Trouble in Russia!

As the last blog entry stated, all was going well on my dad and his friend's (Mr. Ewing) trip to St. Petersburg, until the ride on the metro back from the war memorial to our gostinitsa. While we were transferring from the one metro line to the other, in downtown St. Petersburg, Mr. Ewing was targeted by pickpockets. He managed to protect his wallet, but unfortunately they grabbed his passport and then ran off of the metro car, just as the train started moving. While having your passport stolen is not a pleasant experience at any time, or in any country, this particular situation was complicated even further by the fact that my dad and Mr. Ewing were set to fly out of Russia to Frankfurt early in the morning, the next day. Also, to visit Russia one needs to be in posession of a Russian travel visa, vaild for the duration of the trip; and traveling without one is illegal and punishable by a prison term, even if you have a vaild passport, and both of their visas were set to expire the very next day. The situation was even more stressful as the Canadian Government decided to close the Canadian consulate in St. Petersburg and transfer all duties to the Canadian Embassy in Moscow...which is a convenient 8 hours away on a train. While we were in a bit of a shocked state, a nice younger Russian guy approached my dad and Mr. Ewing on the metro train and told them that the same thing had happened to him before. He suggested that we contact the local militsia (Russian version of the police) and that they might be able to find it. I asked one of the metro workers where the nearest militsia office was located, and after getting the directions, the four of us proceeded to the building where they were located.

To get to the upper floors of the building (the militsia post was located on the 3rd), you needed to go past a set of turnstyles manned by workers. We weren't 100% sure of where they were and so in the break of asking them we decided to try phoning the Canadian embassy in Moscow to see what they suggested to do in the situation. The number one thing they said was required, was a police report from the militsia, but unfortunately for us both Leah and my cellphone died while in the middle of conversing with the secretary there. After this occured, I explained the situation to the one of the workers at the turnstyles and she led us upstairs to the 3rd floor where the militsia were located. She buzzed the door and after we were let in, we were greeted by a large militsia officer holding an AK-47, and told to sit down in a side room until someone came for us. A short wait later, a really nice middle-aged woman came and after we explained the situation to her she told us what they would do. She said that the vast majority of times, pickpockets are only after money, and simply grab everything they can from a person and throw the rest of it on the ground. Seeing as how they only got Mr. Ewing's passport, she was quite sure that they would realize it didn't have any monetary value and simply throw it somewhere, in which case someone else would find it and turn it in. After waiting for about 45 minutes it seemed unlikely that the passport was going to show up, so another militsia officer came and gave us a police report, recording what had happened and what was stolen. We explained to him that my dad and Mr. Ewing were supposed to be leaving the country the very next morning, but he assured us that, with the police report and a photocopy of his passport and visa, Mr. Ewing should be able to board the plane. We thanked him and left, amazed at how helpful and patient both he and the woman were, having heard horror stories about the militsia. That evening we were supposed to eat dinner with my Chinese friend Xiefei, but instead, after having a stressful afternoon we decided to just eat some pizza at our place. That night we gave them our phone numbers in the chance that security wouldn't let Mr. Ewing on the plane, and said our goodbyes.

At about 5:30am Leah's phone rang and it was Mr. Ewing explaining that the airport security would not let him on the plane. Because my dad's visa was going to expire and he still had his passport he had no choice but to leave Russia on his scheduled flight leaving Mr. Ewing behind in the airport. We told him to take a taxi back to his hotel, and Leah and I quickly got dressed, ordered a taxi and met him at his hotel to figure out what we were going to do. We quickly discovered that the Canadian Embassy wasn't overly helpful as they only work during buisness hours (8-5), we couldn't find an emergency phone number for them, and their main comment was "you should have left for Moscow yesterday." They eventually told us that Mr. Ewing needed to have a copy of his biological page and microfiche sent to the Moscow Embassy, and he needed to arrive in Moscow Monday morning, with a copy of the police report and a photocopy of his passport and visa. We then had to phone Canada to request it, but Canada told us that the Embassy needed to request the information, and after running through a bureaucratic circle for about 15 minutes it was finally sorted out. He was also told on the phone that he needed to change his flight from St. Petersburg, to being able to depart from Moscow, which in general you are not able to do. After being told from the Lufthansa people that it was not possible, we eventually contaced his travel agent from Drumheller and she worked her magic and got them to change his departure city to Moscow. Leah and I, not wanting to let him go alone to Moscow as he doesn't speak any Russian, had to also contact our school to see if our passports were ready, as we had gone to Finland the previous weekend, and it usually takes about a week to re-register your visa in the country. We phoned our coordinator and luckily we were able to go into the school and get our passports back allowing us to go on the train to Moscow and stay a night in a hotel if need be. Mr. Ewing was also able to contact his travel insurance company to ensure that he was at least mostly covered during his delay. Later that day Leah and I took him to the Moscow railwayway station and bought 3 platskart (3rd class) tickets to Moscow, departing Monday morning at 1:00am, and arrving around 9:30am.

We arrived at the train station around 11:30pm Sunday night and waited there for our train to arrive. We were initially worried that they may not let Mr. Ewing on the train as he did not have his actual passport on him, but the lady didn't seem to mind at all that he used a photocopy and a police report. Once we arrived in Moscow we quickly grabbed a taxi and took it straight to the embassy, which happens to be situated on the same street as the Cambodian embassy. You know you are a valuable and respected country when your embassy is graciously given a spot next to the Cambodian Embassy. We were very glad that we finally reached our destination and I think both Leah and I felt relieved to be in the hands of Canadians, or so we thought. Little did we know that our experience in the embassy would be one of the most stressful parts of the whole ideal.

Once inside the embassy, instead of being met with understanding and a resolve to sort out the problem at hand, we were met almost immedietly with hostility. Poor Mr. Ewing was told on the phone that he simply needed to bring himself, the police report and a photocopy of his passport and visa, however the women he had been talking to on the phone happened to be sick that day, and her replacement instead bombarded him with questions like "why don't you have your pictures taken? Why don't you have these forms filled out, why didn't you get here sooner?" and perhaps the most helpful phrase "You're going to have to face the consequences!" She was yelling at him as if he WANTED to have his passport stolen. Despite trying to explain to her that no one mentioned any forms, or pictures, he finally started to dutifully fill them out. At 1:00pm we were told we should leave the embassy as it was going to close for lunch, and that at this time we should get his pictures taken for the new emergency passport that was going to be issued to him. We were told the photo store was "down the street to the left." So, we began walking and walking..and walking and eventually found a sign on a side street all in Russian, leading us into a courtyard, down a flight of falling apart cement stairs into a basement that looked like it belonged in a horror film where there was a photo place. This consisted of a man, his computer, a digital camera, and the photoshop computer program. We got the photos and returned to the embassy where finally a really nice Canadian lady, one of the foreign affairs people, looked over his application and forms and was the only person who was reassuring and told him that things could have turned out a lot worse. We ended up waiting until the embassy was going to close because they had to have a letter signed by the Russian Foreign Minister, which would then allow him to be granted an exit visa from the consular affairs section of the Domodedova airport. Unfortunately another delay occured and, because they could not guarantee that the letter would be completed by the time the embassy closed he was told he had to reschedule his flight for Tuesday as opposed to Monday evening. At the last moment it turned out that the letter was completed on time, and all we had to do was go back to our hotel (luckily Leah and I had already booked a hotel as we had planned on staying in Moscow the night to rest, and luckily it had room in it so Mr. Ewing had a place to stay) and then catch our flights the next day. At the last moment just before the embassy closed we asked if they could order us a taxi to our hotel since of course we didn't know any taxi companies in Moscow, and we were told "No, I'm leaving in two minutes and the embassy is closing, you'll have to do that yourselves."..What a nice bunch of helpful people the Canadian Embassy has working for it! We ended up phoning a taxi company ourselves and then going to the hotel.

The next afternoon Leah and I checked out of the hotel and made sure that Mr. Ewing had all of his instructions and information. He was supposed to arrive at the airport early and ask the Lufthansa people to take him to the consular services section, where he would have to be issued an exit visa. We also made sure he had our phone numbers in the off chance that something went wrong again, but we were pretty sure it would all work out this time around! Leah and had a good 7 hours before our flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg, so we took a taxi from the hotel to Red Square and saw....LENIN! The last time we were in Moscow his mausoleum was closed as he was being re-pickled, but this time Leah and I were able to see him. It was a very interesting experience as it's very very heavily guarded, you have to check all of your bags, phones, cameras, and video recorders, then walk through a set of metal detectors. You then walk around to the front of the mausoleum where there is a guard at the entrance, you walk inside to be greeted by another guard, turn left and walk down a set of stairs where there is another guard. Turn right down a set of stairs where there is another guard, and finally you come into an open room where Lenin lays on a raised platform in a glass box, inside a very opulent coffin. When inside the mausoleum you are not allowed to wear hats, talk, have your hands in your pockets or have gloves on. After you exit the mausoleum you can walk behind it where you see the graves of other Soviet leaders including Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Stalin. Following Lenin we then walked across Red Square to the GUM and hung around there until we took a taxi to the airport. After we had gone through security and were waiting to board our plane, Leah recieved a phonecall from Mr. Ewing's brother who told us that he had made it through security! We were very relieved and glad we able to help him through the whole ordeal.

We were however extremely disspointed in the Canadian Embassy who really didn't seem to care one way or the other what happened to him. Not once did they ask if he could speak Russian or if he needed help, without Leah and I it would have been near impossible to buy the train tickets to Moscow, and also nearly impossible to find that photo store. Despite being in an already stressful situation, when we finally made it to the embassy we were met with hostility when all we wanted to hear was "don't worry, we'll do what we can to help you." Bah!

Visitors from Canada!

My Dad and Mr. Ewing

Manly photo #1 Me and a tank

The four of us out for dinner at Baku, the Azerbaijani restaurant

Manly Photo #2 Me and the Aurora

The war memorial

Statues of Soviet Soldiers

Apologizes to everyone for not posting a new blog in awhile, but Leah and I have been busy playing tour guide to my dad and one of his friends from Canada who came to visit us in Petersburg.

They arrived on Saturday the 11th of April and were set to fly out on the 17th (Friday). Once they arrived and checked into their hotel, Leah and I orientated them with the city by giving them a bit of a walking tour of the major attractions. After showing them the outside of the Church on Spilled Blood, the Hermitage, Palace Square, Kazan Cathedral, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Bronze Horseman and the Admiralty we took them to a good Georgian (not the State) restaurant and had some delicious Shashlik.

Sunday the 12th, Leah and I took them to the Artillery Museum which is one of the attractions that we had yet to visit. It was quite interesting to see as the entire courtyard is full of Soviet Era tanks, missile launchers and artillery pieces. It was a very manly place to go and all the guys at home will be proud of me getting my picture taken in front of all the big weapons. We then took them across the water to the Peter and Paul fortress, showing them the burial place of the Russian Tsars (including and following Peter the Great), the Russian Mint, the Trubetskoy Prison and the Museum of St. Petersburg. We then walked through the Field of Mars and through the souvenir market to the Church on Spilled Blood. By the time we were finished sightseeing for the day we worked up quite an appetite and decided to go to the delicious Indian restaurant that we had gone to for my birthday dinner.

Monday the 13th we decided to tour the Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral, where Mikhail Kutzov, the Russian Field Marshal who is credited with defeating Napolean's Army is burried. Inside the cathedral you can see numerous banners that were captured by his forces and the keys to many of the French fortresses that he took over. After the Kazan Cathedral we took my dad and Mr. Ewing to St. Isaac's Cathedral, and up to the colannade at the top for a great birds eye view of the city. We then walked along one of the canals to the Yusupov palace. The Yusupov's were a very wealthy family in Tsarist times (rumour has it that they were even wealthier than the royal family themselves). In the basement of the Yusupov palace was also the location that Rasputin was killed. The palace is in great condition and is easily the most elaborately decorated of any of the palaces that we have been in so far. For dinner, Leah and I decided on taking them out to the Idiot, which is easily one of the best restaurants in St. Petersburg. The entertainment for the night was watching numerous huge Russian men talking on cellphones going in and out of the restaurant, not ordering anything or sitting down. (My dad and Mr. Ewing were convinced they were Mafia.)

Tuesday the 14th was spent inside the massive Hermitage. You can easily spend multiple days inside looking at the various collections spread over three buildings. Extra attention was paid to all of the famous paintings that my dad had wanted to see. Before he became the principal of Leah and my high school, he was an art teacher and so had studied and saw all of these famous paintings in books so I'm quite sure he was excited to see them in person. After touring the Hermitage all day, I took them back to our Gostinitsa to show them how and where we lived and to meet our roommates. We then went out to one of our usual dining spots - Yaposha Sushi, where we had a nice meal, albeit without salmon; as for some reason they had run out of salmon for the evening....

As if the art collection located within the Hermitage wasn't enough, on Wednesday I decided to show them the Russian Museum. Unlike the Hermitage, the Russian museum's collection of paintings are solely by Russian artists. I then took them to Gostiny Dvor, the large mall that used to be a bazaar when St. Petersburg was founded, and then we met up with Leah downtown on Nevsky and decided to try a new restaurant called Baku that serves Azerbaijani food. It was an excellent choice as the food was absolutely amazing, very flavourful and the restaurant itself had great atmosphere. The inside was decorated as a mosque, and was very colourful and comfortable.

The 16th was the last official tour day of their visit as they were set to fly out of St. Petersburg for Frankfurt at around 6:00am the next day. With so many attractions left to see we decided to go to the Cruiser Aurora, our school at the Smolny Cathedral and the War memorial. The cruiser Aurora was a very interesting sight, moored in the river it is a free attraction that not only makes for great pictures but you can also go on it and even into the free museum in the inside of the ship. The cruiser was comissioned in 1903 and served in the Russo-Japanese War. Then, in 1917 a blank shot, fired by the Aurora, was the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace (Hermitage) where the Provisional government were seated in the dining room. We then took a taxi to our school at the Smolny Cathedral and met up with Leah and proceeded to the St. Petersburg War Memorial. It is a massive memorial that is difficult to describe in words. It consists of a museum under the memorial, and a huge stone pillar with the dates of the Second World War at the top. The memorial is also decorated with sculptures and carvings of Soviet soldiers. After the memorial we were set to head back to our Gostinitsa where we were going to meet my Chinese friend Xiefei for supper, but unfortunately we ran into some problems at the metro station. A group of pickpockets managed to steal the passport of my dad's friend and so began another adventure for us, but that will be described in our next blog entry.

Fun in Finland: Part 2!

Map of the Fortress/Islands

Ariel photo of Suomenlinna in the summer

I had to include this picture because big old canons are manly, and after living with 5 girls for 3 months I need to surround myself with manly things

Leah and I on one of the banks
Cute Finnish children getting candy

Helsinki Cathedral

How might one go about ordering one of these? Crazy Finnish language!

Inside of the rock church

After waking up in our oh so comfy bed, Leah and I eventually forced ourselves to go downstairs to the massive breakfast buffet. After eating our fill and sampling almost all of the items available (and making sure to eat every piece of fresh fruit we could get our hands on [as they are very expensive in Russia]) we went back up to our room and got ready for our first full day in the Finnish capital. A little about Helsinki; it's situated on the southern coast of Finland and has around 580,000 people in the city itself, the metro area is just over 1 million. They speak Finnish which is closely related to Estonian, distantly related to Hungarian and isn't even an indo-european language like say Danish, German, English, French, or Russian (see picture of hamburger). When the Swedes controlled Finland the capital of used to be a city on the west coast called Turku, but when the Russians gained control of the country they decided to move the capital to an area closer to Russia and farther from Sweden, and so Helsinki became the capital. With that said, our first sight for the day was the island of Suomenlinna, which is an old military naval fortress on an island just south east of Helsinki. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight and we had to take a cute little ferry from the harbour to get to it. The fortress was built when Sweden controlled Finland and when Sweden had a military alliance with France against Russia. Sweden, who feared a simultaneous attack on her by the Danish (who also owned Norway) and Russia, decided to built a massive military fortification to protect against Russian expansionism. The French, who also feared Russian expansionism offered to pay a substantial amount of the cost of the fortress. This all occured around 1748. The Russians eventually came anyway, and despite having superior forces and equipment, the Swedish Commander surrendered the fortress and Finland became a grand duchy of the Russian empire. The fortress' guns were then turned westward, and during the Crimean War (1853-56) a massive flotilla of British and French ships turned up at Suomenlinna and began a brutal bombardment of the fortress for 47 hours, the Russian forces were ill-equipped, but the combined fleet did not send any reinforcments ashore, and instead set sail for a fortress closer to St. Petersburg. With that history and the fact that it is still standing in very good condition is no reason why it is Helsinki's top tourist attraction. So Leah and I borded the ferry and had fun listening to the multitude of languages spoken on the ferry, Russian, American English, British English, Finnish, Swedish and more, as well as seeing the ferry cruising through some of the ice chunks that still remained in the gulf. Once we got to the island we took a walk towards the information centre, where we bought ourselves a map and went into the museum so we could understand what we were actually going to be seeing (neither of us knew anything about the history of the place.) We also watched an interesting 30 minute video explaining the history of the island and its significance. After that we decided to explore the islands on foot. We walked around the main tourist route and had a few side adventures into some of the dark corridors in the fortifications (nothing is off limits you just need a light) as well as seeing the tomb of the main architect of the fort. It was very interesting and a side note to the fort itself is that people still live on the islands, it is not solely an old military fort. So, while we were poking around the fort we kept seeing these young kids dressed up (sort of like Halloween but not in scary costumes) with decorated willow branches, and they go to people's houses and get candy, even I will admit that they were pretty cute. We decided to head back to the mainland after getting tired of walking and finishing the main route through the fort and so boarded the ferry again. Once back on the mainland we ate lunch at a very nice cafe where we enjoyed a massive salad containing all the things that we miss eating a lot of in Russia; fresh spinach, lettuce, carrots, artichoke heats, peppers, tomatoes, olives and more. We then went to the Helsinki Cathedral or Helsingin tuomiokirkko in Finnish. The Helsinki cathedral was built in 1830-1852 and was very big, minimalist and a very nice change from the very elaborate and gilded Russian Orthadox churches that we've been seeing so much of lately. It was also very peaceful inside, and unlike the churches in Russia, they don't charge an admission fee for people to come in and see. After seeing the main Helsinki cathedral we walked to another, very interesting church called Temppeliaukion kirkko, which was carved into the surrounding rock. It is quite hard to describe, the best way is to see a picture, but it was also a very interesting sight. Following our day of sightseeing we went back to the hotel for a bit of a break and then out to dinner for delicious Thai food which rivaled anything that we've had in restaurants in Victoria. Following this we made our way back to that oh so comfy hotel room.

*Note the picture of Suomenlinna is not ours, but it gives a better view of the fortress
* Same as the rock church and the Helsinki Cathedral

Fun in Finland: Part 1!

After having recieved our passports from the school, and having the ability to travel outside of the country, Leah and I decided that we needed a break from the everyday stresses of life in Russia and living in the gostinitsa. Our solution to the problem was to take a romantic weekend getaway to nearby and oh so modern and socially progressive...Finland! We were originally going to take the train from St. Petersburg to Helsinki and then back again, but once we realized that it takes 6 hours to get there by train (meaning 12 hours of our weekend spent in transit), and that flying was only about $50 more a person we decided to book a flight to Helsinki and back instead. We had been looking on expedia at hotels in Helsinki and ended up finding a ridiculously nice (4 star Radisson Hotel on the waterfront) for only about $125 a night. Our flight was set to leave around 12:30pm on Friday the 3rd, so we left the Gostinitsa around 9:00am. We ended up getting to the airport on time and had no problems getting out of Russia (security was strict [3 checks and searches] but the people were very nice.) The flight to Helsinki was on a carrier called Finnair which was very good. The stewardesses were very friendly, the airplane was nice and clean and we had a delicious in flight snack consisting of orange juice, a nice bun with lettuce, cheese and cucumber and a mars bar. The flight was only an hour long, and because there is a one hour time difference between St. Petersburg and Finland we arrived in Finland at 12:30pm! We got through EU passport control without any problems, and soon were free in Finland! We grabbed a bus from the airport to the railway station downtown, and we were both very happy with our decision to visit Finland. Finland was a great big breathe of fresh air after being in Russia for a couple of months. Our first impression was that it was like an older, European version of Victoria in Canada. The air smelled very fresh and humid, the people were actually smiling, and the streets were clear of the random broken bottles of beer and vodka that are so prevalent on the streets of Petersburg. After getting off the bus at the railway station we wandered around the city a little bit and watched all the happy blonde people (we had to wait until 2:00pm to check into our hotel) we arrived at our hotel and checked in. Our room was amazing. It was decorated in very minimalist, Scandinavian design and furniture, with hardwood floors and the best bed in the universe. The matress was one of those extremely comfy memory foam ones and our duvee felt like being hugged to sleep by clouds. Once you got into bed you never wanted to get out. The hotel also had two Finnish saunas, and a massive and free breakfast buffet that had one table for breads, cakes, and muffins, another table for Scandinavian style breakfast which had different types of cheeses, pickeled herring, salmon, cucumber, lettuce and tomato, another table with all types of fresh fruit, another table with hot breakfast food like bacon, eggs, rice, sausage, beans and one more with yoghurt cereal and dried fruit. Drink options included milk, tea, coffee, apple juice, orange juice, fruit juice,and fruit smoothies. We settled into our hotel room and dropped off our bags, then went out to do some looking around and shopping, ate dinner at a very interesting Middle Eastern place in a food court in one of the malls. We then walked home, used the sauna, watched some fun Swedish and Finnish TV and then went to bed.

Moscow - Day 2

Novodevichy Cemetery


Ross and I with the Kremlin, St. Basil's and the GUM in the background

The GUM

Stalin - Park Iskusstv


After a relaxing night in our comfy hotel beds, and a big breakfast thanks to the free buffet included in our stay, we were fueled up and ready for day two in the Russian Capital. Because Lenin's Mausoleum had been closed I really wanted to go see one of Moscow's graveyards where numerous famous Russian politicians, writers, musicians, etc. are buried. So Ross, Laura and Jessi came along with me to the Novodevichy Cemetery on a scavenger hunt for the graves of some famous Russians. Once there, we checked out a board which listed over a hundred of the most well known names and then indicated on a rough map of the cemetery where each one's grave was located. We chose to find: Nikita Khrushchev - he is my favorite Soviet leader after Lenin, Eisenstein - the famous Russian film director who created montogue, Vladimir Mayakovsky - a famous Russian poet/playwrite considered the father of Russian Futurism, Dmitri Shostakovich - a composer who wrote numerous pieces including a famous opera called "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsenk District" and his famous 7th Symphony called "Leningrad" which he wrote during the seige of Leningrad, Mikhail Bulgakov - my favorite Russian writer who wrote "The Master and Margarita," Anton Chekhov - a famous author of shortstories and plays, Nikolai Gogol - aslo a writer, the father of "Russian realism," and Boris Yeltsin - the first President of the Russian Federation who passed away in April 2007. Numerous other important or well known people are also buried there, including Lenin's wife and one of Stalin's wives as well.
Following the cemetery, we decied to visit Park Iskusstv's Statue Park (or Park of the Fallen Heroes) which began as a collection of Soviet statues which had been torn down post-1991. A few years ago this park was even one of the location visited on the show The Amazing Race (contestants had to run around the park to count how many statues there were of Lenin and of Stalin). We perused the park for a while, snapping photos of the statues we recognized, but the warm weather combined with the snow and ice made for a wet and sloppy walk so after a while we decided to continue on to the next sight on our list.
From the statue park we made our way on foot back toward the Kremlin and Red Square, we wandered along the Moscow River, and across an island until we came out across from the Kremlin and Red Sqare. On the bridge (Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Most) which crossed the river, we took some great photos of us with the Kremlin, St. Basil's and Red Square behind us, and then made our way to the GUM to grab some lunch before finally going to the State History Museum. (We had popped into the GUM the day before and Jessi and I had both fallen in love with the store Monsoon, so on this day we went back in and both made purchases! Now I can say I bought something in the GUM)
The State History Musuem's collections date back to the Stone Age period in Russia and end with the last few tsars of the Romanov family. Laura in particular was interested to see their exhbits on the Romanov family but I think was disappointed in their lack of information on Nicholas II and his family. It seemed to me, like the musuem just stopped with Nicholas's father Alexander III and forgot to include anything on the last Russian Tsar. We could have spent hours and hours in the museum, had we been interested more in some of the things we were seeing, but instead we simply skimmed through the rooms, stopping to look at the things that interested us. By this point we were all exhausted and had sore feet yet again so we made our way back to the hotel.
I think the cemetery was by far the most interesting site we saw that day, it was like a puzzle wandering through the various rows of headstones in search of the right ones. And walking from the Statue Park to the Kremlin, instead of taking the metro turned out awesome too because we came across such a great view of the Kremlin and Red Square which we would have missed otherwise.

- Leah

Still to come - Day 3 in Moscow and then . . . . our trip to Finland!

Moscow - Day 1

Hello! Leah Again - Jeana I thought we'd give Ross a break from all this writing he's been doing and besides I am still pretty excited about all that we saw in Europe's largest capital city. Here goes:

We got off the train in Moscow just before 7-am at Leningradsky Voksal (station) and soon thereafter made our way to the centre of the city. The four of us made our way to the maze that is the Moscow Metro - which in reality turned out to be not so bad. Thankfully, Laura made a special trip to Dom Knigi (a huge bookstore here) the day before and bought us two Moscow street maps which also had metro maps so that we could more easily navigate through the city. At any rate asside from the occassional double checks to see that we were headed toward the right station and the sometimes winding, many-staired paths which took us from one station to another when having to transfer, our metro-ing was quite straightforward.
Anyway, we jumped onto the metro and within half an hour were riding the escalator up to street level and then walked the few blocks from Lenin Library Station to the Alexander Park which lies just outside of the Kremlin walls. We popped into McDonalds for breakfast - it was one of the only things open (at just after 7am), and bought ourselves breakfast and more importantly caffeine!

After breakfast, we backtracked slightly to view the Grave of the Unknown Solider - (note: they have one larger grave monument to an unknown solider and then also have several other unmarked graves for major cities/battlegrounds during WWII: Leningrad, Kiev, Stalingrad, etc...), took a few photos of the massive statue of Marshal Jukov (Just for you Sean ! Jukov was a WWII hero who returned from the Far East to prevent the advancing Nazis from capturing Moscow, after that he was transfered to command the defense of Stalingrad, then lifted the seige of Leningrad and finally launched the final assault on Germany itself eventually capturing Berlin - he won dozens of medals and awards and is considered on of WWII's greatest heroes), and finally passed under the gates by the History Musuem out onto RED SQUARE!

Being that it was still quite early (not yet 8am) on a Saturday morning, not very many people were around and the sun was not yet completely up, so all in all the scene we arrived to was quite thrilling. I experienced an "Oh my God!" moment upon realizing where I was and, I'm not sure if some of this was not partly the blame of the cappuchino I had just drank, was suddenly more awake than I thought I would feel all day! History lesson: around the square stands the Kremlin (huge fortification, once a royal citadel, in which are numerous cathedrals and the formal residence of Russia's President), next to the Kremlin stands one of Moscow's most recognizable sites St. Basil's Cathedral, across from the Kremlin is the GUM (formerly the state department store - and now a three floor mall which would make Lenin, who's mausoleum is conveniently just across the square, fume with rage - Dior, Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Monsoon a British store I love and over 150 other stores, mainly European names I am unfamiliar with) finally, the Museum of Russian History sits opposite St. Basil's on one end of the square. The square has been for the past several centuries a meeting place, market place, and most recently has been the site of military parades.

Since nothing yet was open because it was so early, we took advantage of the square's relative emptiness to snap a few photos - us with St. Basil's, us with Lenin's Mausoleum . . , and as we were doing so, Ross and I noticed that our one roommate Jessi had been approached by, and was now talking to a random man who had come up from behind her and said "Good day to you." We made our way over to them, where Andrey (as we learned was his name) was apparently having difficulty speaking with Jessi but had discovered that we were from Canada, he quickly switched over to conversing with Ross - talking about hockey- and was most thrilled to hear that Ross' favorite hockey team is the Edmonton Oilers. We chatted with him for a few minutes and before continuing off in our seperate directions I dug down into the bottom of my bag (we were carrying all of our things with us since we had not yet gone to the hotel) and pulled out one of the thousands of Canadian flag pins we brought along to give as gifts (thanks Tom!) to give to him. He seemed quite pleased, and he left a very pleasant first impression upon us of the friendliness of Moscovites! (I had been losing my patience with the abrutness, and rudeness of people recently in St. Petersburg, but I am convinced that the nicest people that we have met so far in Russia, were all in Moscow - Andrey was the first)

Around 9:30 or so we had already wandered nearly halfway around the Kremlin and found its ticket office, had deposited our bags in the coat/luggage check (you aren't allowed to have any bags whatsoever or camera's in Lenin's mausoleum where we planned to go first), and had found out the times of entrance to the Kremlin's Armory which houses a collection of valuables owned by the Russian Tsars. We then made our way back to Red Square because we were all determined to lay eyes on Lenin first and since his hours of operation are limited - only from 10am - 1pm - we thought it would be wise to see him immediately before losing track of time in the Kremlin and missing our chance. However, once we arrived on Red Square we noticed that no lines were forming near the mausoleum, and no one seemed to be going in so Ross bravely approached one of the armed guards (there are about a dozen or so) guarding the area around the mausoleum and asked when it would be opening. The guard responded that the mausoleum would be closed until the 16th of April!!! As we discovered later, apparently they are in the process of changing his clothes and re-preserving his body - if only we had known this before - now we will just have to make another trip to Moscow before our time is done here.

Feeling rather disappointed about not seeing Lenin (he was #1 on my list), we bought our tickets to the Armory and for the Cathedrals of the Kremlin and then proceeded to the massive line leading into the Armory. Because of the rarity and value of the items housed here, and given that we were entering the walls of the Kremlin where Russia's President lives and works, security was tight. We had to slowly inch our way closer to the entrance, eventually passing through metal detectors and being scrutinized by yet more armed guards into the building within the Kremlin that housed the Armory's exibits. Inside we meandered through a couple of rooms which exhibited all manner of Tsarist junk! We saw case after case of tacky, over the top gold and silver platers, servers, punch bowls, vases, at least a dozen carraiges half of which belonged to one Russian Tsarina while the others belonged to another - why one woman would need 6-7 carraiges is beyond me - in general the contents of these exhibits were not of great interest to any of us. As we were leaving the Armory building however, we spotted another cash desk which was selling addmission into the "Diamond Fund" the price of entry for a foreigner was 500 rubles but we flashed our magical student cards and got in for 100! Good thing we did too, because this section of the exhibit housed a portion of the Russian Crown Jewels, and thousands of other precious stones and metals including hundreds of un-cut diamonds, and some of the largest diamonds and other gems in the world! This part of the museum was breathtaking! We even got to see the crown which was made for Catherine the Great, and was subsequently worn by all of the Russian Tsars up until Nicholas II.

Following the Armory we made our way back around the outside to the entrance which would take us to the centre of the Kremlin where all of the cathedrals are located. We passed through another set of metal detectors and once inside were herded to one side of the street by more guards - within the Kremlin there are strict rules as to where you can and cannot go owing to the fact that many of its buildings are still in use by the President and other government officials- and headed for the collection of churches in the centre. We snapped a few shots of the massive Tsar Cannon which dates back to the 1500's and is the largest ever made, and the equally striking Tsar Bell, the largest bell in the world, which was damaged and cracked in a fire and now sits at the base of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. Then we proceeded to visit some of the Kremlin's many churches - I believe there are 6 or so in all - Three which we visited: The Cathedral of the Dormition completed in 1479 was where all the Tsars were crowned; the Cathedral of the Annunciation 1489; and the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael completed in 1508 is where many of the earliest Tsars of Russia are burried.

Finally, after completing our tour of the Kremlin we returned to Red Square so that we could visit St. Basil's Cathedral. St. Basil's (easily Moscow's most recognizable landmark) or the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to commemorate his defeats of the Mongols and was eventually completed in 1561. Within the church are several different chapels because initially it had been planned for a cluster of smaller churches to be built each commemorating a different saint's feast day upon which Ivan the Terrible had one specific victories. Because of its age, the interior of the building has suffered and in many places the detailing which must have once been upon every surface has been damaged and is no longer visible. Inside it is a bit like a maze with dark passages linking the different chapels to one another and heavy metal doors or bars blocking certain passages. I am sorry to say, but for some reason I am still attached to the Church-On-Spilled-Blood and think that it is far more impressive than St. Basil's. St. Basil's is beautiful, don't get me wrong, and I was definitely facinated by its history but because of the damage to its interior it just cannot compare - to me at least - with the Church-On-Spilled-Blood.

By the time we had seen all of these sites, since our night on the train had been less than restful, and because we wanted to take advantage of the daylight we decided it was time to make our way to our hotel. While leaving Red Square to head for the Metro however, we stopped for a photo op with Lenin and Stalin!!! "Look alikes" -who dont really look all that alike- are all over the place in that part of the city, but we just couldn't resist getting a photo with them, so Stalin threw his arm around me and Lenin handed Ross a red flag and Laura our photographer extrordinare snapped a couple pictures of us. Then to the Hotel: Ross and I had found the hotel on Expedia.ca of all places and had booked it because of how reasonably priced it was, and because we read that it had "Scandinavian furnishings" but its one downside was that it is located quite far from the city centre. I had copied directions down from its website however and after only one metro line transfer, and finding the right trolley bus (who's driver was supposed to be announcing the stops but instead reminded me of Charlie Brown's teachers) we soon found our hotel where we were met at the front desk by a smiling Dmitry -again demonstrative of Moscow's friendliness- who quickly set us up with our room keys. Exhausted and with sore feat we got to our room and oh was it glorious! It did not smell dusty and stuffy, the walls were not covered in wallpaper peeling at the corners, and the bed was (and again I may be biased because I have been sleeping with springs jabbing me in the neck and back for the last few weeks) fantastic: so comfortable, with sheets that didn't feel like carboard and didn't smell like fish and a duvet! Then we found our bathroom! YAY! Did I mention that our bathroom at the Gostinitsa has been nicknamed the GasChamber? Well this washroom was fantastic, with a great big shower that had an adjustable shower head, floor to ceiling tiles which of course were spottless, and soft clean towels. After just the first night I never wanted to leave! I could have stayed comfortably in that bed for a week at least.

Still to come . . . Day 2 in Moscow

Trains

Late at night on the 27th of March, Leah, and I as well as two of our roommates (Jessie and Laura) departed from St. Petersburg on an overnight train to Moscow. The very first week that we arrived in Russia, we had given our passports to the school so that our Russian visas could be registered, and also so that we could apply and recieve another extended Russian visa (Russia only grants 3 month study visas, and since our program at Smolny is four months we needed to apply for another visa as well). The downside to this procedure is that it takes a long..long...long time to recieve our passports back and so we only just recieved our passports back around the 20th of March. Yes...it took them almost two months to get through all the red tape. Unfortunately for us, not having a passport in Russia not only doesn't allow us to leave the country and come back in, but it also means that we could not stay anywhere outside of St. Petersburg (where we are registered to be) overnight. So, with that said, when we recieved our passports we were all ready to head out on an adventure, and decided on Moscow! We went to the Moskovskii train station and booked ourselves on an overnight train from St. Petersburg to Moscow departing late at night, around 11:00pm which was set to arrive in Moscow around 7:00am and our returning train departed Moscow around 8:00pm and arrived in St. Petersburg around 5:00am. We were very pleased with our Russian ability as we actually recieved what we had gone to the station to purchase. On Russian trains there are, like airplanes, different classes of tickets. On overnight trains the entire train is what is called a "sleeper" train. Where the benches (see picture) fold down into beds and bed padding, pillows and blankets are all provided. The difference between classes is simply how many roommates you get to sleep with. In first class, the car is divided into rooms, and one room is shared by two people. In second class the car is still divided into rooms, and one room is shared by four people, like two bunkbeds. Third class, which is what we opted for, is shared by about fifty other people in an open car, as opposed to rooms like the other two classes. The beds themselves are actually quite comfortable, and in all honesty I prefer it to flying. Not only do you have unlimited legroom, but the smooth motion of the train is quite relaxing (Russian trains do not seem to bump or jolt, but rather glide down the tracks). There is also a restaurant car which serves delicious looking food (we didn't order anything) for reasonable prices and even has a tv. I was even amazed at how nice the toilet was on the train to Moscow, much nicer than any plane that I've been on, as all of the fixtures were stainless steel and it was quite roomy. On each car of the train there is also at least one person (usually a woman) who makes sure that everything and everyone is alright and who initially checks the boarding passes of everyone on the train and helps people make their beds, stoke the samovar (a sort of hot water heater that dispenses hot water so that people can drink tea or make instant noodles, or kasha (porridge) and answer any questions. The train stations are like airport terminals with numerous bars, cafes, and restaurants as well as stores selling the staples of travel such as books, movies, music, souvenirs and pharmacies. After a sushi and pizza dinner for the road, the four of us boarded the train and were off to Moscow. The only downside to trains, like planes, is your neighbours. Unfortunately for us, the trip to Moscow was interupted about halfway through the night by one of the Russian men, who had been drinking and was lying on his back, snoring incredibly loudly. I can't speak for everyone else, but I seem to recall him eventually stopping, and I remember waking up to the train lady telling everyone that we had made it to Moscow. One thing that I will always remember about the train is the distinct smell of the interior. It's not a bad smell at all, but rather a mixture of tea, coal, smoke and body odour that I now associate with being distinctly Russian and smells a lot like the "Russian Caravan Tea" that Elisa bought Leah and I. The trip back to St. Petersburg was a little less comfortable as the train seemed to be quite a bit older than the one that we had taken to get to Moscow. Unfortunately for us we happened to be on the car with a troupe of young (maybe ten year old) girls and their mothers. Of course, being that age and on a big road trip they didn't do a heck of a lot of sleeping and continually throughout the night we heard whispering and lights flickering (each bed has a little light like an airplane). We still managed to get some sleep and it was definitely more enjoyable than sitting in an airplane seat. Overall I would say it was a very positive experience. Although I would have liked to have paid a little bit more and gotten a second class room for the four of us, rather than being in the open carriage, but money was tight and we made a compromise. Leah and I will definitely be taking the train again and are even planning a trip to Finland on the train soon.

*A note on the picture, we didn't actually take this picture of the third class we found it on the internet as none of ours really turned out. It looks nearly identical to the train car that we were in however.