I was off to see a bit more of Novosibirsk.

One of the things I had to see up close, here in Novosibirsk, was the river Ob. So that's where I went. A huge waterway (but then again, which waterway in Russia isn't huge) with, on several beaches along its shores, thousands of people sunbathing and swimming. Boat wrecks lying on the shores, kids playing in and on them. Older men trying to catch fish for an evening meal and tomorrow's market. Stray dogs trying to wash the hot day off of them. The peace and quiet along the whole shore. In short, a great place to linger.

Walking back from the river to the city center, a bus driver asked me to help push the bus and get it going. He couldn't get the ignition started, so he had asked one of the passengers to sit behind the wheel while he himself and I would push the bus, so that it could start. After several tries, we got it going. I also cam across a small chapel that claims to be the geographical center of Russia. I couldn't help but wonder why they put such a very small chapel in such an important place. Grabbing some culture along the way, I also visited an art museum. Here, too, international artists where adorning the walls. Among others, the Dutch painter Ruebens was represented here, as well as the Russian Reirikh (or Roerich).

Jazz

When night fell, I went to the pizza place and was surprised by four things: the friendliness of everyone in the bar, the quality of the food, the cosines of the bar and the high standards of the jazz that was being played. John came in several minutes after me with his (gorgeous) girlfriend (she looked like Natascha McElhone and we talked about Russia and things you talk about with a foreigner when you meet each other in the middle of nowhere.

John knew some of the people in the Jazz band that was playing and after the gig (when already a new band was lining up, also not bad (but not as good as the first band)) two of them sat at our table. One of the guys, Alexei, had actually toured part of Western Europe as well as Turkey with his band, him not being able to stop rambling on about the fantastic things he had seen on his trips to the West. His most fantastic story was on Novosibirsk though. He said that the personal ads of one of the local news papers consisted for 80% of articles of the type: "Wealthy Dutch male is looking for handsome young Russian woman: 18-35, 90-60-90, no kids, for marriage." He stressed that these 80% where all Dutch men. I wondered.

John told me a remarkable story. The expat community in Novosibirsk being kinda small (all pizzerias, the Irish pubs and a bakery run by the same American guy), he knew one of the big Honcho's of Coca Cola.
Apparently, since the Russian market crash of 1998, Coca Cola has been losing $1million (yes, 1.000.000) a month by staying in Russia. What's more, before the crash, they expected to break even in 2004. Now, they've put back that figure by 50 years! Problem is, they can't just back out. Pepsi would, then, easily rule the whole country and could start making a profit in less than a few months! Interesting stuff.

John was the first who suggested the thought to me that Russians consider the time it will take for a change to happen in Russia to be some 25 years. The 'age' of one generation. Professors in university now teaching the free market economy have never experienced it themselves. How can they teach? The parameters that are enforcing the economy to work only seem to work for the select few. How can a whole population be convinced. By law, everyone has to be paid in Rubles, but everyone immediately converts their money to Dollars, to avoid the problems a default might cause. How can this system ever work?

The two lovers (John and Julia) left earlier than I did, which rendered me a remarkable view of the second band that was now playing. The drummer looked like a young version of Nick Cave, the lead guitarist was a good imitation of Christopher Walken. The base guitar player was short and fat, constantly jumping around the whole club, with a bad-ass smile on his face, he looked like a converted communist general. The keyboard player seemingly had just crawled out of bed, still wearing his green pajamas and his curly black hair was trailing off in all directions. And then the singer. Half-long greasy hair, which he constantly waved back and forth, and the painful look on his face, which made him look like a cross between Eric Clapton and Jesus Christ.

I noticed a nice looking young girl sitting alone some tables away from me and, since I could still manage a couple of hours, figured it wouldn't hurt striking up a conversation with her. I went over to her table, asking if it was okay for me to sit down. She politely said "No.", which caught me a bit off guard. She, noticing that, although I did understand what she had said, I hadn't understood why, she went on to explain: "I'm single", and then nodded with her had as if to say 'therefore you can't sit here'." By no means did I understand it at all, but I figured it was time to take a nap after all.

Novosibirsk is a city, changed

July 09, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Novosibirsk » Opera

One person I was sharing my cabin with was Svetlana. 21, was going to marry next year with her fiancee. She studied in Yaroslavl, close to Moscow, but her parents lived just outside of Novosibirsk. That is, a two and a half hour drive from Novosibirsk.

My other two ‘bunkmates’ were older men with loads of food, who just had to share their meal with us. Although they didn’t speak any English, I was fine with them sharing, since I hadn’t had the time to get something to eat before I left.

Remarkably, the only people that yet haven’t asked me for money, although I talked extensively with them, where the people I met on trains. They’re actually friendly, and almost always actually offering something to share! A beer, vodka, something to eat. Really friendly people with which it’s nice to start a conversation. On the other hand, that isn’t really surprising, considering that they still have money to buy a train ticket, they can’t be that poor.

Judging from what the Planet has to say about Novosibirsk, a lot has changed over the last couple of years. Only the few high-end hotels still exist (although very affordable now) and most of the restaurants have gone but have made room for quite a remarkable combination of shops and new restaurants.

In the (very quiet) center of Novosibirsk, I found one German fast-food joint, 5(!) New York Pizza’s, no less then three Irish pubs and a total of two Internet cafe’s. On a population of only 40 expats (as I learned later) all that is a pretty strange combination for a city, so very much in the middle of nowhere!

I had arrived at the hotel pretty late. Not only because the train ride was supposed to take 18 hours and was scheduled to arrive early in the evening, but more since, at the end, we turned out to have a delay of almost two hours. My two benefactors, who had given me loads to eat during these two days, had already left earlier so I was left with Svetlana, whose parents where waiting in Novosibirsk (and were very worried at the delay, as parents are). At some point during the trainride, when I figured I should do something in return for the eggs, tomatoes, bread, cucumber, cheese, etc I had received on the train, I got ourselves some beer. Nobody liked beer, I should have gotten vodka. Great.

The hotel I was staying in, the Central, was right in the middle of town, so, although it was already getting late, it was easy to take a small tour of the city still. Also, the city opera house was right next door, so I hoped to be able to see a show there, or maybe get tickets for a show the next night, since I had planned to stay two nights before moving on. I learned the next day that only a week before had they gone into their summer recess.

Throughout the whole city, almost no lights where on to illuminate the streets, the only lights shining from billboards, advertising Western cigarettes or beverages. Only about eleven o’clock at night did the square in front of the Opera become a little bit more lively, so I had sat down on one of the benches to lounge a bit and ‘grok’ Novosibirsk. Only minutes after sitting down, a petite Russian girl came over, asking for a light. I did understand the asking for a light bit, but when she started babbling away I very soon had no idea what she was going on about. She called her girlfriend over and it seemed like it became top priority for them to get me to understand something and for them to understand something of me. We tried pretty hard, but after sometime we just opted for a beer in a nearby cafe. Probably that was what they where after anyhow.

Dance

The bar, an outside terrace surrounded by a metal fence, was reasonably full with mainly older men and women. All, on any music that was playing but especially on the Russian tunes, got totally wild and where continuously dancing all over the place. The two girls, of course, wanted me to join them in dancing, which, of course, I did. Some time later when I had had enough I tried to communicate that very fact without much luck at first. Its just not that interesting when all you can do is sit at a table (or dance or whatever) and not be able to talk with each other at all, besides on the most futile subjects (such as why I still wasn’t married at 25 where the girls had already been married at 18 and had been divorced as well). I was invited to go swimming with them the next day. Not a bad thing, since I really felt like swimming (and although Russians seem to go swimming when ‘normal’ people still need their winter coats the weather was shaping up nicely), but I figured I really wanted to see more of the city.

A scary moment in Yekaterinburg

July 08, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Yekaterinburg » Downtown

The next day, with a book in hand, I had decided to read until it was time for my train to leave (although I finished Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s excellent and scary ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ in two hours, I was lucky to have more books on hand). Drinking gin-tonic, I basically waited for the time to pass by. As my train wasn’t leaving until sometime late in the afternoon, and I had to leave my hotel room quite early, I saw Yekaterinburg’s main square (where I had decided to read and wait) get busier as the hours passed.

The outside bar where I was sitting got more and more crowded and, at some point, this long legged, quite nice, Russian girl started flirting with me. Making it apparent that she had an interest in me, but wanting me to make the first move. I thought about it, but had second thoughts almost immediately, expecting not to be able to communicate through a language barrier and me having to leave in several hours anyway.

After some time, she shifted her attention to a bloke that was on another table next to me and, after some time, he took the bait. For some time, they started to have a reasonably lively conversation. They moved to one table and some time later, after each had gone off for several minutes to do something I couldn’t possibly determine, they both left. Together.

As the square got more busy, two drunken youngsters asked me whether they could sit at my table. They both had had their portraits drawn (something Russians are very fond of) and just had to show the drawings to me. Both where quite drunk and incoherent but one of the two was very drunk and also looked a bit more sinister. When he asked whether I was Armenian, I figured it might not be the wisest move to say I originally came from Iran and denied the middle eastern connection. I kept on insisting I was from the Netherlands. That, however, was a bad move.

When I was in Russia, the ‘thing’ with Kosovo and Russians being cheated out of being the strongest fraction in former Yugoslavia by NATO, had just happened and quite a lot of Russians had gotten quite upset about this (its all a macho thing, but touches them right in the soul). So when the sinister guy, Yevgeni, learned I was from the Netherlands, a NATO country, he got quite upset. Luckily, he remained very drunk.

Since he really didn’t speak anything besides Russian (and even that pretty bad, because of the alcohol’s influence on him) I could pretend not understanding a thing he was saying. Then, at some point, he reverted to sign language. He pointed to himself, pointed to me, as if to make a gun with his fingers and then pulled the trigger. Starting to feel to severity of the situation, I friendly pleaded for help in translation from two lovely young girls sitting just a table away.

It took some time, but both turned out to speak a bit of English. And the one with the littlest English knowledge invited me to sit at their table ("You better sit with us"), which I promptly did. Then, they tried, unsuccessfully, to get the two drunks off to someplace else. Meanwhile, some people on the terrace had started to get involved and where complaining against the really drunk guy for his behavior. Meanwhile, Masha, the girl speaking the least English, had written down on a piece of paper: "He is crazy". I had no hard time agreeing.
Then, after some time, she said that it was best for me to come with them. And how can you refuse a fifteen year old virgin?

Small talk

We strolled around the park a bit and struck up a few small conversations with several people the girls knew, before taking a car to a pub close to the train station. Masha had to point out that we were driving in the very first model of the Lada. I showed my mild surprise that she actually knew such a thing, and then she started to point out all the Ladas that drove by and mentioning which model (the 3rd, the 9th, the 5th, etc) they where. When asked why she actually knew this, she just said: "Of course I know this, it is Russian history!"

In the pub, several of their friends had their main meeting point (including both their boyfriends – darn!). With the whole group, about 8 people, we spoke enough English, German and Russian, to talk about movies, Yugoslavia, music, Chechnya (one of them had fought there, him showing us his scars and a tattoo, above his wrist, of his blood type) and life in general, to have a really entertaining afternoon. When the time came up for me to leave, I really felt sorry.

The whole group thought it necessary to walk me to the train and, besides it being very friendly and nice, it was also very useful, since we walked their much faster than I would have by myself, having to find the right platform to leave from for example. When we got to the platform, my train was already leaving!
I quickly jumped on (although the provodnik was heavily cursing me for doing so), waved goodbye and started looking for my cabin.

Finally, books

July 07, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Yekaterinburg » Downtown

Yekaterinburg isn't the most exciting place to be. Still, there is some culture in the city and I decided to take a look at two of the city's museums. Before 12 noon, I had seen both. The fine arts museum has a big collection of massive cast iron works and, although ugly, its quite impressive. In addition they have a large collection of paintings and I wandered where they got the many old Dutch masters. The history museum isn't interesting at all. Even the ladies that work there seem to think so, since, when I was there, all had clustered together in the wardrobe to discuss current events. I basically raced through that museum.

Temperature luckily had picked up again and, although in the morning it had been very chilly, it was now some 25 degrees. As I was enjoying the sun on the steps of the local music academy, a young fellow came up to me, asking for a light. It was soon obvious that I was foreign, and we started a conversation. Sacha, studying to become a singer told me a bit about the city and then sang a song for me which he had composed and written himself. It was quite good, although it reminded me a lot of Take That. Furthermore, I wandered why the English in his song was so much more developed then the English he used in conversation.

To kill time for the rest of the day I read some English books I had picked up at the 'Friendship' bookstore. I now carried quite a couple of translated Russian books and also the collected works of Oscar Wilde! In the bookstore, the owner, an older but still good looking and English speaking woman, tried to, more or less, sell her daughter to me (who was very shy but also very beautiful). When I mentioned that I was already leaving the next day she started considering whether she could change her plans to let me go out with her daughter that same evening, since they had planned to go someplace that same night. I wouldn't have objected in taking her daughter out, but mom figured that in one evening it would be hard for her daughter to install a need with me for her. Alas, I had to spend the night alone, again.

When in Moscow, I had seen the movie Blade on video. One voiceover was doing all the characters and you could still hear the original soundtrack underneath. I figured the same would be the case here, in cinemas so, bored as I was, I went to see Entrapment. The pricing system is really remarkable. In the morning you can get in for under $1. Then, as the day gets older, the entrance fee gets higher. In the evening, a show costs up to $4. Quite a big difference! Anyhow, the movie was dubbed pretty well, all characters having their own voiceover and if it wasn't for me already knowing the plot, it would simply have been impossible to understand what the movie was about.

When walking back to my hotel I took a busy street as to avoid a possible mugging or worse. I'm not sure why I did this, since I do have a feeling that Russia, in relation to petty crime, is safer than any Western country. Not in spite of, but because of Mafia. It is my guess that Mafia wants to control its turf to the max, and that leaves no room for uncontrolled petty crime. If someone needs to be robbed, they decide who, when and where and since the average Russian doesn't have much to have robbed from him, Russia is a reasonably safe place. That is, for all accept business men. Since they definitely do not fall in the 'petty' area but can mean big business. In effect, crime in Russia does take place, but on higher levels mostly, not on the streets. This idea, in addition, is staffed by the fact that, even until late at night, women alone or in small groups still can be found walking through deserted and sometimes dark areas to get home.

It’s no longer Europe, in Yekaterinburg

July 06, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Yekaterinburg » Train station

Lucky me, the Planet had a good tip in store for me this time. A travel agency, Sputnik, was a very good help in getting a place to stay in Yekaterinburg and also in getting a train ticket out of the city as well. Although the Planet stated that Sputnik was a one-man-setup, the place had grown to a reasonably sized office, with 5 very nice girls arranging travel services for a whole bunch of people at the same time.

The girl that helped me spoke perfect English and assisted me in finding a place to stay. She gave me a number of options in several price ranges and after deciding which one I wanted, told me where I could get a train ticket for leaving again. She had to check whether the hotel was available, which gave me time to first get the train ticket. The girl was going to help me in stopping a car in the street to get me to the train ticket office.

Turned out the car that she stopped held a couple that was very good friends with the girl that was helping me out. They too spoke very good English and dropped me off right in front of the ticket office. I said thanks and went inside. Here, it was chaos.

The whole office wasn't really small, but with the 25 or so counters and the long lines of people waiting in front of them, in addition to the hordes of people walking around from one place to the other, I had absolutely no idea where to go to get my ticket. The girl from Sputnik had been so nice as to write down, in Russian, where I would like my next ticket to bring me, Novosibirsk, so I had something to get me going. Question was, where to start.

I decided that a first good guess was to try it with the 'Office manager' and stood in line there. I figured that (with only three people ahead of me) that would be the quickest way in finding out from which counter I was to get my ticket. Turned out, I was lucky.

Although I had the idea the lady at the counter was constantly cursing me and she did walk away almost immediately after I gave her my piece of paper with the text saying where I needed to go, I had a feeling things where going better than I had hoped they would. She was actually arranging my train ticket for me! After a couple of minutes she demanded my passport, visa and some cash and only minutes later again, I walked out with a perfect ticket, entitling me to take a train, two days later, to Novosibirsk.
Back to Sputnik.

The Sputnik girl (who, together with her girlfriend from the car, had visited the Netherlands only months earlier) had checked the hotel, and they had rooms available for two nights. We took the company car, with chauffeur, and drove to the hotel. At the same time, the girl gave me a short tour of Yekaterinburg. Showing me the world trade center (with good hotel, restaurant and international newspapers), the circus and one or two other sights (Yekaterinburg just doesn't have that many sights).

At the hotel, together we looked at the room, she ordered it to be cleaned once more, I paid at the reception of the hotel the amount due and she was off. The room was a really good one, with bathtub, satellite TV, fridge and a very good and very big mattress. Only one drawback though: there was a curfew at twelve o'clock…

Yekaterinburg used to be called Sverdlovsk, after the man who masterminded the killing of the Romanov family (the former Tsars) at the beginning of the century. A big statue in the center of town, still reminds people of this gruesome act. A second memorial isn't to the mastermind himself, but to the ones he had killed. A wooden frame-of-a-church and a small chapel made out of wooden logs have been recently built on the exact spot where the house used to stand in which's basement the Romanovs had been shot.

Afraid of the house becoming something of a memorial during the Soviet regime, Yeltsin, who used to be party head here in Yekaterinburg, had it torn down. They never got round to building something else for it in return and recently it was agreed, a church would be built on the spot. They have long stopped building again. However, now its a real memorial and many people flock to the spot to remember the family.

The first stop of my tour into town led me to the WTC where I spent a couple of hours reading yesterday's Times and drinking expensive tea and coffee. I also managed to place a pricey call back home, which I hadn't managed from my hotel.

In many of the cities I went to, a lot of the streets still carry their old names. Many streets where re-christened after 1991 change, removing names of Soviet greats and replacing these names with their pre-Soviet counterparts. Here in Yekaterinburg, surprisingly, although many streets had changed names, most still carried their old street signs.

Since the Planet was wholy inaccurate (besides the Sputnik travel agency) in relation to Yekaterinburg, I had a hard time finding a place to eat. Just like anywhere else I had been, it was easy to get loads of ice cream or fast food, but finding something of a restaurant was a real task.

I bumped into something of a cafeteria where stale bread was served with watery soup and mushy fries (although I didn't know that until after I ordered), so at least I was able to get a hot meal. The place looked really tacky, with plastic plants everywhere, small rugs on the table, covered with see-through plastic with cigarette holes in it. The walls where covered with Christmas decorations (remember that this was only July) and everything was done in a very unstylish dark brown. To me, this was Soviet. The food definitely was Soviet; among the worst I had had. Anyhow, my tummy was filled again and I was able to wash it down with that Dutch beer of beers, Bavaria.

Feeling that the less then average meal I just had was in need for a supplement, I added a not-so-good slice of Pizza from one of the pizza stands and spent the rest of the evening at a neighboring terrace, enjoying the site of people passing by. As I went back to the hotel some time later, I came across a group of people doing karaoke. On the street.
Without a doubt they where very much enjoying themselves but I wandered what they would do with their equipment if it would start raining. And the sky looked like it was going to rain.

It is remarkable to see that Yekaterinburg is no longer Europe, but Asia. It could be any other city in European Russia. The buildings are the same, the shops are the same and sell the same goods. The people look the same and speak the same language, wear the same clothes and eat the same food. Still, its Asia and no longer Europe.

Again a visa issue

July 05, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Kazan » Train station

Finding my way to the renovated train station wasn’t very difficult, although, after looking at my visa for the first time in a couple of days, taking a look at the stamp the Tatarstan had given me, I was in for a shock. Somewhere, someone had ripped off a page from my visa! I had no idea where that had happened, for as far as I knew, I had seen the visa only with the missing page attached. In Moscow, when at several occasions, police wanted to look at my visa, I had given it to them, with the now missing page attached to it! What had happened?!
Not really panicking, although uncomfortable, I already had visions of having to travel back to the Dutch consulate in Moscow and having to arrange a new visa just there, on the spot. Simultaneously I considered traveling on with this bad visa, hoping to not get caught. I wasn’t going to let them cheat me out of a good vacation!

To make sure what to do, I decided to call up the Dutch consulate in Moscow. I hadn’t taken that phone number with me when I left Holland, but when I was in Moscow, at some point I walked past the English embassy and figured that they might just be able to supply me with the phone number of the Dutch consulate (the phone number in the Lonely Planet already had turned out to be incorrect). They were and, lucky me, I was able to call them now.

I bought two phone cards next to the Kazan train station and started looking for a phone that could call long distance (since not all phones can). I found one and called the Dutch consulate. Turned out that they weren’t sure whether ripping a page from my visa was standard procedure or not. Since so many different types of visa’s are in use, its difficult to keep track of what was necessary to do with which one. Remembering that all police I had met where surprised that my visa wasn’t actually inside my passport, I didn’t have a hard time believing that. Still, I was stuck with half a visa.

They checked as much as they could, but all they could come up with was that it was likely that it was supposed to be ripped. Already deciding I was going to continue my trip, I also called my contact at Procter & Gamble. Happy to hear, she was assuring me of the fact that the visa was supposed to be taken apart when crossing the border. Feeling reassured, I also was surprised, since I was quite certain that I had seen it in one piece after crossing the border.

I gave Nemets a call, him having said that he was going to stop by at the train station to say goodbye. Figuring he would still be in bed I felt like waking him up. Which I did. Of course, I also a woke the girl he had taken home the previous night.

The train ride from Kazan to Yekaterinburg was different in several ways. It was a very long ride, about 18 hours, and it was very cheap, about a mere $8 and I was moved between cabins several times. I hadn’t gotten a seat assigned to me when buying the ticket, so my provodnik had to get me one after boarding the train.

I was put into a cabin with a family of three of which none spoke anything but Russian. That wasn’t the remarkable part. With only three people (a couple and their young son) in the cabin, the cabin itself was completely filed. Not because of them being very fat, but because all compartments in the cabin where used for storing luggage, their luggage. But not just ‘regular’ luggage, no, everywhere pears, berries, lemons, peaches, etc. had been stored. Maybe to sell them at their destination, maybe to have a snack ready on their long train ride to wherever they were going.

After only a couple of minutes though, I was moved to another cabin, which I shared with a fat dark guy, Alek, who smelled like he hadn’t had a bath for weeks on end. Turned out he had been on the train from way before Moscow, so he actually was traveling for quite some time now. Some time later, unlucky me, I missed the pillar at the Europe-Asia border.

Finding a hotel in Kazan

July 04, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Kazan » Hotel Tatarstan

Enjoying my breakfast, deck side, with caviar and all, I had gotten myself a bottle of mineral water. The bottle read: The mineral water you taste is bottled at facilities, developed by joint efforts of the ministry of economic affairs of the Netherlands and the Nizhni Novgorod regional administration, within the technical assistance program. At the same time, music already playing through the boat its speakers, Tarkan was singing in Russian. The train might have been a much faster method, doing the trip by boat was certainly a much more relaxed way of moving from one place to the next.

So I had arrived in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan. The port turned out to be quite a long way from the city center and that, in its turn, turned out to be quite a long way from the place I had decided I wanted to spend the night.

Spending the first couple of hours trying to get train tickets and a place to stay, one of the first things I noticed was that the city was so very well kept. The buildings where all in good shape, the streets very clean and, surprise, the people very friendly. However, the Lonely Planet turned out to be dead wrong in almost all it said. Train tickets and plain tickets where almost impossible to get and several of the hotels the Planet suggested had been closed over time.

One very big, western style, hotel (the Safar) had just sprung up on the outskirts of town, next to where a youth hostel used to be. A big sign outside celebrated ten years of Braunschweig – Kazan. Their prices where a little bit above my budget though, but they forwarded me to the one hotel that was still alive and mentioned by the planet, the hotel Tatarstan. Being almost in the center of town, its location wasn't very inconvenient either. Not in the best of shapes, it did have a good view of Kazan's main street.

All over the lobby of the hotel, stickers where advertising them accepting all sorts of credit cards. When I waved my AmEx in front of the receptionist, however, she friendly refused to accept it. Maybe a picture then, to keep for posterity the typical 70s interior of the hotel? As I grabbed my camera, a guard came over, making it very clear I was NOT allowed to take pictures.

I had to get the key to my room from the 'floorlady' upstairs. My room, I had been told by reception, was on the 7th floor, but when I pushed the appropriate button in the elevator, the thing wouldn't move. I then tried my luck with the other elevator, but there too, the thing just didn't take off. After some careful studying the buttons available, it turned out I first had to push my floor and then had to push the 'up' button. The button for the 7th floor, however, didn't work. So I went up to six and walked the last part. On the 7th, I found out I had to go to the 8th.

My floorlady was busy cleaning rooms, and she made it clear she had ample time to supply me with my keys. Her face lit up a bit when she saw my name. First asking whether I was 'Islam?' then noticing I was alone. A sort of 'wink wink, notch notch' scene was the result, where she seemed to be certain in what I was going to do that very night. But although I had color television and a shower with hot water in my room, the bed, basically a mattress with one big hole in the middle, wasn't inviting to share.

The city apparently has been renovated over the past couple of years and the main shopping street is a very nice place to walk through. Besides that street though, there's nothing much to do in Kazan, so the shopping street is where I spent most of the day. There are no significant museums and the only historically interesting part of town is the city Kremlin, but even that isn't very interesting.

Entertainment

Mid-afternoon, the center started to get more and more crowded, the sunny weather probably helping a lot, and several small groups of people started showing themselves off. Making music, break dancing, flame throwing or doing other kinds of remarkable stuff. I sat down close to a group of people making typical Russian music and, as these things go, after some time, we started to chat.

That didn't go without any trouble at first, since the group really only spoke Russian, until one guy showed up, after some time, who had spent a couple of years in Germany. Him speaking perfect German made our conversations much easier, resulting in me spending the rest of the day (and the night) with 'Nemets' (as he was called by his friends, which means something like 'German boy' in Russian) and a select group of his pals.

At some point, even, one of his friends invited me into singing a song by Metallica together with them. Of course I joined, although it didn't come very easy. I thought singing was much easier than it turned out to be!

Anyhow, Nemets had to stress, a number of times, that I had to experience Russian hospitality and that he just had to arrange a woman for me for the night. Having seen quite a couple of good looking Russian women, but an equal number of bad looking women, I wasn't sure what it meant. Any which way, it seemed the night was going to be an interesting one.

Nemets had spent several years in Germany but was now living in Kazan again. The group of friends studied music at the Kazan university and enjoyed the summer by hanging out, making good music on the streets and earning small cash in doing so.

Already, the evening had given away to the night, and Nemets was getting more and more worried that, still, he hadn't arranged a group of women for him, myself and the three friends that where still left. Several small groups of ladies he kept on asking to join us for the night, in order for everyone to have a good time. Somehow, it seemed he actually knew all the girls he asked out, although I'm not really sure about that.

After some time trying, he finally did convince three girls to join us. The main guitar player was still with us and Nemets had convinced the girls to go skinny dipping in 'mother Volga' (as Nemets called it) with us, so it was going to be an interesting night after all.

All three girls where quite nice. Only one, Lilian, spoke something besides Russian though, and she was destined to be 'mine' for the evening. One major drawback, though, there was. Not that she was ugly or something, since she wasn't (actually, she was very nice looking, dark curly hair, firm breasts, quite long legs, a nice smile and a heavenly ass!), but she just couldn't believe I had come to Russia, of all places, to spent my vacation. I must have been looking for a woman to take back with me, or working on some other ungodly scheme! She just couldn't get it through her mind that I was traveling through Russia (six weeks, gasp!) for pleasure.

The night became older and older and the day started to creep up on us again. Already at 3am the sky was becoming pretty bright and I, although having a very good time, felt like going of to bed. My train was leaving the next day, somewhere in the morning, and I did feel like getting something of sleep before leaving Kazan again.

Some time later, the sun was already shining again, we headed back to town. Nemets, having scored one of the girls, was constantly lagging behind, them stealing kisses from each other, and it took us quite some time to actually get to the center, where my hotel was. Finally getting back to the hotel, I kissed my 'date' goodbye and, some minutes later, slept (by myself) for the remainder of my stay in the hotel. In effect, the people I met in Kazan proved me that Russians can be very hospitable indeed, without necessarily asking money for it at the same time. Then again, the people from Tatarstan are among the most non-Russians in Russia and act like it too. The license plates on the cars in Tatarstan are among the few in Russia that don't show the Russian flag.

Traveling by boat from Nizhni Novgorod to Kazan

July 03, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » On the Volga river

Waiting for the boat to leave, I spent some time reading, in a small park close buy when this guy came up to me, asking for some donation for a church/aids/whatever, in exchange for a set of postcards. The guy stuttered, and when I made it clear I didn't speak Russian, he started to stutter in English.
After he had 15 tries in finishing the word 'donation' I gave him all my change just to get rid of him. I considered his method a good marketing technique and read on.

Just like all cabins on the ship, mine was on the outside. Communication with the purser didn't go very well when he showed me my cabin and he left me wandering still, whether we'd arrive the next day or in three days. Every question I asked him, he answered with a profound 'yes, yes, yes, yes', so after a couple of questions I just held my trap shut. Anyway, the cabin actually had warm water!

The boat had four decks. Of the two restaurants, the one on the front side had a great view. Then there was something of a snack bar on the lowest deck, selling beer and salty snacks and there where two 'lounges', with TV a very small library and some board games. The ship could hold maybe 200 people.

As the boat slowly flowed on, the lives of hundreds really passed me by as we passed small village after small village. Its remarkable what the difference in life standard is, between these villages and the bigger cities. Here, all houses where made out of wood, no exception, and obviously there was no warm water, let alone plumbing. In a lot of cases, there wasn't even electricity. It's weird, so close to a big city, Nizhni Novgorod, and so different.

But more than that. This still was Europe, but so very different at the same time. The villages that floated by proved, beyond a doubt, that although Russia is considered a developed country, it most definitely isn't. Ok, some areas are very much developed and on the same level as cities in the 'West', but so much more areas are very much underdeveloped and wouldn't be misplaced, considering their standard of life, somewhere in, say, the middle of Africa.

Still, everyone is so very much the same. All people look alike, have the same emotions, feel the same feelings. While at the same time they speak wildly different languages, have different values and completely different habits. How remarkable it must have been for all discoverers centuries ago. Meanwhile, I started to develop a hunch that we would actually arrive in Kazan the next day.

The banks of the river where a remarkable site. Generally, there was a very small line of beach, after which a pretty steep hill would start, banking in the river itself. Many people where sunbathing on the beaches. A remarkable feat in itself, since very often this would mean they had to walk long a long distances to actually get to the place they where actually enjoying the sun, since the hills where just too steep to be climbing down -or up- upon. Here and there, stairs actually went up from the water to the top of the hills, even at places where no beach was present. Exactly why, for what purpose, was left open to debate, since no apparent reason seemed to exist. (If it was for people to get to their boats, then where where the boats?)

God

I actually bumped into a couple of American missionaries who were traveling downstream from Nizhni Novgorod by boat too. Howard, a huge American, and one of his sons, Benjamin, where discussing the route the boat would follow. Next to a wall chart covering the whole trip of the boat up to the boarders of the Black Sea, they where considering the cities that would float by and what they could do while lying ashore in those cities.

They actually lived in Nizhni Novgorod and had been trying for several years to 'convert' the locals to their form of Christian religion. Being really nice Americans, I had to say almost everything twice, them not really registering what I was saying but continuously smiling. At least, I learned that the boat actually would arrive already the next day. What's more, they offered help, if I needed some translation done when dealing with locals.
Really friendly, although I didn't really see what problems I could still run into when on the boat.

They had started with 23 missionaries in Nizhni Novgorod a couple of years ago and had grown to more than a hundred. Now, they had established several churches around Russia. One was in Nizhny Novgorod, another one was in Irkutsk and they where going to start a new church in Yekaterinburg before the end of the year. Already, over the years several families had gone home and now only two families where left in Nizhni Novgorod.

Howard had a hard time not going on about how there currently being a need for the Lord in Russia, and assistance and reassurance in general. Really remarkable, although I found it reassuring, in a way, that people are actually able to have, apparently, so much faith in something, anything without, apparently a shadow of a doubt. Even though I couldn't really agree with what Howard was going on about.

Only minutes after saying goodbye to Howard and his son, I discovered there where showers on board! With warm water! The next morning (after spending the evening under the stars, with a disco going on on one of the outside decks) I went for a good shower. The water didn't turn out to be warm, it was steaming hot! Close to unbearable. Although after I found the knob for adding cold water, it started to get mighty comfortable. And the 6 rubles I had to pay, as it turned out afterwards, where very much worth it. Not only that, the soap that was part of the 'first-class-package' on the train from Warsaw to Minsk came in very handy now too.

Different standards in Nizhni Novgorod

July 02, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Nizhni Novgorod » Boat terminal

Having shared my train cabin with three women, one of which spoke French, I arrived at Nizhny Novgorod (the city used to be called Gorky) station quite early. Strangely enough, almost all signs on the train station where bilingual. Russian and English. Having no problem finding the exit of the train station, I did have trouble finding someone to tell me where to go, finding the city center. Not in the least, of course, because actually no-one spoke English. There was, however, a computer terminal where you could get train information for trains traveling across almost the whole of Russia!

The train station in Nizhni Novgorod is pretty far away from the town center and it took some time before I found the right tram that would bring me there, for an astounding $0.01. Just before boarding, I tried to take a picture of an old lady selling berries near the train station. When she saw me taking a picture of her, she started screaming, calling me names, shouting for help and, in the meantime, gesticulating frantically with her hands and throwing some of her berries at me. I got out as soon as I could.

Immediately getting of the tram after crossing the huge Oka river I started walking towards what was supposed to be the city's port. Indeed, in the shape of a ship's hull, the boarding quay soon came up. However, no ships where to be seen. Inside I first tried to understand when boats where leaving in the direction of Kazan. Again, like in Moscow, boats where not leaving as often as was suggested by the Lonely Planet, although there were more here, then in Moscow. The next day a boat would already leave for Kazan. That seemed almost to good to be true. Now I only had to find a place to stay.

I asked the two girls, that helped me out in finding a way out of Nizhni Novgorod, if there was a hotel around. One said there actually was one, right in the same building. Right then, the other girl seemed to say that she couldn't be serious. I couldn't sleep in a hotel like that! The first girl figured I could and pointed me the way.

Funnily enough, the receptionist at the hotel (indeed in the same building, covering the uppermost three floors) also had a hard time agreeing that I could stay in the hotel and at first wanted to send me into town and find a hotel there. Some persistence finally helped and I landed a two-bedded $2 hotel room, overlooking the river. Really cool. Okay, there where no showers, toilets where on the corridor and the glasses to drink from where covered with green moss, but sometimes you need to make concessions.

Shortly after, I managed to get a boat ticket, second class, to Kazan. Third class tickets where no longer available, but at less then $20, I would occupy a two-person cabin by myself. It's was unclear however, how long the journey would take.

With the ticket in my pocket, I started walking towards the city center, which is basically a small area around the city Kremlin. Perched on a hill, overlooking the point where the Volga meets the Oka river the city really is a nice place to go to. The center is really friendly looking and also much more quiet than Moscow. Surprising, since it's Russia's third biggest city, after Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Just too much vodka

The walk from the port to the city center is a really nice one. You can climb the hills that cradle the river, which gives you a really unparalleled view of the area. Shortly after I climbed up, a small bar, with terrace, crossed my path. I went for a Gin-Tonic and enjoyed the scenery.

Almost immediately after sitting down, three men, two about my age and one, who turned to be above 70, invited me to share vodka. Hard to decline the offer, I started of on what turned to be a very bad afternoon, alcohol-wise. They kept on pouring vodka from cheap half-liter bottles into plastic cups. Them, downing their vodka in one gulp, me taking sips. That is, at first. When they made it clear it is considered very bad behavior to sip your vodka, I had to down it too. And after each gulp, the cups where refilled again. Bottles came and went. And kept on coming. They had to, since the custom is to always finish your bottle. But when a bottle is finished, you have to get a new one as well.

Grandpa, who turned out to be Georgian, was also a postman and a good fencer. After he found out I'm part Iranian, he constantly had to drink to Georgian-Iranian friendship. First he actually wanted to fight. Not against me, but with me, against the two younger guys at the table. When It became clear I didn't really feel like fighting and opted for drinking instead. Then, after each gulp, he kept on offering me a piece of sausage on which several people had already been chewing. I think I declined the sausage and he didn't seem to mind; His big belly, in the open because of his unbuttoned shirt kept on shaking with laughter, in sync with the movements of his face that almost continuously showed his lack of almost all his teeth, in an ear to ear grin.

A good Russian custom is to eat a lot while drinking. It soaks up the alcohol and leaves you with less of a headache when waking up (because you always fall asleep eventually when you drink as much as Russians do). One of the things to eat is dried, very salty fish. It's especially good with beer and, although the main course was vodka, I munched a couple down. The biggest problem with these fish is that you have to totally dissect them before you can eat only a little bit of them.

Close before I managed to leave (grandpa had already left some time before, too drunk to remain seated he asked me to come home with him, which I declined), a group of two babes and one chaperone joined us three. Introducing themselves and hoping to catch on with the binge. I'm not sure whether they succeeded. Shortly after, I said my goodbyes and walked on to the city center. Before arriving, however, I decided to take a nap in a field. A really enjoyable break, since the sun was shining, the temperature was good, and I couldn't manage to walk straight anymore. Some time later, I awoke. In the city center, on a bench.

I don't know how I got there but my awakening was very comfortable. Two girls, one very nice looking, the other very friendly but quite fat, tried to explain that it wasn't very wise to sleep on the bench as I was doing. Understanding that I wasn't from around there, they where interested even more and had to tell their friends I was foreign. One of their
friends, a 28-year old guy with a big smile and too many bottles in his hands, immediately came over, told me that he was a good man since he was a lieutenant in the army, showed me his ID and wanted to drink to friendship. I relived my experience of the afternoon and, after explaining what had happened, they liked me even more and, to my surprise, no more drinks where necessary. All that, before 3 o'clock. In the afternoon.

Shortly after, when inside the Kremlin (which means no more than city-fort), I came across the fatter girl, Natasha, again. Still very nice, we tried to talk a bit without much success. She turned out to be studying law or something and was now on some sort of patrol, trying to keep everything under control. Or something. At some point, we where sitting on the river-side of the Kremlin, overlooking the two rivers at sunset, when there was a speedboat passing by at high speed, down below. "Novo-Russki", she said.

I welcomed the night, being able to sleep off the day. In the morning I changed some cash and did some shopping so that I would have something to eat during the boat trip to Kazan. My guess was that the trip would take three days, so I got quite a lot of bread, cucumber, tomatoes, loads of cheese and even some very cheap caviar! Breakfast I had at a Baskin and Robbins, a Haagen-Dazs-like ice parlor. When sitting on its terrace, I realized that a lot of the people on the streets are so very white. Surprising, since summer temperatures generally are 30 degrees-plus for longer periods of time. After one week of Russia, I had already completely blackened.

Culture

July 01, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Moscow » Kazan station

Maybe Mark’s story of the previous night was more truthful than I suspected. Grandma seemed unlikely cheery this morning and couldn’t stop feeding me breakfast. Russian delicacies came and went and after eating three times as much as I normally do for breakfast I finally could convince her that I had had enough.

When strolling through town, a young man, maybe still a boy, came up to me. About 17, short hair and neatly, although simply, dressed. White shirt and light trousers. He wore a cap. Without much of a reason, when almost passing me by on an almost empty street, he stopped in front of me and, first in Russian, started telling me that he was a soldier and that he had almost no money and if I could spare him some.

Overcome by his sad face and big puppy eyes, I gave him a couple of Rubles. What startled me was that this guy looked really clean and ‘nice’. Maybe a bit undernourished, but healthy and strong. And, apparently, still there was a need to beg.
Very sad.

Sisters

Well, Stalin, a megalomaniac as always, decided he needed something big in his city. Possibly to make the city stand out more from St. Petersburg, who knows.Anyway, he decided that building nine huge neo-gothic apartment blocks would do the trick. You decide. Anywhere you look, in Moscow, you can see one or more of these ‘nine sisters’ as they where called. They’re big and, indeed, in a way, impressive. To top of his requirements, he also had one built in Warsaw. The funny thing is that, from a distance, they all look alike. But when you take a closer look, they are definitely very different.

Museums

It was time to visit some museums in Moscow. Basically, only two are of interest: The Pushkin museum and the Tretyakov gallery. The Pushkin is stuffed with all time classic from East and West and, although their collection is very impressive, it is said that in the basement an even larger collection of supposedly lost-in-war paintings, statues and other art is stored.
Meanwhile Brueghel, Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Matisse, Cezanne, Gaugin, Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Miro, Michelangelo, DeGoya, Rodin, Monet, Pissaro, Renoir, Manet, Degas, van Gog and others adorn its walls.

The Tretyakov is huge. Okay, not as huge as the Hermitage maybe, but you can stroll around for hours and still discover paintings you haven’t seen before. Here, too, the walls are adorned with Russian and international masters. In high season, it gets so crowded here that you even have to wait in line up to several hours to actually get a ticket to get in!

A third museum that is worth visiting, is the International Roerich center. Roerich was, well, a strange guy who traveled to Tibet and staid there for a large part of his life, painting the Himalayas and other things of his everyday life. Over the years, the International Roerich movement has grown into something of a world peace organization and a lot of his art can be found online at the website of the Roerich museum in New York.

So what are my first impressions of Russia? One is that how Russians do business depends on who they do business with. Is it with a friend, then they will go at lengths to get what their friend needs or wants. Is it with unknowns, they simply don’t care and will try to get away as easy as possible. Likely, this is a left over from communist regime, where no stimulus was obtained by doing your job right, or to the best of your abilities, where as doing your job right, for a friend, would mean a higher status with that friend and, consecutively, more benefit for you in the long run.

Another thing related to the former communist regime is how women tend to dress. In one word: Gorgeous! It seems this is since, during communist regime, it was very much discouraged to be different from others. Basically, if you where too different, you where punished. It’s a fact that teenagers everywhere want to distinguish themselves from their peers and, more importantly, from their elders. For years, here in Russia they didn’t have the possibility and now, they’re back with a vengeance. With success I might add! It is surprising how good Russian girls know how to dress and how good they look. Considering that almost all Russian woman over 35 are ugly as hell, this leaves one wandering.

In addition, when you tried to distinguish yourself from your peers, in the past, you had to do that subtly. Now, with the less-than-subtle way of distinguishing themselves from others, results in Russians always posing for a picture. Not like stiff puppets, but more like fashion models. They are very much aware that this is a small moment in which they can shine, and so they do. That, combined with their awesome dress, makes summer an interesting time to visit Russia!

After visiting the three museums I decided my dose of culture had reached its max for the day and went for an ice cream in the park next to the Kremlin. In addition to the ice cream I had a, what turned out to be lukewarm, Pepsi and minutes after sitting down, two older guys, roughly 65-70, sat down at the same table with me. They where continuously arguing with each other (in Russian). After some time they asked me something and of course it became clear immediately that I was not, in fact, Russian.

We started talking (or actually they tried to get a conversation going), and for some reason to conversation slowly switched to art and money. They worked at the Pushkin museum (where I had been earlier that same day) as restorers and confirmed that so many paintings where still stored away that no one knew of, but for which there was no money to restore them. In addition, because of the current situation, they hadn’t been paid in months and they both had daughters to take care of too! One guy was drinking a beer when joining the table, clearly getting drunk, the other was enjoying a Fanta. The one with the beer had hair that looked like Einstein’s, going off in all directions. He did have a much pointier face, was foaming at the corners of his mouth and was wearing alien-eyes sunglasses. The other one, short hair, glasses, was much more quiet and seemed to be a bit taken back by his friend’s pro-activeness.

The two Russians gave me a set of cards with Paintings from the Pushkin museum. On one of the cards, Einstein wrote something like: “To Dutch-Russian friendship!”, after which the other told me that only one word is the same in Russian as it is in Dutch, the word “stool” (more or less that exact word in English, meaning the exact same thing in Dutch and Russian). Then, as true Russians, having given me something, they wanted something in return. Money. I made it clear that I didn’t feel like giving them money but would be happy to give them something to drink, which they politely declined. After some bickering hence and forth, the guy with the glasses stood up to leave and said his goodbyes. Einstein just kept on going, becoming more and more pushy, where as his friend clearly was becoming embarrassed. I decided to give the guy 100 Rubles and be rid of him, but he just kept on going. Then, when his friend came back to pick him up, saying that Einstein was drunk because, at his age, alcohol is more difficult to take in, Einstein firmly gave him a punch in the face. They left, I laughed, said my goodbyes to Igor and Vasily, and decided I had had quite a nice show and some cards I could use sending a message home with, for only $4.

Something I actually picked up from Vasily was that due to the many regulation changes in Russia over the past years, ‘common’ Russians had a hard time understanding the situation they where currently in, both politically and socially. During Gorbatchev, they had the most freedom they could enjoy. Now, they might have more freedom, they just don’t have the money to express their freedom.

Already, circles of hookers where presenting themselves to the public at around 7pm as I started walking back to Mark’s. There, we said our goodbyes and agreed to mail as soon as Mark would have email. I left and started off for the train station I would leave from.

Show me the money

June 30, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Moscow » Red Square

Yesterday, I had tried to get a ticket for a boat to the next destination on my list, Nizhny Novgorod. According to the planet, boats go in both directions every day and some times even more often at very affordable prices. However, after half a day of going from one place to the next in Moscow, it turned out that, because of the market crash the year before, almost no one had enough money left to go on one of the cruises. Now, boats where still going, but only once or, very occasionaly, sometimes twice a week. Most of the booking offices had closed as well, making it even more difficult to find a place to get tickets. A train seemed to be a better option. Then, maybe, I could take a boat from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan.

Meanwhile, I figured that registering my visa and getting the required stamps, might be a wise thing to do. Nevertheless, all forces seemed to be against me. I had arranged an invitation letter via Procter & Gamble, where I had worked until I left on holiday. I had been in close contact with someone in Moscow to get everything arranged. So the most obvious thing was to start with her. She told me that registering was in no way necessary and that recently the Russian government had increased the maximum stay without registration from 5 days to two weeks. In addition, I needed her, or her office at P&G HQ in Moscow, to get my visa registered.
After visits to the police station, OVIR (the visa registration bureau) which turned out to be closed, and a palm reader, I gave up my quest and decided to take my contact's word for it. Registration would take an other three days anyhow.

In the past, it had also been necessary to have all the cities you wanted to visit in Russia marked in your visa. According to my contact, even that hadn't been necessary anymore. Well, if she said so, what else could I do? I decided to get my train ticket out of Moscow.

Russia has a remarkable left-over from communist regime. Because traveling wasn't really encouraged then, it was made very difficult to obtain long distance train tickets. One way of doing this, was to put ticket offices all over the city and sometimes miles away from the nearest train station. Since Moscow has about 5 major train stations, just like Paris, each catering for its own region in Russia, there are some 5 different ticket offices scattered over town.

Its not obvious which ticket office you need for what destination and even Russians, when having to buy a ticket, move from one office to the next until they find the right one. Lucky for me, for once, the Lonely Planet had been right and I ended up at the right office right away. For some reason, I had to pay much more than I expected, but taking the upper bunk in stead of the lower bunk saved me some money. Not really understandable, since the lower bunks double as couches during the day, making it near impossible to take a nap when you want, if you're stuck with a lower bunk.

When walking to the ticket office, I had to cross a rather large marketplace. Police stopped me and asked for my papers. Flashbacks already went through my mind but with a smile I handed over my documents. Just like the night before, the officers expected my visa to be on one of the pages of my passport. The extra paper surprised them. After looking through my passport and visa several times and almost turning my camera bag inside out, they friendly told me everything was all right and remarked that they where happily surprised by bumping in to a Dutch guy, in stead of again another person from the Caucasus with no papers. I smiled and, stress falling off of me, walked on.

Coming back home, Chris and Anya where talking. Some time later, Mark came home too. Obviously drunk, he drank some more beers and then started on coffee. Apparently because he still had some work to do. We talked a bit about nothing in particular and some time later in the evening, it became clear that ten years of Russia had taken its toll on Mark. He said that after a heavy night of arguing with his wife and mother-in-law and even throwing his wife out at some point, they had forced him to ask money from me for staying at their place. It was a classic case of Russian behavior. First being friendly, and then expecting something for it in return. And if not receiving, making a very big fuss over it. Mark claimed it wasn't what he wanted, but that 'they' kept on nagging him about it (although the main reason for that, was that he had forgotten to mention to either his wife or his mother in law that I would be coming over at the end of June). I felt like the stupid tourist, taken in by a local. Deciding that there wasn't a real option here and wanting to get rid of the issue, I paid up $80 on top of an earlier $20 I had paid to cover costs. Indeed, as Mark commented, 5 nights (although I only had staid four), for $100, that close to the city center, is a real bargain. How much that sounds like a true thing, I didn't really feel right about it. Oh well, the next day my train would leave for Nizhni Novgorod anyway.

Remarkably, that same evening but a bit earlier, grandma had come in while Mark and I where talking, and she had to draw my portrait and also gave me a brochure with an overview of her work. She had been a rather well known sculptor during the communist regime, and indeed her creations seemed pretty good. In hindsight, you could argue I paid 80 bucks for a picture of myself. Still, a rather expensive souvenir!

The evening had me thinking of my next steps and slowly the rest of my trip was taking shape. I was thinking of traveling overland to the North side of lake Baikal and then, crossing the lake, venture on to Ulan Ude what would be the most Eastern leg of my journey, before I would start moving back again.

Yet another side of Moscow

June 29, 1999 • Blog

1 / 1
World » Russia » Moscow » Gorky Park

I went to Gorky park today. The movie impressed me quite a lot in the beginning of the 80s and I just had to go there. What an uninteresting place that is! The park is just one big collection of weed. You have to pay to get in, and all there is in there is one small pond and some dated fairground attractions. I felt like puking all over the place.

Next was the Novodevichy Convent. It was closed. But the cemetery was open. Not really impressive, although the place houses the bodies of some very famous Russians. Not close buy but a bit more impressive was the train that shipped the body of Lenin back to Moscow in the 30s. The train is stored in-doors and the building itself used to be fully air-conditioned. Now, it was even hotter inside than it was outside. And it was already pretty hot outside. I wonder why they wanted to put it inside.

The Ostankino Moscow TV tower was also quite interesting. At 540 meters it's quite an impressive structure, rising high above the surface. Close to the tower are a statue of Yuri Gagarin and a memorial commemorating Soviet space flight in general. When coming back from the TV tower I took a bus to the nearest metro station.

You are supposed to buy your bus tickets with the driver. So I tried to get my ticket from her. For some reason, she hadn't any, or at least wasn't willing to sell any to me. I tried for a few stops but gave up as my stop came up. Of course, just then, 6 conductors came in, asking for everyone's tickets. I had none and started a discussion with one of the conductors, making it clear that I had wanted to get a ticket but wasn't allowed one. He made it clear that my bus driver didn't have tickets. I asked him where I should have gotten tickets then. He said: "From bus driver." When I pointed out that I had tried, he said: "No, no, from different bus driver." I paid my $0.50 fine and left.

Coming home, again a very nice meal was waiting for me. A girl called Chris, also Belgian, turned up minutes after me coming home. She had stayed at Mark's place sometime earlier, when studying in Moscow and she now traveled to Moscow regularly on business and occasionally stopped by. All four of us, Mark, Anya, Chris and me went to the Dutch bar I had visited on my first day in Moscow. It was 'Holland night' and the owner had actually obtained a barrel of Dutch herring and jenever; Quite funny. We ordered some drinks and snacks and afterwards, Chris and me decided to go out for another beer someplace else. Mark and his wife went back home. It was about 11.30pm. Not really a time for me to be in bed. Luckily, I had convinced Chris into joining me, although she still had to work the next day.

We decided to walk towards the Kremlin and see where we would end up. Clearly being tourists, a drunken, but fine-looking, Russian asked us for something (in Russian). I made it clear that we didn't speak any Russian, but Chris did, and replied, in Russian. This got him hooked and for some time, he kept walking along with us, saying that today was his birthday, that he wanted money, cigarettes, a lighter and more. When I made it clear we had no intention to give him anything (although Chris was about to consider giving some cash) he started to get mad. Shouting, throwing his (broken) lighter against a wall, kicking against stuff lying on the ground, etc. I decided that giving him a cigarette might pay off. It didn't immediately, but it kept him busy.
We quickly moved away.

Coming on to Red Square, actually only meters away from the place I had had the remarkable experience only a day before, talking with each other in Dutch, we where approached by a police officer who stopped us in our tracks. He wanted to see our papers. Now, when entering Russia, it is required you get a stamp in your visa. Second, when being in any Russian city for longer than 5 days, you need to register your visa in that city too. Only recently had that period been extended from 3 to 5 days. Anyhow, I hadn't registered my visa in Moscow and what's more, since I had crossed the border between Belorus and Russia, and since there is almost no control there, I only had a stamp from Belorus in my visa. A stamp that I received when crossing the Belorus-Poland border. Chris, as it turned out, had no visa nor passport with her at all…

When staying in a more up market hotel, the hotel generally takes care of registering your visa. Chris got out by saying the hotel still had possession of her stuff. She's a nice looking girl, so probably that helped too. Since I don't have a pretty face, at least not for most men, I was in bigger trouble. The officer insisted that I had to have my visa registered, and wasn't swayed by my suggestion that I would register it the very next day. Chris, speaking fluent Russian because of having studied the language, first interpreted between the officer and me, but slowly started to speak for me to the officer. The result being that I, after some minutes had no idea what they where talking about.

What had happened was that the officer wanted my visa to be registered right away. Although legally there was nothing wrong with my visa; it was stamped in Belorus, and I still had time to register it within 5 days. But try convincing a Russian police officer at close to midnight in Moscow. I had to come to the police station and register.
However, since no registration takes place at night, I had to wait till the next morning. And in the mean time wait. In a police cell. Chris, feeling that I wouldn't really be interested in having to spend the night in a Russian police cell, asked what exactly needed to happen. "Well," the guy said, "he has to pay a fine and then he can go." Besides the fact that it seemed that the officer had forgotten about the stamps , required in the first place, Chris asked why we couldn't pay the fine now. The officer looked at us with eyes saying "are you stupid, or what?" and said that we had to receive a receipt for paying the fine.

Then, luckily, perhaps in a moment of clarity, Chris mentioned that we really didn't need a receipt. The officer's face light up and Chris asked how much the fine would be. The officer seemed to have fallen in a dreamy state of consciousness, as if to contemplate his next move and then said: "100 Rubles". Chris handed over the money, the guy told us that he would keep an eye out, making sure that we would be safe for the rest of the evening and left. 100 Rubles is about 4 dollars…

We still had to go out for a beer and so we did. In a western style pizza parlor we talked about Russia, studying Slavic languages, Eastern Europe, sex with animals, and other mildly interesting subjects. She told me that Mark used to beat up his wife and that she herself had left the house on not very friendly terms with Mark, but that she came back occasionally to visit Anya, someone she could get along with very well. We split and agreed to go get a beer after my coming back to La Bruxelles (that's Brussels, if you're wandering).

×