The Soviet bureaucracy is still very much alive and kicking at the Church of the Spilled Blood in St Petersburg! We had already experienced "Red" tape on our trip ... for example, our whole experience of applying for the visa, getting the official invitation, and registering the visas when we arrived..... and our latest example of this bureaucracy came at the Russian/Mongolian border last night on the train when it took us SIX hours to get through customs.
Whenever I go to an unfamiliar city, I enjoy just walking down random streets and being surprised at what I find. We spent the last couple of days in the village of Listvyanka, on the shores of Lake Baikal (beautiful...... but more about that in another blog) where I walked for miles along the back streets. Cows walking across my path.... the community well where they still pull their drinking water up with a bucket.... women working in their vegetable gardens and tending their chickens, wildflowers, butterflies..... I "discovered" a quaint church (Church of St Nicholas) by a stream. It was an absolutely beautiful day.
Well, I have been in Russia for a whopping 10 days now and there is much to report. So much in fact that I am going to be breaking up my thoughts into several entries. (Hopefully I will be able to make more regular blog postings from now on.) Anyway, I shall naturally begin with the first city of Russia: Moscow.
It's great to be an American in Siberia on the 4th of July!
We heard that we got the best train in all of Russia. Our car is a pleasant pastel green, moderately comfortable to sleep in with 4 bunks. Our fourth bunkmate, Alec speaks some German. Aaron also speaks some German, though both speak very little. Even so, this made the awkwardness of such a small space MUCH more pleasant. Also, Alec had a friend, Alex who spoke some English as well and told us much about the "real Russia.";
A day in St. Petersburg felt like a week anywhere else! Each minute was full with sights, sounds, and activity of all kinds. Not just the tourists, we must have seen 6 or 7 couples taking their wedding pictures. Artists young and old peppered the streets, sketching and painting the sights.
They say you spend thousands of years looking at all the pieces of art and history in the hermitage. They aren't me. It only took me about half an hour to get bored. It took twice as long in line for the restroom, and from there I made a bee line to the internet cafe. So here I am! I will say that what I did see was amazing. They say Americans are extravagant spenders but really, how many throne rooms did the Romanoffs REALLY need in one building!?
First impressions: Green. Vast. Largely undeveloped land. So many trees! The greenest grass. My dad would probably kill for that kind of lawn. The temperature is high 70s with a nice breeze. Really heavenly, despite some random torrential downpours that have occured. In general, Moscow is not very tourist friendly compared to other countries I've visited, but even just walking around Red Square or riding a boat along the Moscow river has been great. There is such beautiful and whimsical architecture.
