Russian Highlight #2: Circuses, Bars, and Gilding

Date: July 4, 2008
Location: Saint Petersburg and Moscow
Lat: 59° 55.87N Long: 030° 16.45E

Well, it's America's 232nd birthday and here I am in Russia. It sure feels weird to be here on a day like today, but oh well. I have so much to write about its ridiculous.

I guess I should start with some more general observations about Russia and its people. Russia seems like its gilded. I mean, there are so many nice cars, BMWs, Audis, etc, there are also amazingly beautiful buildings and fabulous treasures, however, despite all these things, Russia is extremely poorly maintained. One example of this is that while we are walking towards the fun part of the city we pass by a lot of other boats and ships. All these ships have chipped paint and just look like rust buckets. Another time we passed by a brick building, the interesting thing with this was that instead of cleaning the mortar off, it just was sort of tossed on all over the building. It looked terrible.

Russians are also rather stark. I can't get over how funny it is to walk by Russians taking photos of each other and instead of cracking a smile and looking like they are enjoying where they are; it's like they try to look as angry and mean as possible. Like when we were at the Moscow Circus and these kids are getting a photo taken with a monkey or snake or some other animal, which you think would make them smile, instead they just look extremely angry.

Another thing I noticed is the extreme language barrier. In a way, Norway spoiled us because everyone spoke English there. Russia is the complete opposite. Here, very few speak English. Additionally, it's not just the words, it's the alphabet. Cyrillic looks like someone ran a lawn mower over our alphabet and went with the result. I know a few things, such as "P" means "R", besides that, I'm lost. This can be real tough when one's trying to get money out of an ATM. One thing that was real funny was that we went to an ATM that had a few English words scattered here and there, however, they'd have huge blocks of text in Cyrillic. This was especially frustrating when it asked where I wanted to withdraw my money from and all the choices were in Cyrillic, I sure hope I picked checking. However, the language barrier has given me some perspective on what people who can't speak English face when they're in America. The funny thing is when the shoe is on the other foot and like the ladies at the Hair Cuttery speak in their native language while they cut my hair it drives me wild. However, all my friends and I when we're walking around the streets are chattering away in English.

I suppose it's time to address what's happened the last few days. The trip to Moscow was a fun time. Waking up wasn't much fun because I didn't sleep well the night before. This was real rough because I had to be ready to go in the Union at 0615. At least I made it.

We then boarded some busses and started off for the airport. The drive to the St. Petersburg airport went well; which is rather good in Russia where traffic laws are either non-existent or are never followed. The streets sure get real hectic with people cutting in and out every which way. Also, crossing streets can get real bad because pedestrians don't have right of way. When you get a bit of an opening you have to spring across the street. They even have signs showing people running really fast, it's pretty crazy.

The airport was kind of surprising. It was oddly small. Indianapolis' airport was much bigger than the Saint Petersburg one. This was sort of bizarre as Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The airport was also kind of run down. However, the funniest thing was it still had a lot of Soviet imagery. I suppose this is a common theme throughout Russia. Aeroflot, Russia's national airline has a hammer and sickle in its logo.

While we were at the airport we were issued tickets. Obviously these had our flight information on them; however, they also gave us clearance to travel to Moscow. It really surprised me that there is a lack of free travel in Russia. In America, if you want you can just get up and decide to drive to California and no one can stop you, that is not the case here.

The plane we went to Moscow in was pretty rough. I think it was one of those old Tupolev planes that were converted to serve as airliners. The pilots here take their corners a bit sharp compared to America because the plane was sure rolling and moving all over the place. However, there was a nice thing about flying in Russia. They still serve meals. These are nice meals too! We were given a box which had a chicken and cheese croissant and an apple juice, juice box. This was real surprising since the airlines back home are cutting back on everything. I guess profit margins are more important than customer satisfaction.

When we finally made it to Moscow we went on a quick tour of the city. We saw a whole lot of the city. It sort of flew by so it's hard to describe that accurately. However, we eventually stopped at Red Square. It sure was a funny feeling standing in the nexus of Communism. Red Square was beautiful. Saint Basil's Cathedral is absolutely gorgeous. They've recently renovated it so all the onion domes are vibrantly colorful. We also saw the other parts of Red Square. This includes Lenin's Mausoleum. It was tragic that we couldn't go in because it has very tight hours. A few guys from our group made it there and said it was alright, but Lenin was really waxy. The State Historical Museum had a real impressive exterior, but we did not go in.

The most perplexing part of Red Square was the GUM Department Store. This place was absolutely massive. It was three stories tall and ran the whole length of Red Square. The store was packed with ritzy stores. These were all high-end like: Gucci, Armani, Christian Dior, etc. It sure seems to be a bit against the ideals of Communism where all are equal. I guess it always was like that in Russia; just they didn't talk about it like they do now.

The weather was pretty bizarre. I guess it would probably be best described as scattered showers. It was kind of funny how it worked out, there would be like 15 minutes of a torrential downpour, then it would be calm and clear for maybe thirty minutes then back to a downpour. It sure was interesting.

After we finished in Red Square we moved onto the Kremlin. There are a lot of misconceptions about it. Since the Kremlin is analogous to the White House, people assume that the Kremlin is a single building. It's not at all. The Kremlin's actually a complex of buildings and other historic things.

We were given a good tour of the complex. There was lots of interesting things. One of these was the Kremlin Arsenal. The really neat thing is that outside the front of the Kremlin Arsenal are a large number of cannons. These are mostly not in gun carriages and are just laying out stacked in an orderly fashion. It turns out that these were Napoleon's guns. Moscow and the Kremlin were occupied by the French for a sometime. After they were driven out of Moscow, the Russians put the captured French guns on display. There are probably around 100 or so cannons.

Another thing we saw was the Tsar Cannon. This is allegedly the biggest cannon in the world. It's mounted on an ornate carriage featuring a large wolf head and some ivy work. The cannon has a weight of 38 tons and has a caliber of 890 mm. However, like most things in Russia, it's initially impressive but once you think about it, it's pointless. The size is impressive, but the thing is totally impractical. It's virtually impossible to move the thing, let alone, it's doubtful to imagine actually firing the thing.

Continuing the theme, we also saw the Tsar Bell. This is an equally massive item. Empress Anna, Peter the Great's niece, tried to show that she was also great and commissioned this huge bell to be built (Peter built a city, Anna built a big bell, Peter wins this match). The bell is 216 tons, truly massive. However, it has a small flaw; an 11.5 ton chunk of the bell broke off in a fire. It seems like it would be a pretty funny story. The bell was still being cast and a fire broke out in the scaffolding around the bell. The bell began to get pretty heated and then some quick thinking Russians tried to save the bell by pouring water on it. This caused the bell to crack, ruining something that was probably pretty useless as is. Once again, all flash, little substance. I suppose Freud would have some interesting thoughts to contribute about the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell.

After seeing the bell and cannon we moved on. We then started to look at the various cathedrals' in the Kremlin. These were real impressive. We went into the Cathedral of the Archangel. This church was absolutely gorgeous. There was a whole wall of icons. These are the classic paintings of the Orthodox Church. There is a whole hierarchy of who gets placed on what level. At most there can be five levels, at the least three. These paintings were incredible. At the tops of the domes, there were paintings of Jesus beckoning to people. Perhaps the most fascinating is at the exit, there is a painting of the final judgment, this is to remind people to watch what they do as God is also watching.

After this we moved onto the Kremlin Armory. It's a bit of a misnomer as the Armory isn't an armory at all. Instead it houses the treasures of Russia. There were impressively opulent things, such as massive golden dinner sets, suits of armor, and much more. Apparently it was customary to give other royals golden plates as a show of friendship or as a way to solidify a treaty. They also had these massive gospels that had a huge amount of gold, jewels, diamonds, and other gaudy things. There were also a collection of royal carriages and dresses. Photos weren't allowed so I wasn't able to get any, so it's a bit hard to remember specifics, but it was lavish.

I almost found the Kremlin Armory too lavish. I guess a bit of Russian Communism has rubbed off on me because I looked at all these things as wasteful. I can't imagine what could have been done if some of these plates were used to help feed some of the serfs, or to improve education. I guess the commies had good cause to overthrow the Tsars.

After this we started to drive to the Moscow Bolshoi Circus. This was quite possibly the highlight of the trip. There were so many funny things. I suppose I haven't mentioned this yet, but mullet's are huge in Russia. It seems like the hairstyle never died out here. However, moving on from Russian fashion, or lack thereof, the circus was absolutely amazing.

It's hard to give a run down that would do this justice, however, I will try. The circus made great use of laser lights. They made so many amazing shapes and moving animals, like dolphins, and seals, and others. There was a neat act where these clowns had a huge bicycle. The tires were made of like large balloons so it was soft and people could bounce off it. This set up a lot of funny tricks, like clowns being run over and doing flips off the tires.

They also had an act where there were these cowboys doing trick riding. Seeing the Russian take on the American cowboy was absolutely ridiculous. They looked like something out of the village people. The guys were wearing tight jeans with vests with no shirts. However, the dancing cowgirls had equally sexy outfits, so I guess you have to take the good with the bad. The musical accompaniment was also real amusing. It was sort of an affectation of classic western hoedown fiddle music. However, the lyrics were complete nonsense.

The musical accompaniment was even funnier in other parts of the circus. There was an act where acrobats ran in these two loops that rotated around. This was an absolute blast. However, the funny thing is the music. There was like a techno beat with occasional English phrases like "I find you very attractive", "I saw you looking at me over there", and the grand finale of this music was: "will you come to bed with me". This was absolutely hysterical as it had nothing at all to do with the act.

An actually impressive act was this bunch of Kenyan acrobats. They did absolutely mindboggling stunts. Like they would jump right at each other and end up catching each other. They also had this prop that was sort of shaped like an 8. They would jump through this little hoop and do some amazing back flips. I don't think I'm doing their act justice. They also did an absolutely incredible limbo. They lit the limbo pole on fire and kept going under it. At one point there was perhaps only a seven inch clearance and they still made it through.

There were also some great animal acts. They had lions, sea lions, camels, and parrots. These were very fun to watch. Some of the hippy girls who were there complained about the treatment of the animals, but if you ask me they have a real sweet life. After they do anything they're given pieces of meat, like the sea lions would get a whole fish after clapping a few times. Plus the animals are extremely valuable, besides, this is a state run circus, this isn't like a shady Mexican circus or anything.

After this we went back to the hotel. This was where the language barrier really hit us. The hotel accommodations were surprisingly nice. The water pressure was surprisingly strong. When I turned on the water, the showerhead started to fly everywhere and totally soaked the bathroom, it was quite surprising.

We had walked around for a real long time during the day and the food at the circus was not very filling. Some friends and I decided to get a pizza. This turned into an odyssey. Obviously we can't read Cyrillic so the menu was absolutely impossible for us to make sense of it. We decide to go over to the concierge and ask her for help as she spoke a little English. Initially she refused us. This led to us wandering around the hotel and contemplating whether to eat at the hotel restaurant which did not have a single English speaker there. Clearly our options were limited. After we wandered around the hotel for 30 minutes trying to figure this out, we decided that we had to talk to the concierge or we weren't going to get our pizza. We begged and pleaded and she then ordered our pizza.

We had to wait around for an hour and our pizza finally came. We were so pumped, we made it work and our pizza was coming to satisfy our massive hunger. However, what we got was not exactly the joy we had hoped it would be. We ordered a margherita pizza, which is mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil, what we got was not that at all. We basically got one of the worst pizzas ever. There was no sauce, the cheese was burnt to a crisp and it was still one of the best pizzas I've eaten.

We also turned on the Russian TV. We inadvertently stumbled onto a show called "Naked and Funny". My roommate and I were sold immediately. The way the show worked is it was basically like Candid Camera but with nudity. I guess Russia isn't quite as concerned as America is with what's on TV.

When we got up we took the Moscow Metro. This was a different experience for sure. The Moscow subway stations were designed to be bomb shelters. Thusly the stations are extremely deep, like it will be a two minute escalator ride down. Once you're there, the experience is quite different from the D.C. stations. The Soviets hired the finest architects and designers to make the stations gorgeous. They are essentially temples to the Soviet Union. Pretty much every stereotype about authoritarian architecture is confirmed. Huge statues of Soviet heroes from WWII, huge hammer and sickles all over the place, these stations were extremely impressive.

After we arrived at our station we were given some free time. We ended up deciding to be tourists and go to the Hard Rock Café. I got some sweet items, like a glass and the classic t-shirt to go along with my Oslo one. I guess I'm your standard tourist, I like ridiculous things. The food was pretty solid too, always a good thing. I got some nachos, they weren't the same as America, but they were still good.

After that we wandered around a flea market area and started haggling like mad. I ended up getting a pretty sweet collection of items. I ended up picking up some gifts for back home and another nesting doll set. These are extremely awesome as they are Purdue football. It's last year's team, but I'm still excited, they have the uniforms and numbers. Like they have Curtis Painter, Dorien Bryant, Cliff Avrill, Kory Sheets, and Greg Orton, their numbers are all right and everything, this is such a sweet set.

I also purchased a ridiculous shirt. It has Lenin's face imposed over the McDonald's arches and it says McLenin's. The back is even better because it has the Hammer and Sickle in a red star breaking apart with the text "The Party is Over" written around it. I know these are so stereotypical souvenir items but I love them.

After all that we went back to Saint Petersburg. It was pretty uneventful, which I guess is a good thing for airplane flights. When we got back I hung out at a nearby bar. There's a liquor store right down the street so a lot of people enjoyed the services provided. I just stuck with the beer; of course these beers were 1.5 liters and were 8% alcohol by volume. However, I only had one beer. All in all, it was a fun time, there are a lot of fun people on the ship and it's pretty easy to find a group to hang out with for a night.

After I woke up, some friends and I decided to go check out the city. We walked over to Saint Isaac's Cathedral. This is a very European style cathedral. However, there is one large onion dome; I think one of the tours said that it was one of the largest domes in the world. I don't know if that's true or not, but it was pretty big. The cool thing was if you paid some money you could go up to near the top of the Cathedral and you could get an amazing view of the whole city. I got some excellent snapshots.

After we left Saint Isaac's we went to the Church of the Spilt Blood. This is a much more Russian style church. This was also beautiful, I suppose Saint Basil's was a bit better, but overall they were extremely similar. Near this Cathedral there was a flea market. I was able to pick up some gifts here as well; they're pretty nice looking so hopefully all will like them.

We also walked on Nevsky Prospekt. This is main shopping street of Saint Petersburg. There were some neat shops, but Moscow was far ritzier. We grabbed a few beers over here and just took it all in. It sure wasn't your typical July 4th celebration, but we enjoyed it all the same. We then walked back to the ship, which was probably around a 3 mile walk or so, nothing too bad, but it clearly took a bit out of you. We all went out that night which was pretty fun.

All in all, it was a really eventful few days. It's hard to condense so many things so fast, but it sure was a good time. I'm still not sure what I think about Russia. I guess saying its gilded is pretty accurate. Russia has some really fantastic parts, but it seems like the core has tons of faults. Alcoholism is rampant. A bottle of Vodka costs three dollars, 2 liters of beer cost four dollars, truly this place is a nation of alcohol. This is sad because there are drunks all over the place, either people passed out holding onto their bottles or just rowdy people in bars. It's sad, Russia's nice, but the place has many problems.