Russia Travel

May 2003

From Russia With “L…..”

Russia had been on my list for a long time but fellow travelers warned me of the risks and dangers of traveling unescorted. Iraq war was looming on the horizon and Russia seemed like a safe place to go. I decided on an escorted tour with General Tours and it turned out to be a wise decision given the complexities involved in getting a visa, expensive hotels and difficulty of negotiating a country that still uses Cyrillic script (Greek) for all the signs making navigation difficult for an independent traveler. Safety was no longer a concern and I was able to satisfy my appetite for traveling alone by ignoring the guide and renting a car to go to places I wanted to go.

” Moscow is extreme,” according to a part time cab driver is not far from the truth. The city of 10 million with average wages of $150/month contrasts with expensive restaurants and hotels with prices on par with London and New York. The car rental from the hotel was $28/hour and a guide for $40/hour makes you wonder who can afford it? The cynicism expressed in jokes is clearly evident in the following: “A newly rich muscovite goes to the Mercedes dealership to buy a new car. The salesman states, You bought a new car only 3 days ago! The muscovite replies, The ash tray is already full.” Fancy cars and clothes are evident in the shopping stores complete with sinister looking guards and the ever present police known to find excuses to extract fines from motorists for “improperly stored toolbox.” The question was how to define the existence of these paradoxes in a country of intelligent, innovative, hard working and hard drinking people. The contrasts gained a sharper edge as I visited the Lenin Mausoleum in the Red Square where the waxen, sleeping, tiny figure of the still revered Lenin lies directly opposite the temple to capitalism “GUM department store.” Lenin’s mistress also lies not too far in a cemetery reserved for general secretaries of communist party, generals and astronauts. The Red square is a magnificent setting in the red painted Kremlin walls that housed the Tsars and a red church and a red library the multicolored domed church and an underground mall. May 9 was a celebration of the 58th anniversary of Russian victory over Nazi Germany. A full day of parades was combined with speeches and fireworks and a brilliantly lit Moscow at night. Moscow mayor Luzhkov (Looks like a shaven headed Danny Devito on steroids) delivered a rain free weekend by seeding the clouds. Luzhkov is a grandiose figure with equal ability to deliver the plans by extorting foreign companies who managed to build a gigantic church worth $200 million in 4 years and is now bidding for Olympic Games. Moscow subways are run efficiently and even the public consumption of alcohol does not lead to drunken disorderliness. The Kremlin tour is a breathtaking display of golden domed churches, a medieval armory, gilded carriages, diamond studded swords, dresses and crowns. The picture gallery tour should give you an idea of the sheer opulence and grandiosity of Tsar’s lives. The Russian guides never fail to point out the biggest church, the biggest subway, the biggest canon and the bell in the world. The jokes quickly follow in describing their lack of functionality, “ The (biggest )canon that has never been shot, the (biggest) bell that has never been rung and the Duma(Russian parliament lower house) that has never thought( Duma means think in Russian).” The treasure however lies in the masterly paintings by Russian masters at the Tretyakov gallery not exposed in the west. Their portraits of Tolstoy and Pushkin, landscapes of the days of tsars are as good as any I have seen. One room is occupied with an excellent collection of Gauguin. Another look into the society was offered by Sunday at the Gorky Park. Imagine Central Park and Coney Island together with stages for musical performances, fountains, artists with political cartoons and high healed fashionably dressed Russian women that drove up in chauffeured Mercedes and BMW’s. After this extravaganza, the night trip was on a luxuriously appointed overnight train to St. Petersburg.

Peter, the Great built this city on 42 islands to outdo Versailles and Venice and bring Russians out into modernity. He certainly succeeds at the task of outdoing Versailles with an ostentatious display of wealth in gold plated rooms, chandeliers and the size of the winter palace along with large square in front. My fellow Americans found it garish and obscene and after a while were overwhelmed. Hermitage’s treasures of the impressionists have a few pieces of Renoir and Seurat that are remarkable. The Scythian Gold from 6th century B.C.E are remarkable and worth the extra fee. You will find the pictures in the gallery to complete the picture. I managed to sneak in a quick visit to the Zoological museum for the only complete skeleton of Mammoth. The Tsars (Russian for Caesar) continued to excel and expand their palaces with the help of Italian Rastrelli and built other palaces in outskirts of St.Petersburg. Pushkin has Catherine the Great’s summer palace with an Amber room restored with 5 million and Petrodverts has Peter’s summer palace Peterhof. The gardens were designed to out do Versailles. The Cascade of fountains is the most remarkable display especially when lit at night. There are other magnificent works in “Church of spilled blood” and St. Isaac's Cathedral.

The city was getting ready for its 300th anniversary and scaffolding and fresh paint was everywhere with little regard for public or worker safety. That became evident to me when I took an Aeroflot flight to Moscow in a Yak-40 plane that you board from the rear under the plane’s tail with seats that only come up halfway on your back with broken seat belts, a luggage rack in the back complete with gruff stewardess.

A decent restaurant in St. Petersburg provided excellent reasonable prices so I was able try a tastier version of Borscht and Solyanka soups and baked Salmon. Russians are certainly not lacking in style, ambience, elegance and presentation although at a stiff price for the average Russian who has to endure tiny apartments with leaky water, no heat in winters, pot holed roads and crumbling infrastructure. Russian spirit somehow continues to endure the extremes of haves’ and have-nots’ with the gap ever widening. The post soviet Russia feels free to revile Stalin and openly talk about its problems. The failed shock therapy of 90’s capitalism that made a few very rich by looting state assets has now come back to a controlled society with attempts at joint ventures with foreigners to produce the goods of daily use but foreign cars, clothes and gadgets remain the choice of those who can afford it. The sectors of economy that are doing well are tobacco (mostly American), liquor, transportation and construction while healthcare and education are in serious decline. Can this nation of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Yuri Gagarin, Pavlov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky make it?

Tips for travelers:

Time to go: May / September

Tour Company: www.generaltours.com

Cost $700/pp 7 days

Hotels:

Moscow: Sheraton Palace

St. Petersburg: Angelterre

Restaurant : St.Petersburg: Aptek

Guide Books: Lonely Planet Moscow, St.Petersburg