(Please back date to 3/10/13)
I’m going to tell a quick story and I’m only going to tell it because it all worked out in the end. I’m usually pretty careful about my belongings and safeguarding my things. I’ve been in and out of hostels, sleeping on trains, and living out of a duffel bag for two months now, carrying with me a slew of heavy weather clothes and electronics. It’s a lot of stuff and it’s not easy dragging it all from place to place. I made my first mistake of the trip in Moscow. As you know my train for St. Petersburg didn’t leave until late in the evening. I left my bags in the my room at the hostel and returned to pick them up after my evening with the Usacheva family and head to the train station. I checked under the bed, in the blankets, and around the floor, but I didn’t check behind the curtain of the window next to the bed where I stored my e-reader the night before as easy access before I slept. So, yeah, I left my e-reader in Moscow. I didn’t realize how much I used it until I didn’t have access to it. In fact, I’m sort of obsessed with it. I never really liked the idea of e-readers, thinking they’d be the death of books (and they probably will be), but I’ve been reading more now and on a more frequent basis than I ever have (probably that has something to do with my traveling also) and I’ve grown really attached to it, taking it with me everywhere I go. I use it on the train, in the metro, in the cafes, in bed before I sleep. So I was crushed when it was gone. And I knew the postal system in Russia is one of the most unreliable postal systems on the planet. I’ve heard more than one story of its horrors. I asked Yana to call the hostel, when I realized in St. Petersburg that I didn’t have it with me, and she confirmed that they had found it. But how then to get it to St. Petersburg? My solution was to mail it by Fedex or DHL or some non-Russian postal service, ship it express, and I’d pay Yana back somehow. Either I’d mail a check or cash (also probably not a good idea with the Russian post) or bank transfer. But Yana, a much craftier person than me, said she would just pay off someone on the next train train to St. Petersburg to hand deliver it to me when it arrived, for a small bribe. She went to the station, found a policeman (I don’t know if money was exchanged - if anything though it was small), and she gave me the time, train number and carriage number where I could meet him the next morning. It worked brilliantly! I found the train, meeting it as it pulled into the station (very early this morning), walked up to a guy who seemed to be waiting, wearing a policeman’s uniform, I said, “Gelb?”, and he said, “Stephen?” and I said, “Da!”. And then he handed me a small brown package wrapped with a pink ribbon in which my e-reader was enclosed. I almost cried with happiness. But then realizing I was standing in front of a Russian police officer, I thanked him, and left. Close call. Yana, you’re awesome.
Since I had woken up so early to go meet the train at the station (a 30 minute walk from the hostel in the chilly, pre-dawn air), I went back to the hostel and went back to sleep. I had arranged with Marina the night before to meet her and Victor and Katya at 11AM at a metro station near the museum we wanted to see. We went to visit the Sergei Kirov Museum, the apartment where Sergei Kirov, fierce Communist, popular with the people, friend of Lenin and Stalin, and first party leader for the city of St. Petersburg, lived and worked. The apartment had been preserved exactly as it had been in the 20’s. The museum has not only preserved his apartment but have added exhibitions on life from that time, specifically Soviet life. Most museums and exhibits that do this always wind up being pretty kitschy and the novelty kind of wears off. But this museum had done such an excellent job with its collection, such that I had never seen. I think this is why Marina and Victor wanted to take me here. The museum didn’t emphasize the fact that Communist life was crazy, it emphasized that it was different and so the museum isn’t overwhelmed by propaganda posters but actual timepiece artifacts. It was really well done. And Kirov had many pictures and paintings of Lenin and Stalin and Marx and Engels hanging about his apartment, for motivation I expect. So it was pretty cool. Kirov had a direct line to the Kremlin on his telephone beside his bed. And he had polar bear furs and other wild animals scattered about his office and living room, being an avid hunter. Other exhibits explained what life was like for common people. They explained food rationing and the young pioneers and they profiled workers in Soviet factories. They even had a booklet designed to help parents in naming their children (broken down by month, you could name your child only a number of things, all of them were acronyms somehow glorifying Communism or Lenin or Stalin). Probably the coolest artifact was an original copy of Lenin’s “What is to be done?” and Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital”. This place was kind of an off the beaten track gold mine. I’m glad they recommended it to me because it wasn’t listed in my guide book. We poked around the apartment museum for an hour or two and then went for a walk.
Marina and Victor used to live in this neighborhood, a neighborhood north of the main downtown area of St. Petersburg so they knew a really good cafe that served the best pierogi in the city so we headed in that direction. On the way we passed the official filming studios for Lenfilm, a massive and very good filming studio during the USSR days. I don’t know a lot about Russian films but apparently Lenfilm had spat out some gems during the Soviet days, some having won Oscars (as well as a slew of Soviet awards). I took a few photos in front of the main entrance to the studio and asked Victor and Marina to recommend some films for me to find when I get home (before I had left for China I had started getting into collecting a lot of obscure films from different countries. Not really obscure, just hard to find, mainly because they are old. I have a pretty good collection of old Chinese and Japanese black and white films and now I’m getting into German films from the 30’s and 40’s. So why now Soviet films?). Off the top of their heads they said their favorite film that Lenfilm had produced was “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, produced in 1973. It apparently is one of hundreds of international adaptations of Sherlock Holmes but this was one of the most critically acclaimed and is still considered one of the best. A short list of other films will follow.
We made our way to Stolle, the cafe near the Kirov Museum, a bustling cafe during lunchtime, filled with people looking for coffee and pierogi. Victor and Marina loved this place and were excited for me to try them so Victor ordered one pierogi of each type and we all sampled them. Russian pierogis are basically pies baked in a pan, usually served for breakfast or lunch, filled with different things. We tried mushroom pierogis, cabbage ones, egg and green onion, cheese, apple, all kinds. They were right, these pierogis were pretty stellar. The cafe soon became filled beyond capacity so we left after a little while.
We hopped a tram to Finlyandski Vokzal where we were going to take the local train to the northern suburb where Victor and Marina live. The train took about thirty minutes and dropped us off at a small station, just a station platform in the woods. From the platform, away from the tracks, led a small footpath through the trees to a small neighborhood where they lived. The neighborhood was made up of a small circle of apartment buildings. This neighborhood was part of a larger town, not observable from my vantage point, but they chose to live in a smaller area for easy access to the train, the train they take to work in the city everyday. Many people in Russia don’t have cars or licenses, public transport is actually really good so it’s unnecessary.
Victor and Marina live on the second floor in a one room apartment with an added kitchen. Katya is small and so easily sleeps in the room with Victor and Marina. We sat down at the kitchen table for some coffee (for me) and tea (for the Russians) and snacked on some apple crumble that Marina had made the other day. We brought back the discussion about movies and did some research on the Sherlock Holmes film. Then they showed me their collection of films which is very, very good. They are particular fans of Tim Burton and other cult classic American films, some even I haven’t seen. When they found out I hadn’t seen “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, the classic starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro from 1998, they were shocked and said that we must watch some of it. So we sat, watched portions of the film (which they were right, was awesome), and then drank some gluwine. Then Marina kicked the rest of us out so that she could have the kitchen to herself to prepare her own version of pierogis for supper later. So Victor, Katya and I went to a park nearby for a walk.
This neighborhood is located on the edge of a deep forest of pretty, snow covered trees and there are loads of cross country skiing trails that are good for walking. Apparently Victor takes Katya every single day for an hour or so of walking along these paths. Actually, Victor walks and Katya skis on these little plastic cross country skis (she’s quite talented). He said the fresh air and exercise was good for growing children - I couldn’t agree more. And Victor even goes for a run through the forest every morning before work as well. They’re very healthy people. Katya got to show off her skiing skills. She swished her way along the trail as Victor and I walked behind her. When we got to a hill, Katya would brace herself and then ski down it. Victor told me it had taken her weeks of practicing before she was able to do that without falling. On the uphills, Victor would hold on to the ski poles and drag Katya upwards. There were some open fields and scattered Scandinavian style homes in the forest as well. Victor told me that in summer, the forest had a few apple trees as well which the local babushkas would come out to pick and sell at the station to passengers (which he didn’t like). He also told me that one of the frozen rivers we crossed ran red in the summer time because of all the iron runoff from abandoned machines and weapons from World War II left upstream. He said that the road to and through this neighborhood had been called the Road of Life during the war because when the Nazis had the city surrounded, it was the one road that the Russian people could use to escape. It was a pretty interesting place.
We made our way back to the apartment where Marina was waiting with her freshly made cabbage pierogi and we sat and ate them while we finished the Johnny Depp film. It was a really relaxing evening and a really excellent pierogi! Since it was getting late I said that I had to go (I still had to take the train back into town). I have a really early morning train to Helsinki so I wanted to go back and get myself squared away. There were no trains at the moment so Victor and Marina and Katya walked me to the bus station and saw me off. They are truly wonderful people and I won’t forget them.
Now I’m back at the hostel. I just met a couple of Americans (what?), students abroad in Germany on a holiday to Russia. I hadn’t heard a native English speaker since Shaun and Karen, the Aussies. I’ll get to bed shortly as I prepare my departure from Russia.
I’m going to tell a quick story and I’m only going to tell it because it all worked out in the end. I’m usually pretty careful about my belongings and safeguarding my things. I’ve been in and out of hostels, sleeping on trains, and living out of a duffel bag for two months now, carrying with me a slew of heavy weather clothes and electronics. It’s a lot of stuff and it’s not easy dragging it all from place to place. I made my first mistake of the trip in Moscow. As you know my train for St. Petersburg didn’t leave until late in the evening. I left my bags in the my room at the hostel and returned to pick them up after my evening with the Usacheva family and head to the train station. I checked under the bed, in the blankets, and around the floor, but I didn’t check behind the curtain of the window next to the bed where I stored my e-reader the night before as easy access before I slept. So, yeah, I left my e-reader in Moscow. I didn’t realize how much I used it until I didn’t have access to it. In fact, I’m sort of obsessed with it. I never really liked the idea of e-readers, thinking they’d be the death of books (and they probably will be), but I’ve been reading more now and on a more frequent basis than I ever have (probably that has something to do with my traveling also) and I’ve grown really attached to it, taking it with me everywhere I go. I use it on the train, in the metro, in the cafes, in bed before I sleep. So I was crushed when it was gone. And I knew the postal system in Russia is one of the most unreliable postal systems on the planet. I’ve heard more than one story of its horrors. I asked Yana to call the hostel, when I realized in St. Petersburg that I didn’t have it with me, and she confirmed that they had found it. But how then to get it to St. Petersburg? My solution was to mail it by Fedex or DHL or some non-Russian postal service, ship it express, and I’d pay Yana back somehow. Either I’d mail a check or cash (also probably not a good idea with the Russian post) or bank transfer. But Yana, a much craftier person than me, said she would just pay off someone on the next train train to St. Petersburg to hand deliver it to me when it arrived, for a small bribe. She went to the station, found a policeman (I don’t know if money was exchanged - if anything though it was small), and she gave me the time, train number and carriage number where I could meet him the next morning. It worked brilliantly! I found the train, meeting it as it pulled into the station (very early this morning), walked up to a guy who seemed to be waiting, wearing a policeman’s uniform, I said, “Gelb?”, and he said, “Stephen?” and I said, “Da!”. And then he handed me a small brown package wrapped with a pink ribbon in which my e-reader was enclosed. I almost cried with happiness. But then realizing I was standing in front of a Russian police officer, I thanked him, and left. Close call. Yana, you’re awesome.
Since I had woken up so early to go meet the train at the station (a 30 minute walk from the hostel in the chilly, pre-dawn air), I went back to the hostel and went back to sleep. I had arranged with Marina the night before to meet her and Victor and Katya at 11AM at a metro station near the museum we wanted to see. We went to visit the Sergei Kirov Museum, the apartment where Sergei Kirov, fierce Communist, popular with the people, friend of Lenin and Stalin, and first party leader for the city of St. Petersburg, lived and worked. The apartment had been preserved exactly as it had been in the 20’s. The museum has not only preserved his apartment but have added exhibitions on life from that time, specifically Soviet life. Most museums and exhibits that do this always wind up being pretty kitschy and the novelty kind of wears off. But this museum had done such an excellent job with its collection, such that I had never seen. I think this is why Marina and Victor wanted to take me here. The museum didn’t emphasize the fact that Communist life was crazy, it emphasized that it was different and so the museum isn’t overwhelmed by propaganda posters but actual timepiece artifacts. It was really well done. And Kirov had many pictures and paintings of Lenin and Stalin and Marx and Engels hanging about his apartment, for motivation I expect. So it was pretty cool. Kirov had a direct line to the Kremlin on his telephone beside his bed. And he had polar bear furs and other wild animals scattered about his office and living room, being an avid hunter. Other exhibits explained what life was like for common people. They explained food rationing and the young pioneers and they profiled workers in Soviet factories. They even had a booklet designed to help parents in naming their children (broken down by month, you could name your child only a number of things, all of them were acronyms somehow glorifying Communism or Lenin or Stalin). Probably the coolest artifact was an original copy of Lenin’s “What is to be done?” and Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital”. This place was kind of an off the beaten track gold mine. I’m glad they recommended it to me because it wasn’t listed in my guide book. We poked around the apartment museum for an hour or two and then went for a walk.
 |
| Sergei Kirov's study |
 |
| One of many pictures of Stalin in the Kirov House |
 |
| Original copies of "Das Kapital" and "What is to be Done?" |
 |
| Sergei Kirov or Jeff Bridges? |
 |
| Me in front of Lenfilm studios |
 |
| Pierogis at Stolle |
Victor and Marina live on the second floor in a one room apartment with an added kitchen. Katya is small and so easily sleeps in the room with Victor and Marina. We sat down at the kitchen table for some coffee (for me) and tea (for the Russians) and snacked on some apple crumble that Marina had made the other day. We brought back the discussion about movies and did some research on the Sherlock Holmes film. Then they showed me their collection of films which is very, very good. They are particular fans of Tim Burton and other cult classic American films, some even I haven’t seen. When they found out I hadn’t seen “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, the classic starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro from 1998, they were shocked and said that we must watch some of it. So we sat, watched portions of the film (which they were right, was awesome), and then drank some gluwine. Then Marina kicked the rest of us out so that she could have the kitchen to herself to prepare her own version of pierogis for supper later. So Victor, Katya and I went to a park nearby for a walk.
This neighborhood is located on the edge of a deep forest of pretty, snow covered trees and there are loads of cross country skiing trails that are good for walking. Apparently Victor takes Katya every single day for an hour or so of walking along these paths. Actually, Victor walks and Katya skis on these little plastic cross country skis (she’s quite talented). He said the fresh air and exercise was good for growing children - I couldn’t agree more. And Victor even goes for a run through the forest every morning before work as well. They’re very healthy people. Katya got to show off her skiing skills. She swished her way along the trail as Victor and I walked behind her. When we got to a hill, Katya would brace herself and then ski down it. Victor told me it had taken her weeks of practicing before she was able to do that without falling. On the uphills, Victor would hold on to the ski poles and drag Katya upwards. There were some open fields and scattered Scandinavian style homes in the forest as well. Victor told me that in summer, the forest had a few apple trees as well which the local babushkas would come out to pick and sell at the station to passengers (which he didn’t like). He also told me that one of the frozen rivers we crossed ran red in the summer time because of all the iron runoff from abandoned machines and weapons from World War II left upstream. He said that the road to and through this neighborhood had been called the Road of Life during the war because when the Nazis had the city surrounded, it was the one road that the Russian people could use to escape. It was a pretty interesting place.
 |
| Katya skiing behind Victor in the park |
Now I’m back at the hostel. I just met a couple of Americans (what?), students abroad in Germany on a holiday to Russia. I hadn’t heard a native English speaker since Shaun and Karen, the Aussies. I’ll get to bed shortly as I prepare my departure from Russia.
No comments:
Post a Comment