St. Petersburg, Russian Federation / Tallinn, Estonia
May 30, 2011 

Miles Traveled Today:  196

Total Miles so Far:  12, 606

This is the most beautiful bus have ever been on.  This is the double chocolate fudge with whipped cream and a blow job of busses.  What a great suggestion from John and Milana.  I was looking into taking a ferry from St .Petersburg to Tallinn, and asked their advice as Baltic residents themselves. 

“Forget the ferry, ” they said.  There’s a super nice bus.  Take the bus. 

Well, they weren’t kidding.  The Lux Express Special is gorgeous.  The seats are so nice and wide that there are only three of them across, not four.  There’s electrical outlets (yay!), headphones with audio and video entertainment, dinner, and super comfortable roomy seats.  Did I mention the seats. 

I wish I could take this bus from Helsinki to Los Angeles.

There’s even , supposedly, free wifi, but it’s not workingat the moment.  The nice young ladies seating back near the toilet assured me it would work as soon as we crossed the frontier from Russia to Estonia.

Speaking of Milana, great news:  She’s joining me in Tallinn!  Huzzah!  She’s parking the the baby at home in Vilnius, which is just  as well, because at this point little Viv does not much care for her Uncle Ray. 

Getting to the bus was a somewhat less deluxe experience.  Once again I was stymied by my lack of Russian . The train station where I was suppoed to catch the bus was huge, of course, and no one in it spoke a word of English (and why should they?).  It was a challenge finding where I was supposed to findthe damned luxury bus.  It’s ironic, considering how nice the bus is, that the setup for busses at the Leninskaya station is as awful as it is.  There’s just a big horseshoe driveway in front of the station where a thousand different kinds of busses just slouch throudh, willy-nilly.  There are no signs giving you any hint whatsever where to wait for your particular bus.  I finally enlisted the help of a sturdy, handsome employee of another bus line who grabbed half of my bags and walked me to the exact spot where, he promised me (I think, who knows) that my Lux Express would show up at 5:30.  And priase be to Stalin, he was right.

Speaking of language barriers, I did manage to solve one tiny communication cunundrum in the station  I had parked my bags and was taking a little walk, looking for snacks for the six hour ride, when a tiny little security hobbit came up to me.  He seemed very concerned about my bags.  He walked me  back to them and began gesturing towards the large broken zippered compartment of my large blue piece-of-shit bag.  After a few minutes I realized he was trying to tell me my bags had been vandalized.  How to explain to him that this compartment has been broken for years?  That, rather than replace the bag, I leave it light that because it has three collateral benefits:  1) it discourages would-be baggage thieves (why pick THIS crappy  bag to steal? 2) it helps me identify it when it gets regurgitated out of the baggage dispenser at the airport and 3) well, it saves me the money of replacing it.

To say I didn’t have adequate Russian to explain this to the security gnome would be like saying Sarah Palin didn’t have adequate skills to teach a course on geopolitics at the Harvard School of Foreign Affairs. 

Of course, this little Russian halfling’s English was no better than my Russian.  What language would we have in common?  I thought . Then I remembered the perfect word from my fifty-word German vocabulary.

“Kaput! “ I exclaimed, pointing at the broken compartment.  “it’s kaput!!”

“Oh!  Kaput!” he said, nodding and smiling.  Another potentially tense international confrontation defused.

I enjoyed my bus ride very much.  Having my laptop and an internet connection made the seven hours zip by. 

Worst Bus Ride Ever

• A thirty-six hour Greyhound ride from Kansas City to New York.  What made it special was the fact that, starting an hour into the ride, I became violently ill from food poisoning.  On a bus.  With one tiny, usually occupied, bathroom.  Oh, the humanity.

Moscow/St. Petersburg
May 28, 2011 

Distance Traveled Today: 393

Distance traveled so far: 12, 410

Well this morning has been wall-to-wall fail.  My train to St. Petersburg isn’t until 1:30, so I got up early and zoomed down to Red Square with a double agenda:  See Lenin and go inside St. Basil’s.  Lenin’s Tomb is only open very limited hours, but I figured I’d have time today.  Alas, whatever the huge celebration they’ve been planning since before I got here and have blocked off most of Red Square for is actually happening TODAY.  So.  The Square was totally locked down, Lenin’s Tomb opens an hour later than normal, and St. Basil’s is completely closed.  Double damn.

This is a pity, because here’s the thing about when you go see Lenin:  you see Lenin  By that I mean, they preserved his body, and it’s under glass like a pheasant.  That would have been cool to see.  And it’s a shame about St. Basil’s.  I could console myself by saying I’ve already been in a bunch of Russian churches, but I know from what I have read and from what people have told me that, just like its exterior, the interior of St. Basil’s is like no other church.

Even more tragic, I showed up at the Upside Down Bakery right when they opened, hoping to score a couple of the bacon parmesan muffins for the train ride, but alas, they only had the salmon ones today.  Yuck.

I certainly hope my fail trajectory doesn’t extend to the train station.  I can get a little anxious in a big train station in an English speaking country, just because they can be so big and busy.  Where is my train?  Am I waiting on the right platform?  Is my ticket alright?

Double that in a country where I don’t know the language.  Triple is in a country where I don’t know the alphabet.  Happily I have an English and Russian version of my ticket, so hopefully I’ll be able to navigate myself to the proper track on time.    

///

So:  Who’s the most responsible for winning World War II?  Everyone knows it was the Americans, right? Not so fast.  The Russians think different, and they’re pretty sick of hearing how America beat Hitler all by themselves.  Consider a couple of sobering statistics:  Americans lost 418, 000 people in the war, a mere 0.32% of its population.  The Soviet Union lost 23, 000, 000, which was 13% of their total population.  The Siege of Leningrad and the Battle of Stalingrad made any action on the Western Front look like a cocktail party. 

Of course, any reasonably educated gay person my age or older could tell you the real  truth, which was  that it was a gay man – Alan Turing – who was the single person most responsible for beating the Nazis.  He did it by breaking the Enigma Code.  Take that, America and Russia.

A Few Memorable Travel Fail Moments

• Getting pulled off a ride in Brigton, England, because I was too fat to be safely secured in my seat. 
• Missing an excursion out of Rome (but not getting a refund for my ticket) when I couldn’t figure out where to wait for the bus (sound familiar?)
• Missing a train connection in Italy that would have cost me a whole day, prompting my one-and-only experiment with hitchhiking

Moscow
May 27, 2011 

By a large margin, Russians are the most publicly passionate people I have ever seen.  The level of PDA is remarkable.  Almost every couple that’s walking together is hand in hand, and kissing abounds.  Of course, life being what it is, the gay couples have to be more discreet.  But they’re around.

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Last night I made it to a movie.  I saw Life in a Day, the first movie I’ve seen produced by YouTube.  It’s a beautifully edited documentary built from thousands of clips sent in from all over the world depicting ordinary people’s lives on July 24, 2010.  I really enjoyed it.

The theater experience was puzzling, however.  It was very challenging purchasing the ticket, as there was no clear way to point to the movie I wanted to see.  Happily an English-speaking native  in the line behind me helped.  Then the movie started almost forty minutes late.  No explanation, no apology.  That’s just how they cinematically roll in Moscow, I guess. 

I had no problems getting  there, a journey which required a subway ride with transfer and a walk.  As I’ve pointed out ad nauseum, I’m good at this.

It occurred to me on the way home that the New York subway is the only one I’ve been on (that I can remember, at least) that has an extensive network of both local  and express trains.  All the other systems I’ve been on have local only.  I wonder why that is?  Is it simply because of Manhattan’s linear shape?  That theory doesn’t hold water, as the rest of the boroughs are as round and lumpy as any other city map.  New York’s size?  That can’t be it, either.  There are plenty of subway systems in cities with larger areas than New York – Moscow, for example.

In fact, Moscow’s Metro carries the second –largest rider volume of any system in the world after Tokyo.  The city has over ten million people, after all. 

Another thing about New York’s subway:  It seems to me to be the shallowest of any I’ve ridden on.  Meaning you don’t seem to go so far into the ground.  I suppose that has something to do with the soil in New York.  But it also seems a bit surprising considering all those tall buildings it runs under – wouldn’t you need lots of room for the foundations of those buildings, and wouldn’t shallow subway tunnels interfere with that?  Oh well… my Dad’s the civil engineer, not me.  I’ll ask him.

Metropolitan Subway Systems I’ve Explored[1]

• New York
• Boston
• Washington
• Atlanta
• Los Angeles
• San Fransicso
• London
• Paris
• Brussels
• Munich
• Berlin
• Rome
• Moscow
• St. Petersburg
• Milan

  

Moscow
May 25, 2011 

It’s not . . . clear . . . whether or not I have a real reservation for a tour in St. Petersburg or not  Still waiting for confirmation from the website.  I realized I don’t really care.  I went online and in about ten minutes downloaded walking tours of St. Petersburg, Tallinn, and Helsinki.  Just saved myself about $200 and I’ll probably have more fun this way.  Besides, I might have some help in both Tallinn and Helsinki, companion-wise, so who needs an expensive formal tour?

Downloaded walking tours for St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Helsinki – easier, save lotsa dough.

I returned to the bakery (The Upside Down Bakery, to be precise) following  a nice walk after work.  I was surprised to find it stil open.  Alas, they were out of the muffins I wanted, but I had a delightful conversation with the Owner/Manager, an ex-pat Brit who explained to me that in Moscow bakeries regularly stayed open until 11:00 p.m. or even all night.  Very different from the American model, I told him.  I know, he said, having spent lots of time in the States.  I took his card and recommended them to the concierge at my hotel. 

I enjoy my walks through actual neighborhoods as much or more as I enjoy formal tours.  I like seeing how people really live.  I’m fascinated by urban life, and I enjoy seeing the different kinds of apartment house architecture, what the streets and parks are like, how the people seem to fit into them.  I’ve had this thought in all of the cities I’ve been in so far:  If I was here for an extended period of time, I’d definitely spend a lot of time just walking through neighborhoods like this.  I’ve spent thousands of hours doing the same thing in New York and Los Angeles, and I never get tired of it.

///

I have discovered where old has-been American rock, metal and and pop acts go to die:  Russia.  There’s so many rich people in Russia, I guess you can charge whatever you want for concert tickets, and I guess the nouveau riche here really love American has-been acts.  It’s amazing.

///

Moscow has terrible drainage.  Days after a small rainstorm, there are still gigantic puddles all over the place that you have to detour around.  Pity.

But a Few of the Concert Ads I’ve Seen

• Sting
• Whitesnake
• Kenny G
• Ringo Starr
• The Doors (!)
• Sinead O’Connor
• Seal
• John Fogarty
• Iron Maiden

  

Moscow
May 23, 2011 

First day in the Moscow office and all went well.  Colleagues took me to an Uzbek restaurant.  While I tucked into Karam Shurva (cabbage soup) and yummy cheese pie (sort of a large sopapilla), I bored my companions with how I loved Uzbekistan because it was one of the answers to my favorite geographical trivia question.[1]

Speaking of food, after work I found my Russian Mexican food.  I high-tailed it to Ла Кантина, which is La Cantina to you and me.  I had a very servicable chicken quesadilla and a lovely ear of asado corn.

To get there, I took a nice long walk through the neighborhoods between where the Firm’s office is and the Kremlin area.  I was happy that my sense of navigation was working properly (though to be honest, the Kremlin is kind of hard to miss).  It was the first real time I’d strolled through a real “neighborhood, ” rather than a large busy main thoroughfare, and I enjoyed myself.  I enjoyed the architecture, the bustle of city life, and also the gorgeous Russians themselves.  I may have to revise my list of Cities With the Most Attractive People. 

///

Okay, more on those Orthodox icons.  It turns out that people really DO worship the icons themselves.  From all the stories I’ve heard about Moscow’s history (“And in this battle the famous Awesome Icon of Weeping Mary was credited for winning the battle against the Tatars!”) it’s clear that the “veneration” of icons leads people into thinking they have magical powers.  I have to conclude that the theological criticism from Western Christianity regarding idol worship are fair.  Sorry, Russia. 

Russian churches are weird.  They tend to be very small, and they never have seats of any kind.  You always stand in a Russian church.  Also, the incense in them is absolutely stifling.  It’s thicker than the thickest patchouli I’ve ever experienced at the hippiest Austin party.  It’s so think even when holding your nose you can feel it hammering against the back of your throat.  I don’t get how the faithful can tolerate it.

They also seem to have little choirs going all the time, singing the most beautiful music.  I’d stand and listen to it longer if I wan’t having to hold my breath.

Theological Advantages of Protestantism Over Catholicism and Orthdox Christianity

• No intercession necessary – hey, you get to pray to God directly!
• Religious professionals can marry, a practice with many diverse benefits
• Church authority much less vertical and authoritative
• You get to actually read the Bible yourself , instead of having it interpreted for you
• Fewer gods (only four:  God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Satan), compared to Catholicism which is those four plus all the saints plus Mary, and Orthodox, which is all the Catholic gods plus magic icons

(Of course, the fact that I was encouraged to read the Bible on my own was the beginning of the process that led me to abandoning religion altogether, but the points of my list are still valid.)