Category: From Russia With Love

The Seoul airport featured parades of local heroes and a concert.  Must have been something they cooked up to entertain the hordes of people moving through the area on their way to the recent winter Olympics.

With a couple of days in Vladivostok, Russia, before boarding the train, we decided to rent a car and cruise around the region.  At our first stop, the car battery gave out, and we had to call on the local gas station guys for a hand.

Down the road, a town with a street market.  Strange, this town is not on the map!  Let’s stop to see what is on offer.

Bought some sausage and fruit paste.   Henry as usual was quite popular, having a great time.

Fortunately, a kind gentleman with excellent English approached us and advised that this was a closed town near a military outpost (hence not on the map), and that we would be in trouble should the authorities notice our presence.   We left rather quickly…..

We spent one night in the town of Nokhodka, an industrial port on the Sea of Japan.  While looking for a place to stay, we lingered a little too long through a changing stoplight and were stopped by a police squad.  After a mutually unintelligible exchange of words and some fairly clear hand signals, we were allowed to move on.  Whew!  One near-miss and a full brush with authority all in one day!

Have you ever stood on a snowy beach facing an icy wind, watching a milky grey sea throw ice floes at the shore?  Brrrr….

The next night was at a seaside resort in Slavyanka which is no doubt popular in summer, but empty at this time of year.   The hotel, like the one in Nakhodka, seemed to have never had English-speaking guests before – which in China would provoke a mob scene.  In Russia, the opposite.  Everybody was supremely indifferent to our presence.

There are reasons this region is not a big tourist draw.  Pretty bleak overall….

…. with the occasional touch of color and whimsy.

We return to Vladivostok for a one-day tour with the group that will join us on the Trans-Siberian railway…..  and board the train tomorrow night for an odyssey of almost 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) from Vladivostok to Moscow in 12 days.

Vladivostok is the eastern-most city in Russia, an important port that was closed to the outside world until the 1990s.  Here you are not scolded if you feed the birds….

We boarded the train the evening of 6 March along with 12 other passengers and a guide or two.  Our section of the train consists of a restaurant car, a bar car and 4 carriages with accommodations for passengers.  It is towed by the regular Trans-Siberia train and will be parked at sites of interest along the way, to be picked up a day or two later by another scheduled train.

Quite frankly, the stops made in towns along the way so far are only of mild interest – Khabarosk and Ulan Ude.    The centrepiece of this voyage is by and large the train itself.  And Lake Baikal… a huge fresh-water lake that at this time of year is mostly frozen to a depth of over two feet.  The water is amazingly clear; the solid ice forms cracks and extrudes giant crystals.

Here the train stops for two days, and the primary mode of transportation is hovercraft that slews along the icy surface at a pretty good clip.

Other forms of transport include snowmobiles and dog sleds, although these activities for the elderly guests are closely monitored and very tame.

Please note in the background of this photograph are tables…. set with local delicacies, such as smoked fish, and always lots of vodka.  

Further merry-making on ice:

Nah zda-ROVH-yeh!  (Phonetic version of “cheers” in Russian…..)

 

By the way, travel on the train is much rougher than on the cargo ship.  On the high seas, rolling waves come at fairly predictable intervals, although sometimes turbulent.  Train tracks that are over a century old (and constructed by what was basically slave labor) can deliver major bumps without warning, in addition to the jolts that come from connecting and disconnecting from the locomotive in stations along the way, often in the middle of the night.

It also gets pretty icy moving between cars when the temperature outside is well below freezing…..

That said, it’s still exciting and gives a deep sense of historical perspective.

Additional off-train activities have included a troika sleigh ride…

Shopping at a train-platform grocery stand…

Tube rides down a steep icy chute….

A visit to a private dacha (country home) for a lovely dinner and a special experience – the traditional Russian banya.  It’s basically a sauna where you sweat for a while, then are beaten gently with birch tree switches, followed by a roll in the snow or a bucket of chilly water.   Sounds questionable, feels great!  (And you are absolutely required to wear a goofy cone-shaped hat….)

The purchase of a couple of “priceless”  second-hand tea glasses at a rare antique store…..

Train museum…..

Silly photo ops……

Pigeon-feeding…..

More interesting painted wooden buildings…..

A pilgrimage to the place where the last of the Romanov family of tsars was executed in 1918….. the entire family has since been named as martyrs, and their worship has become a bit of a cult……

A greeting with a traditional bread treat in Kazan, capital city of the Tatar people…..

Straddling the border between Asia and Europe….

Several concerts, including 19th century chamber music, classical opera and folk music, as well as some not-so-traditional art installations…

And finally…. just in case we have forgotten where we are….. oversight by past leadership…..

And the recently-reelected and most popular present….

 

We have said farewell to our great group of fellow travellers on the Trans-Siberia railway, and have arrived in Moscow.    Report to come!

 

 

 

Apologies to you all.  The energy to create thoughtful entries for this blog has ebbed.  

We have been beaten down by “the tyranny of the itinerary”. This has been our first trip using professional tour guides.  They have been well-meaning, knowledgeable, helpful and charming…….. but it is just not a comfortable way to travel.  Rushing from one “tourist site” to another, enduring a constant commentary on dates and statistics and being shuttled like a herd of Shropshire sheep…. all of this has taken its toll.  We will not do it this way again.

In the interest of completion, however, and in hopes of providing you with perhaps another interesting image or two….. we continue nonetheless.

Okay – Stalin was – as one illustrious pundit might put it – a “bad hombre”.  None badder.  Many hundreds of thousands of souls beaten, banished, murdered, starved, imprisoned and intimidated.  BUT, he also decided that Moscow needed some public works that truly distinguish the city today.  Like the “seven sister” skyscrapers built in the 1930s that adorn the skyline…

(Please note the sheets of ice on the Moscow River…..)

And the subway stations (no two alike) that not only house a very efficient transportation system, but also provide uplifting artistry…

The Soviet era also had some fine automobiles for the privileged…..

The Russians have historically loved circuses……. we did a “behind-the-scenes” visit.   Not entirely happy about how the animals are kept, but it could be worse.

No city visit is complete without the purchase of a couple of geegaws from street vendors….

Some faces and scenes from the Tretyakov art gallery…

And a ghastly pirouette in front of the Bolshoi Theater….

On to Saint Petersburg for the last chapter……..

St. Petersburg. A city built at the direction of Peter the Great in the 18th century to the greater glory of….. himself. And at what a price. Many thousands of serfs died under wretched conditions while draining the marsh on which it sits and building its foundation. As locals blithely say, St. Petersburg was built on blood and bones.

There are no apologies, no recognition of this sacrifice. It seems as if every feature of the place – palace, stable, church, museum, theater, park, road – was devoted to the sole use and enjoyment of the tiny minority of nobles, while millions were mere human chattel, living in misery.

It is revolting to view room after room and museum after museum of baubles – snuff boxes, watches, gowns, carriages, Easter eggs, thrones, clocks, furnishings… even horse blankets and bridles – constructed of gold, silk, silver and loaded with gems and precious stones, all created for the exclusive use of the Romanov line of rulers…. few if any of whom appear to have had much in the way of redeeming qualities.

Catherine the Great created a private collection of art housed in a place she named the Hermitage; so called as to make it clear that these items, funded from the treasury of the Russian empire, were to be for her viewing alone. Empress Elizabeth had 15,000 ball gowns in her closet by the end of her realm, while the serfs froze to death.

The last tsar – Nicholas II – along with his wife Alexandra and five children – have been elevated to the status of martyrs in the orthodox church. People stand in line to kiss the feet of their statues and burn candles to icons in their names. Pilgrimages are made to the site in Yekaterinaberg where they were executed in 1918 by the Bolshevik government. Nobody talks about their callous indifference to the plight of the common people, or even of the murder of innocents in the tsar’s name who dared to speak out because they and their families were sick, starving and hopeless.

The visitor asks….. is there no museum or monument to the common people or the serfs, to show how they lived and to honor the sacrifices they made? Can we see where the servants and artisans who maintained the imperial lifestyle were housed? Of course not. Why would anybody want to see that? Well, if the tsar/emperor liked the bejeweled treasures he was acquiring from France and Italy so much, did he ever attempt to stimulate or encourage the growth of similar industry in Russia? Don’t be silly – why would he do that when he can use the wealth of the empire to buy it elsewhere?

No wonder this country was the starting point for a violent revolution dedicated to economic reform and the redistribution of property, however misguided it ultimately turned out.

Arrrggh, we’ve become clueless American bleeding hearts! Can’t we just admire the beauty of these creations for their own sake and get over this sick feeling of waste?

No, not really…….

Okay – rant over.  Now you know why there will not be a lot of photos of imperial goodies here.

The room at the hotel was really great, with a Currier & Ives view of the snowy park beyond our windows….

Pigeons in the park were well fed….. not that interested in crumbs from a well-fed East Texas forester…..

Insisted the guide – a peek at the (over-glorified) final resting place of the last tsar…

To give the tour operator credit for a good idea, a meal at the home of a local artist and his retired etymologist wife was a pleasure.

And a ballet performance of The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky at the Mariinsky Theater provided a glimpse of Russian culture…..

The only market purchase of note – local honey from the beekeepers’ daughter….

And just a few shots of modern Russian art…..

March 26 – we have returned to the USA.  Thanks again to those who have followed our journey.  We appreciate your attention and comments, and wish you all a wonderful spring wherever you may be…..

Happy trails!

 

 

Although sincerely meant, the tone of the last blog posting may leave the impression that this trip was generally disappointing.  

Not at all!  

Japan was delightful.  We were thrilled with the winter landscapes, and the people were welcoming and very kind.  In Russia we learned a lot about how the country has evolved since the fall of communism.  And of course the cornerstone of the trip was the Siberian rail journey, which was a phenomenal way of discovering something about this vast historic route.

We crossed paths with many fine folks as well – fellow travelers, local contacts, street vendors and guides.  If for no other reason, we wish everybody would travel like this…. to reinforce the fact that the residents of this planet have much more in common than we have differences…. to learn from our collective turbulent past to cherish peaceful coexistence and promote it for generations to come.

All in all, a great experience – although we have many things we will do differently should  we wander this way again.  

All the best to you and yours.