RUSSIA - HOLIDAYS IN THE MOTHERLAND

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I intended to, after each day, complete a write up for the day's activities at night. I kinda did it to start, but that faltered off quickly. So here I am, three weeks after getting back from the trip, finally getting to writing this blog post up. Here goes...

Phase 1: PDX - SJC

After a nice week and a half just hanging out and (not) getting caught up on sleep in Portland, I made my way down to San Jose to meet up with Zack before flying out. Overall, it was a nice couple of days. Coming from the cold and wet PNW in Portland to the sunny, bright, and warm Bay Area was a nice but brief reprieve from winter.

We chowed down on some delicious burritos at La Victoria's (go there if you're ever in San Jose) and saw the new Star Wars (I loved it, go see it), I had apparently the World's Best Breakfast Burrito at Rosalena's, met up with some of my former coworkers in the Sunnyvale office (still one of the greatest places I've worked at, team-wise and atmosphere-wise, also, I got to see some of the final results of my project there!), and I even got the chance to watch Zack coach some hockey. But, after a couple of days, it was time to make our move.

Quick Hits - Sidewalk Solitude

Everywhere I've been over the last three months in Asia has been packed with people. Tokyo, the largest city in the world, 37 million strong. Seoul, South Korea's hub, busy and bustling. Beijing, gigantic on all accounts, chocked full of people as the biggest city in the most populous country in the world. So, naturally, walking around the city there, regardless of time of day, you were never far away from other people around every corner.

But to be honest, it was quite weird being in America because it is usually the complete opposite of that. I was walking from Zack's place to the breakfast burrito place, and I passed one, maybe two people the whole way. It's so desolate; walking in the US, at least in non-major downtown areas, is almost non-existent. Everyone has a car, and there is no reliable or wide-spread (network-wise) public transportation options. Because of this, everyone has their own vehicle to use for everything, except in the rare case that where you want to go is less than a 10 minute walk from your dwelling. Granted, a suburb of San Jose might not be the best representation of this, but even walking in downtowns like Seattle and SF, it's almost desolate in comparison. (Future me talking... Even in Charlotte, it was pretty desolate. I landed on a Sunday and went to downtown to walk around, it felt empty).

I think it's a shame that it's like that here in the US. There's something to be said about going about your business and being in the midst of the rest of the city doing the same thing. I think, for me at least, it gives me a more connected feeling to the rest of the city and society in general, which is kinda nice.

Quick Hits - This Ain't Tokyo Anymore...

One of the things I was astounded by and really became accustomed to was how safe everything was in Japan. You could leave your wallet on a table, or your passport at a bar (oops...) and no one would even think about touching it or usually even moving it. Everyone sticks to their own thing and let's everyone else's world be.

Well, America is definitely not like that. Petty crime is a thing here. So as I was waiting for my burrito, I threw my stuff at a table outside to save my spot. After a while of waiting and reading, I went inside to see when my order was up. The whole time I was inside I kept an eye on my stuff, worrying that someone was going to walk by and swipe something of mine.

Maybe my paranoia is unwarranted, maybe I just worry too much, but I definitely didn't have the same feeling of security as I did in Tokyo. And it's a shame. There's something to be said about being able to trust society without hesitation of someone doing something stupid.

Phase 2: SFO - VOG

Zack and I took the train up to the airport from San Jose and on the way I got super pumped for the trip. Despite how much I've been traveling lately, this one had a more private feeling to it; this was something we did all on our own, and the feeling was something pretty awesome.

We got to the airport and checked in. While waiting, we spent some time talking to Charles from Switzerland about India and how great a place to visit it is, as well as the exodus of people from Germany from WWI and WWII. After a great conversation over a beer with the guy, it was time to board. WAHOO!!!

We got seated and Zack all of a sudden said he wouldn't talk to me the rest of the trip unless I watched Wrecking Ball. Holy shit, fucking hilarious. "You know what. I didn't need a beer, I needed this." Not sure why, but that's what it took to get Zack into Trip Mode. Let's go.

Pre-Trip Prep

For an eleven hour flight, it went by really quickly. It was a 2-3-2 setup in the plane, and Zack and I had our own little section to ourselves. That was extremely pleasant.

We landed in Zurich and were met by a completely empty airport. There was almost nobody there, and it was a lotta bit weird. But after 10 minutes of being there and seeing we had a 5 hour layover, we decided on a spur-of-the-moment trip to downtown to pass the time. What does that mean? Weihnachstmärkte und Glühwein!!!!!

Ten minutes on the train from the airport and we were already downtown. We wandered through the Hbf Markt but then slowly meandered along the riverfront before diving into the pedestrian zone.

What a lovely night. Nice, brisk, fresh air, clear skies, and tons of people walking around enjoying the wonderful holiday season. We walked around a good bit, enjoyed all the lights, and then topped it all off with a nice warm cup of Glühwein. No better way to celebrate the holidays.

Before heading back to the airport, we stopped by a supermarket and got a small dinner. Then, 20 minutes later, we were already back at the airport and through security waiting for our flight to Moscow. That was the perfect way to spend the long layover. We got some fresh air, did a good bit of walking, and enjoyed the beautiful market atmosphere in a beautiful European city. Hell yeah.

As we were sitting around in the airport, I started to get a bit intimidated about the trip and just Russia in general. It made things interesting that there was a separate passport control booth before you could board the plane where all passengers had to get their passport documents checked and verified, then get in line to board. But the line to board was more of a morass of people jumbled all together. Then, when they finally opened the door to the jetway, there was no rhyme or reason to it, everyone just flooded in as fast as they could. It was kinda weird. That, and the people were just a bit intimidating, but more on that later. Also, even just standing in line for the flight, I realized there are a lot of attractive Russian females, but more on that later too.

The flight to Moscow just needed to get over with. It really wasn't too long and not extremely terrible, but the flying needed to be done. But even once we got to Moscow, we had yet another long layover after our 2:30am arrival. I got some sleep (maybe an hour) then just hung out to pass the time. We grabbed breakfast, played some cards, talked a bit, but I mainly did a lot of people watching. And to be honest, it was pretty exciting.

• So, as I said before, there are a lot of attractive females here in Russia. I mean, I did a good bit of research over the trip, and the reputation Slavic women have regarding their beauty definitely holds up. But, as a caveat to that, they seem to all be of a particular mold (at least a good portion of the ones I saw). They give off a bit of a snooty air, seem to be dressed to the nines in either luxury or something flashy, are done up pretty well, and have that little hitch in their step that seems to show that they think a bit of themselves. So that's interesting.
• As with other countries, the little kids are adorable. A big majority of the ones running around on their own or being guided by their parents were wearing snow bibs that made them look like the kid from A Christmas Story. It was adorable.
• In Japan, people were completely blank faced. Here, they're somewhat emotionless, but with a clear hint of determination and a touch of detest or anger. It's kinda weird, and notably intimidating.
• Well, after a good dose of that, we boarded our plane and headed down to Volgograd. Oh boy. The plane ride wasn't the best, but we eventually made it.

Volgograd - Волгогрaд

Let's just say the airport was a bit underwhelming. There was one baggage claim thing in an outbuilding, two planes total on the tarmac, and just a lot of interesting first impressions were had. But, it turned out to be a somewhat representative glimpse of the city and area; a little gritty, a little rural, but definitely not lacking in character.

We took a taxi to our hostel (we got duped) and were completely blown away by the lawless nature of the roads. All bets are off, no holds barred, whatever you want to call it, that's what it is. It was crazy and exhilarating. Also, another fun aspect of Volgograd was the state of things; the infrastructure is absolutely terrible. It was a dirty and pot-holey way to the city center and hostel, which made for quite the ride.

But we got to our hostel, got in, put our stuff down, and started walking around. Despite the ridiculous jet lag and terrible nights' sleep in Domodedovo airport, we (I'm assuming we both did), had an awesome first day in Russia.

We mostly just walked through town, but we got to see a lot of cool stuff and sights along the way. We walked through the main train station and saw some impressive murals on the ceiling depicting some major events in Soviet history, walked down to the waterfront and saw some cool statues and buildings, walked past the Panorama Museum, saw a giant statue of Lenin in one of the squares, and then crossed off a major item on my bucket list - The Motherland Calls.

Holy balls this statue is awesome. To start, it's absolutely huge at 87m tall. It was the tallest sculpture in the world at the time of its completion in 1967 (now 12th according to wikipedia), but maintains the title of the tallest sculpture of a woman in the world today. The body is made solely of concrete and rebar, and was framed and poured incrementally in layers (you can see the layer delineations on the statue), which is absolutely nuts considering the fluid features of the statue and the erratic shape of the arm sticking out and the dress flowing. It's nuts. Truly awesome. The sword sticking out of the top is 33m long in and of itself.

In addition to the awesome-ness and size of The Motherland Calls, there's another statue within the memorial complex that really grabbed my attention. It's modeled after one of the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad, General Chuikov. It's a badass looking statue, with Chuikov built like a rock to symbolize Directive Number 227 from Stalin, "Not One Step Backwards", also written on the base of the statue. I got a little mini-statue of this guy at the flea market in St. Petersburg, and I'm stoked to have him hanging out on my desk.

But, after a good bit of walking around, we headed back to the hostel to try and get some sleep.

The next day, for our first full day in Russia, we started a two-day guided tour from a company in Volgograd. A guy named Mikhail (one of the managers of the company who only leads the more private, smaller tours) drove us around for two days showing us a lot of the major and minor sights in Volgograd related to the Great Patriotic War. Oh yeah, Russians refer to WWII as the Great Patriotic War, but more on that later. And they have a ribbon (The Ribbon of St. George) that is a national symbol of victory during the war. We both got a little one from Mikhail, but somehow mine untied itself from my camera during the trip. :'-(

Mikhail gave us a great guided tour over the two days, and really shared with us a lot of cool information and insight into what happened in Stalingrad during and after the battle. Here's a random list of some things we learned along the way:

• Winston Churchill requested that Stalingrad not be rebuilt after the war. He wanted it to remain in its destructed state to serve as a reminder for war and a means to prevent further world conflict.
• The Panzer Memorials (17 total) delineate the Soviet front line of defense from September to November 1942.



• Pavlov's house, near the Panorama Museum, was taken over by Pavlov and two other guys.
• Pavlov's house was marked as a fortress on Nazi General Paulus' map of Stalingrad because it was so heavily fortified.



• The extended left hand of The Motherland Calls points in the direction of Moscow, symbolizing her call to the people of Russia.
• The Red October steel factory still produces the most steel in all of Russia to this date.
• The Nazis only ever secured half of the Red October factory.
• The Red October steel factory is one of a trifecta of huge and impressive factories in the northern area of Volgograd. They all have super old architecture and infrastructure, but they're all still in use today. They are the Red October (steel), Barricadi (guns), and Tractor factories.



• Volgograd has a bunch of sister cities, around 60 of them, and most of them are cities that were also destroyed in the war (Hiroshima, Dresden, Coventry, etc.).
• In Russian Orthodox churches, people stand for the entire service, which sometimes last for a few hours.
• According to Zack, "that would be the end of religion in America." I kinda agree with that.
• The only time that the Nazis ever reached the banks of the Volga river running through Stalingrad was through a part of town called Little France.
• According to Zack, "it figures...".
• People estimate that roughly 2 million soldiers died at the Battle of Stalingrad, most of whom's whereabouts are still unknown today. The sheer quantity of soldiers that have been found have given rise to mass graves all throughout the city and the area. Most of these mass graves have the remains of 1000s soldiers.
• Russian track gauge is larger than most parts of the world allegedly because of Peter The Great. When asked if they should use the same gauge as Europe or be different, he said "Why the fuck would we make it wider?" Well, fuck in Russian sounds like the word penis, and since those guys misheard Peter the Great's exclamation, they ended up making the tracks roughly a penis length wider than Europe's gauge. Again, allegedly...



• The quality and feel of an apartment in Russia can be judged purely based on the architectural style of the building, which is judged based on the Soviet Premier in power during time of construction. Stalinska buildings (built during Stalin's period of reign) are spacious and enjoyable, whereas the Kruschevska buildings are a little more cramped and not so nice. Kind of a cool classification of a place just based on the era of construction.
• One of the memorials/monuments we visited was for a crew of radio operators. The four of them were stuck in a cave on a cliff off the banks of the Volga, and they lasted for six weeks maintaining open radio communication the entire time.

Well, as I said, we saw a lot of cool stuff with Mikhail. Things like the Grain Elevator, where forty Soviet soldiers held the Nazis off for five days and 10 different assaults...

...(pictured above) the Red October steel factory and Pavlov's House, the memorial to the radio operators (view from the lookout at the memorial near their location)...

...tons of cool and meaningful statues and paintings and mosaics and more...

...the Panorama Museum, one of the most extensive WWII museums in the world...

...the Memory Museum, located where Nazi General Paulus officially surrendered to the Red Army...

...multiple memorials and mass graves of both sides of the conflict (Soviet as well as Nazi and Romanian)...

...and of course, Mamayev Kurgan, with Motherland Calls, Chuikov's Statue, the Hall of Eternal Flame, and other statues and monuments...

Two funnyish things during our tour with Mikhail. He asked us a bit about what we and others close to us thought of Russia, essentially he wanted to hear about the outsider's perspective of his country. We explained our feelings (intimidated, thought it was a little scary and unsafe) and after that, he adamantly explained just how safe Russia is. It's a safe place for people to visit, and he was pretty clear about that. (It is, I'll deliberate later on).

Later on that day, we were driving around the Red October steel factory, and it was clear we were going off the beaten path, it looked a little sketch. Mikhail said something to the effect of, 'we're heading to the kind of place where I stop, ask for the money, and the tour is over.' I laughed, but there was still a tiny fraction of my mind that was like, 'oh shit. He's gonna do this. we're fucked.' Mikhail is a super nice guy and awesome tour guide, but the overall intimidation I felt from Russia wasn't completely gone at that point in time. But, being the great tour guide he is, it was a clear overreaction on my part.

I learned a helluva lot about the Battle of Stalingrad and Russia while we were in Volgograd thanks to Mikhail and Zack. It was definitely the monumental battle of WWII, and it as well as the war have had a very lasting impact on the country and the culture.

Big shout out and Thank You to Mikhail for the awesome tour-guiding, knowledge, discussion, and time showing us around in Volgograd! To everyone else, if you're ever in Volgograd, look him up and have him show you around! (Stalingrad Tours)

A little anecdote - it seemed like every café we went into had really weird cover songs of popular US music (Michael Jackson, Sting, stuff from the 60s...) playing. And that wasn't just in Volgograd, but pretty consistent everywhere we went. It was kinda weird... But hey, that's part of the experience, right!?

Zack and I had a nice last night in Volgograd, where we wined and dined ourselves on some delicious food, and afterwards, with a clear and brisk night available to us, we took the streetcar back to Mamyev Kurgan to check out The Motherland Calls at night. Oh boy was this a treat.

The statue is unbelievably impressive as is, but seeing it on a clear night lit up was awesome. I got to put my new tripod (Rick) to the test, and it came through to capture the awesome monument on a great night.

Overall, I had an awesome time in Volgograd. It was a bit hectic, with the jet lag, not getting much sleep, and having our days booked up with our tour with Mikhail, but it is really an interesting city. Of course, being able to see Motherland Calls and epically crossing that off my bucket list was a big win for sure. But even besides that, we had some great food, saw some very historically significant things and sights and memorials, and had a good first experience of a pretty true city in the motherland.

Food Stuff in Volgograd

While in Stalingrad, we had our best and most extensive rendezvous with Russian Cuisine. And OHHHH BOY is it delicious. The first night, at Mikhail's recommendation, we checked out this one place called Marusya, and it was awesome. I had the calf with pepper, pilmeni, and chicken dumplings, and dayyyyum was it delicious.

We found out in Volgograd, but overall in Russia, they do a thing called a business lunch. It's a set meal (salad, soup, entree, and drink) for a really cheap price during lunch time. Both days with Mikhail and during the rest of our trip, we took full advantage of this awesome phenomenon, and it was just that. Awesome.

There's a drink called Кисель (Keesel) that we got to try at lunch the second day and it's delicious. I'm still not completely sure what it is, but it was super sugary and yummy. Similar to if a jam was more of a liquid vs. a paste. We paired that in our business lunch with some kind of casserole. It looks more like a pie, but it was a casserole, and it was also delicious.

On our last night in Volgograd, to top it all off and cap off a great two days, we went to dinner at this one place and had some great food with a Georgian bottle of wine. It was kind of weird, because the place was empty except for us, but the service was great, the atmosphere a little high-end, the wine was exceptional, the pancakes and caviar were super, and the beef stroganoff (an artistic spinoff) was delicious.

Phase 3: VOG - LED

On the way to the airport, in order to catch our 6am flight, we took a taxi through the dark 'highways' leading to Gumrak airport near Volgograd. The guy that was driving us was quite the character. He was clearly an older guy, but he only played some pretty intense techno music for the duration of the drive. It felt like a total dance party inside the freezing cold car.

But we made it all safe and sound to the airport, wandered around the single-gate terminal for as long as we could, then boarded our hammer-and-sickle-branded Aeroflot jet (no joke). We had a quick pitstop at Moscow Sheremetyevo before finally jumping onto another branded Aeroflot plane for Flight #6 of the trip to get us to our second destination, St. Petersburg.

For some reason, I was super hyper-sensitive about my surroundings and personal bubble on this travel phase of the trip. I'm not sure why, but I wanted my personal space and got super p.o.'d when I didn't get it. But, the trip ended at some point and I got over it.

Saint Petersburg - Санкт-Петербyрг

After a safe and sound arrival at Pulkovo Airport, we took a minibus to a subway to get to our hostel. The minibus - cheap and raw, but a cool way to get around. They're essentially 15-passenger vans that are buses with a number on them, and I guess it takes insider/local knowledge to know where they go. Thankfully this one was clear on getting us to the subway station.

The subway - wow. They're super deep compared to anything I'd seen before. We're talking 60, 70, 80m below ground with giant escalators to get you down there. Check out this ok time-lapse of the journey back up to the outside world. Actually, St. Petersburg is home to the second deepest metro station in the world, Admiralteyskaya is located 86m underground, outdone only by a station in Kiev that is 105.5m underground.

After the great transportation adventures to get us to the city center, we ended up just there, in the city center, and made the short walk to our hostel. We checked into MIR Hostel (thanks for the recommendation Katherine!) and realized it's in an awesome location and is a pretty sweet place in and of itself.

Great Quote from Zack: - "Everything I say is bullshit unless you believe it."

We were both hungry, so we Yelped and found this place with some bomb-ass Indian food. It was good like woah, and they gave us a ton of food. Content with vittles, we started walking around the main area of downtown, walking by the Admiralty, the Hermitage, the main square, the riverfront, and a bunch of places. We were both a bit tired from the early rise, so we headed back for a nap at some point.

A quick 20-min power nap turned into a lot longer, which was not the best for still trying to acclimate to the time difference. Somehow, we both managed to wake up and move and groove, so we went out and get some dinner and headed to Craft Beer Cafe just down the street. We got some food, and unfortunately, I had three airballs on my beer choices for the night. I've never had that happen to me, and it was a bit of a downer. But thankfully that was not a sign of things to come!

Day 2 in St. Petersburg, we got to chatting with one of the women that works at the hostel. Elena turned out to be a great connection, and we stayed in touch with her throughout our stay there. More on that to come. Well we had a nice discussion with her about how Russians are super proud of WWII. It is still a huge part of their culture and their society. Everyone is and was affected and it still remains a big deal in their culture, which is kinda crazy to hear about that and compare that to American culture. Deep dive on this later on. Also, she said/mentioned that Russians are worried that the U.S. will provoke a war with them. This was quite a shock to hear, and hopefully will never happen! This is a HUGE reason why interpersonal cultural exchange is extremely important. It connects random people from vastly different backgrounds to show the humanity behind another place/person/area.

Zack and I left the hostel around sunrise (weird having it around 10:00am) and did a little bit of walking around before joining in on the Free Walking Tour. We had an awesome tour guide, Anastasia, who showed us around town and shared some cool information along the way.

Cool Fact - Ladybug in Russian means 2God's Little Cow.

We walked by a lot of the sights Zack and I saw the day before, but this time through we got a good bit of the history and the meaning behind a lot of the things. For instance, the obelisk in the center of Palace Square weighs roughly 600 tons and is carved from a single piece of marble. It's huge.

And the statue on top of it is meant to be Jesus, but the carving mysteriously resembles (I think) Peter the Great, the guy who commissioned the piece.

Additionally, this statue of Peter the Great was covered with dirt and garbage during WWII in order to prevent it from being bombed and destroyed. Crazy!

There's also a cat crosswalk outside of the Hermitage. There are around 50 cats that live in the basement of the former palace/now museum, and they have their own crosswalk outside. I'm not sure why, but it's there.

Outside of one of the entrances to the Hermitage, there are 10 statues of Atlas, 9 of which are identical. They were each carved from a single piece of marble, and were also miraculously spared from large damage during WWII. I really liked these guys. The pose that they have to hold up the building is pretty awesome.

After the great tour, Zack and I grabbed another business lunch at a place called The Marketplace. And it was delicious. Satisfied, we headed across the river to the Peter and Paul Fortress to explore the many things there. First up was the church where the last of the Romanov's are buried. This was pretty crazy, to see the burial place of Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia.

The fortress also contains a prison that was used, not only during the czar era, but also during the Soviet era. It was used to house important political prisoners and revolutionaries, and we took a quick jaunt through that museum.

Afterwards, we walked along the water to get a nice view of parts of the fortress and of the other side of the river towards the main part of downtown. We had a great night for some exploring, and I got to bust out Rick (my tripod) again and get a couple cool shots.

After finishing our jaunt through the Peter and Paul Fortress, we had a bit of a rough patch. The fortress is on the other side of the river from the main downtown area, and we found out that there is nothing on that side of the river in terms of restaurants and stuff. We walked a good few miles tired and hangry before we found a little coffeeshop to get some coffee and cake to figure out our next move.

A little bit more walking and we got back to the main part of town and found a place to eat. We walked a shitton that day, and shortly after we were done with dinner, we were back at the hostel sleeping (or at least trying to).

The next day we, decided to spend Christmas at first at the Hermitage. BIG shoutout to my BuckID. Free admission to the museum as a 'student'. WHATUP. But this place was crazy. Super refined and opulent. To be honest, I could give or take some of the artwork, but the building and the furnishings in and of themselves were worth going to see, including the throne room used by Nicholas II.

Along with the many decorative and opulent rooms, I was really drawn to the floors. The floors, you ask? Yes, the thing people walked on all over the palace. A lot of the flooring was wooden, and holy shit was I blown away by the intricate designs used throughout the palace. It was absolutely amazing, and to think all of that was done by hand. The craftsmanship of such work blew me away. It's even crazier to see that these kinds of designs were all over the place, in nearly every room, not just in one spot. I couldn't even comprehend the man hours needed to accomplish something like that!

With tons of opulence admired and beautiful artwork analyzed (not really), we made our way from the Hermitage back across the river and headed past a beautiful mosque to the Russian Museum of Political History. Here we learned all about communism and its role in Russia, and how it came to be through the Bolshevik Revolution, and we got to see one of Lenin's former offices and the balcony where he'd talk to the people of Soviet Russia from, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Close by to there was something a little atypical, but something I wanted to see just because of the name. On the city map it stood out as the "Cabin of Peter the Great". Turns out, it was exactly that. This cabin was the first building that was erected in Petrograd/St. Petersburg, and was Peter's little home as the city was being built. It's pretty rustic and small, but it's pretty cool that they've kept it up and together as a reminder of the city's beginnings!

We walked back from the other side of the river towards the main area, and timed it up just right to see a light show in Palace Square. Aeroflot, because they can, sponsored a giant light show projected onto the building across from the Hermitage on the square, and it was actually pretty awesome. They did a good job at reminding viewers that Aeroflot was the only sponsor of the event, but they still put on a pretty good show. Here's a little snippet (St. Petersburg Castle Light Show)

To round out the night and to celebrate the holiday, we both skyped with our families back home. It's weird being away from home and families during the holidays. Somehow, it's become a bit of a tradition for me, and not a good one. For two out of the last three years I've been in a foreign country for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Although the overall feel of holidays and stuff have slowly become just another day of the year to me, it's still hard and annoying not being together with family to celebrate and just hang out together. But, we were able to chat for a bit and wish each other a happy day and stuff, so mission somewhat accomplished.

That next day, Saturday, we had a successful time of adventuring around in the high winds. First, we wandered to St. Isaacs to explore the 4th largest church in the world and get a view of the city from the top of the dome. It's quite the impressive church, and inside it's very expansive while outside on top of the dome you get a pretty cool view of the entire city.

Then, after a short walk and being misguided by the ticket booth and the security guard, we eventually made our way into the room where Rasputin was allegedly murdered. They had a whole exhibit up for it showcasing the story (mostly in Russian) about Rasputin's murder and the story behind it, but we got to see it, and it was pretty crazy. There was a picture of the scene from the time of the murder, and the room they showcase in the exhibit is that same room. Also, the courtyard where he was shot in the back after he ran out of the palace (after they tried to poison him and then shot him) is now a playground. Fun fact.

From there, we took the train up to Udel'naya, a bit outside of town, for a fun change of pace. There we went and thoroughly explored a flea market for whatever we could find. Zack was on the hunt for a Soviet atlas, and I was just window shopping. But regardless, we came away with a good haul. He got a soviet map of the USSR and an awesome bust of Lenin. I got a little statue of the Not a Step Back (Chuikov) statue in Volgograd. Successful all around. We even got to see Papa John.

Hungry and a little tired, we made our way to a very awesome gastro pub. A delicious cheese platter, some sammiches, a pizza, and some delicious Russian beer fueled us back up from a good morning.

A quick nap at the hostel was way too quick. But after we woke up, Elena, the friendly lady at the hostel, invited us to a couch surfing party. It was pretty fun sitting around, eating oranges, and drinking some wine with a bunch of Russians and a Canadian. We had lively discussion about a ton of stuff and a lot of fun. It was a shame, obviously, that we couldn't speak the language, but regardless, it was a very cool experience, and extremely generous show of hospitality.

The next day, as our time in St. Petersburg was winding down to a close, we hit up some of the other sites Zack had on his list. First, we walked down the main street to the train station, and enjoyed the early morning, pre-sunrise hustle and bustle on a cold day. From there, we walked over to the Smolny Institute, the former headquarters of the Bolshevik Revolution. We tried to go in, thinking there was some kind of museum or something inside, but the two security guards posted up in their little shed said we couldn't go inside.

A little bummed, we started walking back towards the main part of town and grabbed another delicious meal along the way. The day was quite beautiful, with the sun out and clear skies, and just the right amount of mist to make it all pretty picturesque.

We then tried to go into the museum about the Siege of Leningrad, but that was closed. That was a bit of a bummer, and unfortunately, a sign of some further-related disappointment. But we kept walking around, went into the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, the colorful cathedral on the canal, and went inside. It was pretty intense, because 99% of the walls inside were covered in mosaics. Pretty mindblowing. A quick jaunt in there, then we did a last little walk through Palace Square and a few other places as the sun was setting.

We lead a bit of a search for a place to eat on that last night there. We went into a couple places and looked at the menu but turned around and walked out. Eventually we ended up at the first place we saw for food and it turned out pretty good. Overall for the night we had an end game insight, but had no idea just how awesome it would be.

Rockets and Bishops was a hole in the wall we literally stumbled upon during our food search, and promptly decided we must return to. So as soon as we were done with our food, we headed back there to the best craft beer tap room in St. Petersburg. And oohhhhhhhh boy did our host for the evening, Vladimir, hook us up.

First thing that was observed when we walked in was 'Olympia, WA'. A cascadia dark ale on tap, brewed by Rockets & Bishops. Apparently one of their brewers is from Olympia. Naturally, that was what I had to have. And holy shit was it delicious.

We had an awesome night there. Vladimir kept helping us out with samples of the different brews and we had a great conversation with the guy about a bunch of stuff. And to top it all off, we walked away with a couple plastic soda-type bottles full of a couple of their beers for the way to Moscow, which made me even more stoked than I already was for the train ride to Moscow. Oh yeah, we spur-of-the-moment decided on taking a train down. What a way to end our awesome time in St. Petersburg.

Great Quote from Zack: "You know what, it destroys you until it doesn't."

A Quote from me: "No life but the good life."

Quick Hits - Green and Gold

In the Hermitage, and something that popped up a couple of other places later on, was green marble or granite used for artwork or building decorations. I was truly captivated by it. Green being my favorite color, and the green hue found in this material matching closely to my favorite hue of Green Bay Packers Green, it really drew my attention. I wouldn't mind having a piece or two of this decorate my dwelling at some point in time.

Quick Hits - Odds Are

I only heard about this game through hanging out with Zack, but there's a game called "Odds Are" and it should really be played by everyone. Well, at some point during the trip as we were perusing some kind of kitschy or cool souvenir store, there was one with a pretty authentic looking Soviet military hat. Well, I Odds Are'd him, and I was one number off from getting him to buy the hat and wear it nonchalantly through US Customs. Now THAT would have been a good one to spectate...

Phase 4: Moscovsky Station - Leningradsky Station

So yeah, during our time in St. Petersburg, thanks to a guy we met from New York on the free walking tour, we found out that there was a high-speed train link between Moscow and St. Petersburg, the only one of its kind in the country. We already had a flight booked to get to Moscow, but seizing life by the hammer and sickle, we bought ourselves a ride on the train instead. And boy oh boy was it definitely the right choice.

We had an early start to get ourselves to the train, and we ran into some major frustrations with the poor signage and lack of clarity at the train station, but once we boarded the train and found our seats, we had an awesome and relaxing train ride down. To be honest, the experience was almost identical to Deutsche Bahn's ICE. But it was really good.

Along the way, we drank some of the delicious beer we snagged from Rockets & Bishops the night before and snacked on some stuff. It was really a pleasant ride down. A quick three and a half hours from one city to the next, and before we even realized it, we'd made it to the capital of the largest country on earth.

Moscow - Mockba

To be honest, it was really pretty crazy to realize that we made it to Moscow. Zack was in a good amount of disbelief and excitement, and I pretty much fed off of him. We finally got off the train and made our way out of the train station, and this is what we saw when we walked out of the doors...

We then got our first taste of the b-e-a-utiful Moscow metro system. Although that was a short trip, we knew we'd enjoy the many times we'd use it during our stay there. Well, we got to our hostel, checked in and dropped our stuff off, then began wandering around. First stop: Red Square.

Our hostel was in a really awesome location. It was only a 10 minute walk away from Red Square, and it really proved to be a good choice. So a quick 10 minutes away from the front door, Zack finally got to step into the infamous Red Square. And aside from the christmas market, it was quite impressive. Quite massive, and surrounded by the walls of the Kremlin on one side, a giant department store (Gym, pronounced Goom), a history museum of sorts, and St. Basil's Cathedral were quite a sight to see in all directions.

We walked through Red Square and wanted to make our way to the Lubyanka Building, but along the way we got duped by the classic touristy photo maneuver by some douchebag dressed up as Stalin. We almost just dipped and ran, but ended up paying the guy half of what he asked, but what a douche...

Well our journey led us through some christmasly-decorated streets, next to some nice police officers...

...as well as a few other things. But then we got to see the Lubyanka Building and damn is it impressive, but also fairly nondescript. If you didn't know (like me...), this was the former headquarters of the KGB and the current headquarters of the new FSB, you wouldn't bat an eye passing it. But it's a pretty big building, and I could only imagine all the stuff that's happened inside of it.

Because it was Moscow, and because a lot of stuff has happened here, Zack had a few tours that he wanted to go on while we were in town. The first one was the Communist Tour, supposed to highlight a bunch of the relevant places and things downtown that played an important role during the communist era. Well, this ended up being THE WORST tour ever. It was SUPPOSED to be a tour on Communism in Russia and Moscow but it ended up being a hodge podge of pure shit. Holy hell was it a waste of time. Our tour guide was really terrible; it seemed like she had no idea what she was talking about, and threw in a bunch of random non-sensical one-liners to distract from her incompetency. Bwuh. Absolutely terrible.

We were both itching for it to end. It dragged on for what seemed like forever. But finally she came to the end, and after some awkward 'friendship hug' at the end, we bolted as fast as we could away from her. Her boredom built up an appetite, so we found some food and then called it a night.

Sidenote: this is the department store right next to Red Square, Gym (pr. Goom).

The next day turned out to be productive and awesome. And it was a beautiful day to boot, so all around a great time. We started off doing something science-y but history-y at the same time. The Russian Museum of Cosmonautics, analogous to the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, was quite a cool place. To start, the building is a monument in and of itself in its shape, with a rocket at the top and the majority of the building making up the rockets contrail.

And the inside was just as cool too. Full of full scale satellite models of those that started the space race, scaled models of the many rockets and capsules that helped fuel a bit of the Cold War, and tons of other scientifically and historically significant artifacts and things. Quite the visit, and an awesome way to start off the day.

From there, we found another awesome statue. It's the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman just down the street from the museum. This one was a little different, because it wasn't set out from anything by itself. It was just sitting on top of a building (I can't remember what it was) as a very awesome building-topper. But it was huge, and awesome, as most statues in Russia are.

Next it was off to a the "All Russia Exhibition Center". What a cool place. Full of awesomely ornate and well-crafted buildings with mosaics and statues and a ferris wheel and stuff all over the place. Pictures rather than words:

After our nice little jaunt through the 'park', we took a lovely little tram to go over to Moscow's TV Tower. Well, we got to the stop, and after a frustrating little bit of walking around and wondering why the hell they don't use proper signage anywhere around there, we found the entrance. Another bout of signage-frustration, and we found the ticket counter. Lucky for us too, because we timed it up right at the start of another tour! It was all in Russian though, so we just oooooh'd and aahhhh'd at the somewhat hazy view of the huge city of Moscow. What a beautiful view!

We slowly then made our way back to town after grabbing a quick snack of meat, cheese, and bread, and then made our way back to Red Square and the area close by. Not just sticking to the main part, we went down on a bridge over the river flowing right by the Kremlin and enjoyed the twilight of the day.

Touristed-out for the day, we decided it was time for a little craftiness. Thanks to our awesome encounter with Vladimir at Rockets & Bishops in St. Petersburg, we had a couple of craft beer places to go in Moscow (he was right, however, that STP was definitely the craft beer hub or Russia). But first we hit up a place with a tight atmosphere (in both senses of the word) and a cool name, Все твои друзья - All Your Friends. Surprisingly enough, it did seem like everyone and their friends were jammed into the place, but they had a good number of good beers that we sampled for a bit.

After that, in true serendipitous fashion, the other place he recommended was right around the corner. In my opinion, it was a bit better than the first place, and we had a great time there. Craft Republic is what it's called, and they had a super chill atmosphere, a ton of good beers on tap (shoutout to their dark beer stock), and an overall awesome place.

After a few great beers and some great conversation (it's awesome how those two things usually go hand in hand) we made our way back to the hostel to try and get some sleep before a very important following day. Why was the next day so important, you ask? Well, Zack finally got to meet the man of his dreams.

Lenin's Mausoleum is only open a couple of days per week, and only for three hours at a time. So we got up early enough to beat the mad-rush, and got in line to see Vladimir Lenin chilling in his mausoleum.

Surprisingly enough, there was a bit of a line when we got there. We waited it out, but Zack was chomping at the bit to get in there. A quick stop through security and we were in. Into Lenin's Mausoleum.

To start, we walked along the Kremlin wall and saw a number of grave stones of former leaders and important people who have been buried in the wall.

From the wall we walked away from it towards Red Square, which took us right to the front door of Lenin's Mausoleum. NO pictures were allowed inside the building. We were ushered through the building in a very conveyor-belt fashion. Through the doors, to the left, down some stairs, and then into his burial chamber. There he was, laying there as he's been laying there since 1924. It was a very slow shuffle around his chamber as we all tried to keep gaze at Lenin for as long as we could before being shuffled out of the room, up the stairs, and out of the building.

Next we walked by some statues of former Premiers and Leaders of Russia, including the only bust of Stalin that we saw during the entire trip.

Then we saw Zack's second biggest Russian idol's burial spot along the Kremlin wall. He got all star-struck seeing it. But Yuri Gagarin is buried there, and it was pretty cool to see the resting place of the first man in space.

But then that was that, we were ushered out in a continual motion and then it was done. Overall, seeing Lenin's Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall was a very unique experience. It was super weird knowing I'm looking at a guy that's been dead and preserved for almost 100 years. It was a very simple building and memorial, with very cool marble designs in red in his chamber. And it was super weird and felt slightly cultish slowly walking past him in a semi circle and then being ushered back out along the wall. But as I said, overall, it was definitely a very unique experience.

From there we headed over to another department store close to Red Square. We were told of a lookout viewpoint on top, and were not disappointed. We went up to the viewpoint, got a cool view of a good portion of the city, and then dined on some Tepemok (pr. Teremok), which is like a crepe burrito, I guess you could say.

But now it was time to go into the belly of the beast. That’s right, we were headed into the Kremlin. We decided to head into the Armory, because that was apparently the coolest and most price-efficient deal to get inside. So we did that. We bought our tickets and made our way into the giant walled fortress right in the middle of Moscow.

We made our way straight to the armory, but along the way we got some quick glimpses of the beautiful cathedrals and a few monuments that they have tucked into the fortress. But with our tour time set, we planned on heading straight to the Armory and coming back to explore a little more.

I think I expected the Armory to be a lot cooler than what it was. It was definitely cool, don’t get me wrong, but maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. They had an audio guide to tell us about what all was in the museum, but I felt like it droned on a lot. But, as I said, overall it was pretty cool. The most impressive thing in there, to me, were the Faberge eggs. Holy fowl were they unbelievably intricate and unreal. This picture is abysmal compared to what you can see and examine of their details up close. Truly amazing craftsmanship.

From there we planned on going back to the Kremlin to walk around, but we got slapped in the face (figuratively) by a security guard, saying we needed a valid ticket to go back inside. Fo realz? We got duped for sure, so we couldn’t go back in, and we weren’t going to buy another ticket just to go walk around. A little dejected, we walked through Red Square back to the apartment. But we had a fun little adventure planned for the evening ahead of us.

Our adventure? We were heading to a KHL hockey game!!! KHL is essentially the NHL for Russia, and we were going to see Vityaz from Podolsk and Spartak from Moscow duke it out. They were playing at Podolsk, however, which is about an hour or so south of the city, hence the mini-adventure label.

We had a bit of an interesting start to our mini-adventure. We didn't quite have enough time post-nap to go sit down and eat, so we opted for heading to the train station and finding some food close by.

The first problem we had was just in getting to the train station. Google Maps told me we had a straight shot to get there; one line, one stop. That turned out to be a lie. It wasn't terrible, two lines one stop each, but the whole confusion getting down there and not seeing the stop we wanted caused a bit of a stir.

Next we got to the station and tried to buy tickets. Well, that also proved to be more difficult than anticipated. First, none of the automated machines had English. Next, nobody at the ticket counter spoke English. Then, we found out there is a separate booth for local and long distance trains. After all that, we got our tickets. Boom.

Before we left though, we needed food and drink. Drink was easy, a couple beers at the kombini. Food, we were a bit indecisive, as few places had pictures and none had English. We ended up with subway and choked it down. It turned out quite good, and their toasting strategy was much better (less burnt) than in the States.

Tickets, food, and drink achieved, we hit the platform. Little did we know, it was becoming a winter wonderland as all our stress was on us. Snow was starting to descend, and it looked awesome. Zack used it to cool down his beers too, double win.

The train ride was pretty quick, and soon enough we were in the quaint little town of Podolsk. Time to go watch some hockey. We knew where the place was and after talking to a couple drunks with team scarves, we found out which bus would take us there. Shout out to Aleksandr, the drunk German-speaking Muscovite who informed us of the way. Oh yeah.

The bus was a great find. But the temperature inside and the agonizing traffic that came with it were a match made in hell. It was a goddamn inferno in there. About a half hour of standing in a sweaty and uncomfortable oven, we made it to the stadium! Which was really just a town hall, because that’s what it felt like inside size-wise.

There was a morass of people to get tickets that we had to conquer and shuffle through, which we did. We spent 500 rubles (just around $8) for some really great seats. What a steal! Then we had to shuffle through the mob of people trying to get through security (three scanners for a few thousand people...), which we eventually did. Then we were in and ready to cheer on a team!

The stadium was really cool. It only had about 15,000 seats, but it felt homely and cool inside. The fans were excited and the game was on. We chose to root for Vityaz, being the home team and all. Unfortunately Spartak was a little too much for them, so we lost 3-5. Darn. But it was an awesome mini-adventure to experience some Russian hockey.

A successful KHL game under our belts, we started the trek back to Moscow. It proved to be uneventful, and successfully wrapped up our great little mini-adventure to Podolsk.

New Years Eve (the next day) turned out to be a great day. We started off with breakfast at an imitation American Diner. They did a great job with the interior. Unfortunately, the Juevos Rancheros didn't have any Juevos in them. Go figure. But, fueled up and bundled up, we made our way out to some adventuring.

Our route for the day started us off at Gorky Park, where the preparations for New Years festivities were well under way. Getting through some of that, we saw a bunch of stuff and then made it to the river embankment, where we got to see a great view of the city.

Sidenote: the building pictured below was HUUUUGEEE)

We followed the river for quite a while, before turning in to see a statue of Yuri Gagarin along the way. Keeping in line with Russia and statues, this one was pretty cool. To me, it felt very randomly placed and a bit out of context, but the statue in and of itself was really cool looking, a little bit of retro-futurism to symbolize the first man in space and the awesome accomplishment that that is.

From there we had a long walk to the top of Sparrow Hills overlooking the city. It looked pretty cool and wintery on such a cloudy and snowy day. But there we saw what we originally came for, the cornerstone of the day's adventure, the Moscow State University building.

One of Stalin's seven sisters in Moscow, this building is a behemoth. Something on the order of 240m tall to the top of the spire, it's impressive from afar, and that only compounds as you approach. I was in quite a big state of awe the entire way there. It's absolutely huge, not just tall, but broad as well. It and the other sisters were meant to be fully self-contained communities (in-house everything you need), so the scale is just massive. And the architecture in and of itself is quite daunting. Just gigantic and gothic and towering, Zack put it perfectly, saying it should be the villains hideout in some dark comic series, which it probably was at some point.

Unfortunately we weren't able to go inside. That was quite the bummer for me, I would've loved to get in and explore around in there. So we were left to admiring it from the doorstep. I'm not sure why, but we didn't stay very long. I would've liked to admire it for a while longer and take in more of the finer details of the place (along with the clock, they had a thermometer, barometric pressure gauge, Soviet emblems and adornments galore, and Brandenburg-Style gate as the entry way). But, onward and upward.

From there we headed back closer to town to try and do a tour at Bunker 42. First we needed food. Some little Italian place fit the bill, then by stroke of luck, we washed it all down with a craft beer at a little non-descript taproom I found. Cheers to having some grasp of the Cyrillic alphabet!!!

Well, long story short, we got gruffly turned away from the blunt voice on the speakerphone at Bunker 42. Their website had no information about holiday shutdown, but he was very adamant they weren't open. Zack got pretty pissed at that, but there wasn't much we could do. Dejected and frustrated, we walked a ways to a near by bottle shop, loaded up on some beers for the evening, grabbed coffee and cake close by, then headed back to the hostel to chill.

We hung out for a bit and laid low before the night got started. I played some cards, read, then took a lovely nap. Afterwards, Zack and I had a great conversation about the trip so far, his opinions of Russia, and a bit over what's changed between now and Germany. There's been a number of stuff I've noticed from him between now and then, and it was interesting to see it from his perspective. (more on this later)

A couple beers in, in conversation with a couple Brazilian Ph.D. Students studying recycling and materials science in Stockholm, we set out for the evening. First stop, food. Namely, döner. And the brazilians sent us to an awesome place. It was very polished and huge, and it was probably the fanciest döner I've had and it turned out delicious.

As we were leaving, this fairly eccentric looking lady had noticed our English and asked where we were from. We said America and then she asked what city. I said I was from Seattle (not true, but meant to save confusion and hopefully increases the chances of someone recognizing it), and for Zack I said he was from San Francisco (also not true, but also meant to save confusion and hopefully increases the chances of someone recognizing it). Zack corrected me and said San Jose, we finished the encounter and left the store.

Well, Zack blew up at me saying he was from San Francisco. I've always known this, but he is adamant to the death that he's not from San Francisco. He's very proud of his hometown of San Jose, and makes it known in his normal mannerisms and life. So it struck a chord when I said that, and he made it known. In the moment, I honestly couldn't give a shit (and still don’t really). I said it with the intention of making our whereabouts more recognizable to a complete stranger in a foreign country, how was I to know she's one of maybe a handful of people that know what San Jose is? Well, it didn't sit well. Both of us were adamant about our stances, and yeah...

Eventually things cooled down, and we both came to the realization of how well we've made it through two weeks of constant contact and strife and stress and fun. I would not be able to do this with many people in my life, but with Zack I think we'd done quite well and grown closer together through this. It's not an easy feat, what we've done, and it hasn't all been roses and sunshine, but we're adults, we have opinions and needs and buttons to push, and we've made it through all of it. Good on us.

Spat complete and bright side of life back in order, it was time to head to Red Square to soak in the Russian New Year. Hiccup #1, you needed a ticket to get into the square. WTF. That was unexpected.

Did we go home and give up? Hell no. We powered through, and got as sly as we could. We developed our backstory. Our parents were staying at the National, which was right in the thick of it as close to Red Square as you could get. Every checkpoint we came up to, that was what we said, and we got through 6 different checkpoints because of it! Unfortunately, those 6 checkpoints pretty much just took us in a loop and back out to the non-Red Square part of New Years. What a bummer.

Long story short, we tried our best, schemed as much as we could, unfortunately had to ditch some delicious beers in a bush to improve our chances of success, but it essentially took us nowhere. So we found an alternate place to watch all of the fireworks and festivities go down. We had to walk a huge loop just to get around the areas that were secured, but we made it down to the big street along the river, and found ourselves a great place to watch from there.

The fireworks show was quite impressive, and we enjoyed it. As soon as they were done with the show, all the barriers came down, so we ventured in to try and get on to Red Square and at least enjoy some of the aftermath. Well, that was a no-go. There were still police officers in our way telling us to turn around. We were both quite bummed.

But, after an overall successful night and a great start to the year 2016, we called it a night and headed back for some sleep.

The next day started off with one of two interesting encounters with the local folk. Zack and I went into the local store to get some breakfast (the pastries there were absolutely delicious by the way). But I got in and got my stuff, and then told him I’d wait for him outside. Well, there were two random guys just mulling about a little ways away from me, and at some point they randomly walked up to me and started talking to me. They were a little close for comfort, but they introduced themselves as Aleksandr and Simon, and they ended up offering me and eventually Zack a shot of vodka with some OJ to chase it. Quite the random start to the day.

Well, after our little rendezvous with some Russian vodka from friendly strangers (yes mom, they were strangers, and I survived), we headed a bit out of town to try and go to the Central Armed Forces Museum, with awesome things like Hitler’s Globe from WWII, the actual maps for Operation Barbarossa, and a ton of other stuff. As luck would have it the New Year fucked us good. The museum was closed, and had been closed for the entire week that we were there. GAAAAAAAAAAWD Damnit. We wandered around the building to try and glimpse the different stuff they had laying around outside, but unfortunately we didn’t get the full experience.

Unable to check all that stuff out, we adapted our plan a slight bit and headed down to another place that was on our list, the Park of Fallen Monuments. This is where they stuffed all of the leftover relics of the Soviet era that were torn down when Communism fell. They didn’t want to destroy them, so they just stuffed them all in this little park.

Turns out, it was awesome. The number of cool statutes and monuments was pretty off the charts. The Swords into Ploughshares (the main one sits near the UN building in Brussels)...

... a mini-Chuikov’s Statue...

... a giant Hammer and Sickle with CCCP something along the bottom...

... a few good Lenin’s...

... a Stalin that was covered up...

... and the capper would be the controversial statue of Peter the Great. It’s a giant behemoth that some call butt-ugly, but I thought it was awesome. It’s Peter standing atop a boat that’s atop a bunch of tiny boats, and I think it was pretty damn cool.

Overall, the park was a huge hit. Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel for a bit, took a quick nap, grabbed some food at the illustrious McDonalds (it was actually pretty good), and then headed out to our next tour. Now, we were planning on doing the Metro tour, Moscow having arguably the most beautiful metro system in the world. The problem was, our tour guide from the Communist tour, she talked about hosting the Metro tour very often herself. We learned from our first blunder, we did NOT want to have her guide us.

Here was the plan. We were going to go to the meeting spot and hope she wasn’t the tour guide. If she wasn’t there or wasn’t guiding this tour, we were golden! However, if she was the one holding the Metro tour sign, we were out as fast as a flash.

Zack had to check an ATM before we headed, so I went over to the meeting spot beforehand, but made sure to keep a healthy distance away. Good thing too, because wouldn’t you know it, the lady was back, haunting our dreams and travel plans as best she could. I snagged Zack and we dipped like woah.

Our back up plan? Well, we wandered around a bit, lamenting our ill fortune, but then we led a self-guided tour of the Moscow Metro, and it ended up being awesome! And it definitely helps that they system is most definitely the most beautiful system in the world. Ho. Lee. Cow.

We looked up a list of the most beautiful stations on the system, and picked out about 7 that we wanted to check out. All of them were quite unique, some with large bronze statues all over the place...

... some with beautiful mosaics in secluded cupolas high up on the ceiling...

... and tons of mosaics.

Our favorite one was Komsomolskaya. It was huge, and extremely opulent. The marble pillars surrounded by yellow walls with white ornate trim really set itself apart from all of the rest. There were a few really cool mosaics showing the political evolution of Russia, from the czarist reign, to the Bolsheviks and finally to the Communist era. Those showed some of the important motifs of the era and were all mosaic'd in gold. Quite impressive.

While we were there in the most beautiful station we visited we got to witness a pretty vicious fight. One dude started slugging on another, and got some pretty wicked hits in. Eventually a couple people stepped in to break it up, including an old lady who the aggressor slugged (extra douche). But the guy getting slugged made a super sly escape before the lazy and slow police officers made it to the scene. Fuck that douche guy, I hope he got arraigned or something.

After we left Komsomolskaya, we had our second free alcohol encounter of the day. There were a couple bums passed out on the bench. We sat down a bench over, then two drunk Russians motioned at me to take their picture. I did, then they offered us some beer, which I accepted. One of them then mentions Barack Obama, to which Zack and I go, "yah!" but then they immediately go "nooooooo". It was funny.

That night, me and Zack played Destructor. Aka we went and shot some AK-47s. We had this really fucking talkative guy 'lead' us to the shooting range and get us signed in and stuff. It was a bit of a wait until we could go in, but we both selected three guns to shoot: a pistol (Makarov), the AK-47, then something else (I picked a semi-auto shotgun, VPO-205).

The gruff Russian guy that was leading us through the range was super awesome. I think at some point he said "Obama" then pointed to one of the targets. It was kinda crazy. The AK was pretty powerful and awesome. But that VPO-205 was INSANE!!! I was a terrible shot with it, but the experience was nuts. Total body involvement. It felt pretty wicked awesome.

After our little excursion of blowing some shit up, Zack and I got some beers at one of the three bars in Moscow that were open because of the New Year before heading back to the hostel. We think the bar was having their staff party at that time, but we ended up having a great discussion with Nastia about how politics suck and person to person interactions are so much different than what you hear on TV. She noted that she's lost contact with half her family in Ukraine because of stuff like that. We hear about that stuff on TV, but seeing its consequences in real life make them a little different. :-/

The next day was our last full day in Russia. We'd accomplished most of the things on our list, and a good number of the other ones we wanted to do were closed because of the New Year (everything seemed dead once 2016 arrived). But there was one big one that Zack had yet to do in Moscow, and that was hit up a flea market. Cool thing was, we had a breathtakingly beautiful day to do it!

Another quick journey in the beautiful metro and we were there. It was crazy cold out, but the sun helped keep us warm while we were in it. I mostly did a nice stroll through the market, and ended up at the end with a cool magnet and some christmas ornaments. Zack was really enjoying it all though, and he came away with quite a good haul (minus the broken soviet mug :-/ ).

On the way back to town, we hit up two of the other beautiful stations in the metro, and we even got lucky with an awesome subway train! One of them was turned into half an art gallery, with the outside painted all pretty, and inside they took out one side of the benches and put up various artwork. What a cool idea!!!

Our next goal was a leftover from the day before. Bunker 42 was in our (mostly Zack's) sights, so we hit that up. Again, lucky for us, we made it just in time for the next tour (all in Russian). Despite not knowing what the guy was saying, it was a pretty cool tour. It's a former bunker that was used during the Cold War and is connected (though not publicly) to Moscow's Metro system.

They had a bunch of maps of various defense systems and military bases, models of soviet aircraft, a good number of propaganda posters, and displays of a bunch of different things. It was pretty cool to walk through and check it all out and think of what used to go down or could have gone down in a place that far underground.

Our plan was to go all out on some Armenian food, it being our last night. Well, on the way to the metro, we stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall craft beer bar. BAUS. I got another dark one...

Sidenote: I was really digging the high number of dark and thick beers brewed in Russia. My kinda place

...and spotted one of the coolest names I've seen in a long time. I wish my nick name was "Sneaky Peaches".

We were yet again a victim to Holiday closures. The Armenian place was closed. A little dejected, we wandered around to find another place to dine. After a little while we found a Lebanese place that was open, and decided to go all out. OH BOY did we feast. Cheese platters are awesome. So are kabobs.

Full and enjoying the evening, we had one place left on our list, another craft beer cafe. This one was a great one to wrap up our awesome trip at. A pretty eclectic atmosphere mixed with a shit ton of beers and awesome beer taps with a bunch of positive vibes. It was a great little bag of tricks.

Fully satisfied from a successful night, successful day, and a successful trip, we hit up Red Square one last time before heading back to the hostel.

Quick Hits - Notes

I wrote these things down during the trip as something to remember or to look up, but now I have no idea what they are. Enjoy!

• Рука ъога - hand of God
• Craft republic
• Like tree
• Лера перевод

Quick Hits - Christmas Buzzkill

I gotta admit, the whole Christmas market and other stuff they had set up on Red Square definitely took away from the atmosphere of the city and where we were at. It makes it feel less awesome, and that's kind of upsetting. I think both Zack and I were expecting a little bit more of an impressive feeling standing on Red Square, but all that stuff just added a whole kitschy vibe to the place. It was a bit of a bummer.

It was still pretty impressive to be there, once you blocked all that stuff out.

Quick Hits - Female Bonds

The women in Russian families really seem to be a cohesive and tight group. Everywhere we went, moms and daughters and grandmas everywhere on the streets usually were walking in very tight, distinct groups all the while usually holding hands. I've never seen that type of behavior in other cultures, and I'm not sure what cultural aspects or influences might play a role in that.

I mean, I know (being a guy and all...) that maternal bonds in families are quite strong, taking my family as a good example. But what I observed in Russia was much more public, more visible than what I've seen or experienced elsewhere. It was very interesting to observe, and would be very interesting to find out more about the topic if there are any major differences to other cultures.

Phase 5: DME - SFO

The last day included an early rise to get on our tin can of a plane headed back to the USofA. We got up to catch the first subway to catch the first train out to the airport. Well, we got to the station as soon as it opened, but the first subway didn't come for a while, so we ended up missing the first train to the airport. No biggie, they went every half hour.

The train ride went quick in the dark with some talking, some backgammon, and some general Tom-foolery. After getting to the airport and going through security (yes, there's security just to get into the building), we were slapped with a fat sack of stress. The line to the ticket counter stretched for a good 100m or so, and a snail would have left it in the dust. We had a hour and a half to get through it all and seated.

Long story short, we made it through, but not without a few bullets of sweat and a bit of frustration with some poor staffing by Lufthansa. But we made it, we sat down, and started the long journey home. To top it off, Moscow sent us off with a beautiful sunrise. What a delight.

The flight to Frankfurt was quite peaceful. We had a shitton of leg room, sitting in the exit row, and that definitely made the flight a little more painless. A little bit of shuteye, a little bit of reading, a nice German snack for breakfast, and boom, we were there.

The last time either of us were in Frankfurt Airport made us both harken back to the end of an era. It was July 2014, and we were with 73 of our new bestest friends headed to New York to wrap up our CBYX year. What a trip down memory lane. We commemorated the moment with a nice Frankfurter. Yummy.

But seriously, it was a bit crazy to think about how much time has passed since CBYX ended, and how different (at least for me) life has become since then. A lot has changed, and almost all of it because of my participation in CBYX/PPP. Gotta love it.

After a bit, and a huge line to get in the plane, our layover was over. And DEAR GOD United Airlines sucks. We had to fly them from Frankfurt to SFO and really got the shaft. The one benefit was we got to fly in a 747. But not only does United suck as an airline company and give American-based airlines a shitty rep across the world, but we got stuck in the middle section, and the two middle seats of that section. Shitty airline with shitty seats equals not exactly the best experience. It was a much longer-feeling flight than the way there and it was a bit excruciating. But as with everything, it finally ended, and we were back in the USA.

Two quick things. As we were waiting for Zacks parents, we had to officially wrap up the trip. Miley was brought back and a moving rendition of Wrecking Ball summarized our trip as best as one can do.

Also, one final cool thing about the plane. So we were flying a 747, which I'd never done before. We also got stuck towards the back, but that means a place to hang out and look out the window, which I desperately needed sitting middle middle. Well the view outside was awesome, enhanced by the location relative to the turbine. The window was far enough back, that you could see the contrails develop in the exhaust, speeding by as the plane kept on flying. This awesome sight with the beautiful snow-layered ground below, was an awesome little reprieve during our flight.

Phase 6: SFO - PDX

Between flights, Zack's parents treated us to In-n-Out as we recounted some of the aspects in our trip. This has never not been the case, but I'm a bad story teller.

Animal-Style-satisfied, it was back to SFO for me for another 4 hour wait. It turned out to be quite delightful. I gave a number of people a call to pass the time (huge shoutout to MAH MAN on the new job), got my trip tickets and memorabilia in order, and made a leisurely task of it all. Sooner than it felt, I was back on board a plane (again with United. Booooooo) headed finally home, where I got to see my Mommy.

Order by Passport

My passport is a bit of a mess. It unfortunately started with the first trip (and thanks to the hapless stamping etiquette of some U.S. Border Patrol agent), but stamps are completely out of order and all over the place. So going through Zurich, it was a delight to see the control officers consciously find a good spot to put the stamp. And then on the departure, the next officer found where the entry stamp was and matched them up. Now that's order. The Swiss, Russians, and Chinese are the only ones to do that for my passport.

Regret through Retrospect

At some point during the trip, Zack and I got on the topic of regrets in our lives so far. I won't go into the details of the discussion, but more on a thought that Zack brought up. "You are only allowed to regret something after going through the other path." This kinda struck a chord as a somewhat deep statement.

In a way it makes sense. Say you have life option A and life option B. You choose A and go forward. Looking back, you wish you would've done B. But is that only because you went through A? I feel like it kinda depends on the results of A. B could have been a great opportunity. Maybe if your regret is because of a bad outcome with A, then yes, you maybe wouldn't have had that regret with A if the outcome was better.

But what if you enjoyed A and still wish you would've done B? Would that have been the other way around if you had, say, chosen B, and later on wished you'd done A? I don't know. Maybe I'm thinking this is deeper than it actually is...

Disorder due to Equality

One weird thing about Russia is that lines are absolute chaos, a world without rules or order. For example, when boarding an airplane, there is no actual line. Everybody on the flight bum rushes the ticket counter, and people slowly make their way into the plane. No order, no priority boarding, no real lining up.

Why is it this way? I don't know for sure, but I think it might be rooted in communistic ideals. Everyone is equal; no one is better than another, and people are treated as such. Well, what would show equality other than not having priority boarding, not having specific zones of boarding, etc. etc. Communism lead to chaos in queuing.

But it doesn't deal with just airport lines, it's everywhere. For the security checkpoint into Red Square, for dinner at a cafeteria-style restaurant, the ticket booth and security checkpoint at the hockey game, it's all just chaos. Something to watch out for when you're there.

Pocket Change Pedestrian

Never have I ever had so much luck with finding and picking up change on the ground than I did in Russia. It was everywhere and I found most of it. I found at least one coin each day, and it really surprised me at just how much crossed my path. And as a nice cherry on the money-laden cake, I found an Israeli shekel as we were deboarding in SFO. BOOM.

Sleep

I couldn't sleep for the life of me the entire trip. I think it was my body just telling to go fuck myself for how many time zones I've jumped in the last month alone. The most I got in one night was 5 hours. But more often I'd get three hours and not be able to fall back asleep and end up rolling around in bed for the rest of the morning. It was so unbelievably frustrating, but there was really nothing I could do.

Russia - Safety and Security

As I mentioned earlier, Russia was a very safe place for us to travel. We had absolutely zero problems with feeling unsafe while we were there, and in fact, felt very welcome wherever we went, both through the people we met and interacted with and through strangers.

I know that was one of the big topics or worries (not necessarily from Zack and I, but from others), that we were going to be in danger while we were there. I'm not sure it could have been further from the truth. I mentioned that Russians look intimidating, but once we talked to people, they were just as warm and welcoming as people in other cultures. Yeah, they may have conflicting ideals and opinions than us or other cultures, but they're still human beings, ready to interact and learn from us as we are from them. This was a huge plus to come away with from the trip. We're all human beings, no reason not to get along with each other!

A great example of this is Elena at MIR Hostel in St. Petersburg. We, being complete strangers, were welcomed to the hostel and received some great tips and conversation from here about the new city we were adventuring in. She even invited us into her personal life through a party at some of her friends' house. We were welcomed over and had some great conversation with her friends there. It was a very homely atmosphere. On top of it all, before we left, she brought Zack some awesome memorabilia from the Soviet era from her grandparents. A great example of the hospitality between cultures.

Russia - The Great Patriotic War

In Russia, WWII isn't recognized by WWII, but rather it is called the Great Patriotic War. This event in history played a HUGE role in shaping their country and its position in the world, with many effects still lasting today. I think this is best done through a comparison.

Since WWII ended, we've had a lot of things happen for us since then that have either directly affected or been blatantly visible to the vast majority, if not damn near all of the country. Events such as the Vietnam War and the most recent being 9/11. These played a huge role in the fabric our society, either bringing us together and building resolve to solve our problems, or really delineating where people stood on an issue. Either way, it affected everyone and was a sort of milestone for our culture.

Although I'm speaking from an outsider on the country and a non-historian (I had Zack to back me up on this one), what events since the end of WWII have really impacted their country? Communism kept its grip on the country and they might have muted a few things, but from the overall perspective, WWII was the last thing to really affect the country, and it affected every single person living in Russia. Fathers, brothers, grandpas, cousins, mothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, everyone seemed to have at least one person in their family that was either in the fighting, killed by the fighting as a soldier, or somehow displaced by the fighting as a civilian. It's no wonder to see how much of a role it still plays in their society and their minds, because when you say it was an impactful event in their history, it is very clear that that's an understatement.

Attempted Photography

After I finally went through all of my pictures from the trip and posted a fraction of them on Facebook, I got a little validation from Zack:

"Hey bud. I just went through your pictures again, and I really have to tell you that you nailed these. Somehow you knew just the best angle to capture all of these specific Russian scenes from. It will be very hard to forget this trip with images like these."

Although it may not seem like much, this really made me happy to see. Obviously I'm a big fan of taking pictures of things. It feeds my visual nature by helping me have something to look back on and remember things. So it brings me joy.

But seeing it bring joy to others is a great benefit that really nails it home. I see things with my own eye, and it makes me happy hearing that that eye helps to capture others' feelings and perception of something. So thanks Zack! I'm glad you liked all the pictures!

Wrap Up

As I've made pretty well known, CBYX has and will always play a huge role in my life. It was an extremely impactful experience and something I will never forget. One thing, one sentence actually, has stuck with me the most.

"It's not Good, it's not Bad, it's just Different."

In the spirit of those words to live by, here's my Good, Bad, and Different from Russia:

The Good

• Every Russian seems to be completely impervious to cold on their face.
• The stereotype that Russians are scary and violent and that it's a dangerous place is completely false, it's a normal country with normal people leading normal lives
• The Moscow metro is unbelievable in terms of efficiency, size, beauty, and more
• The closure level of places during the holiday gives off the feel that they really take time for holidays and spending time with family
• Traditional Russian food (Borscht, Perogis, beef stroganoff, etc.) is delicious
• The concept of the business lunch is alive, well, cheap, and delicious. Fixed price for a soup, salad, main course, and a drink
• Craft beer is most definitely a thing there, especially in St. Petersburg
• High speed trains there are excellent, and pretty much equivalent to a DB ICE
• A favorable exchange rate really makes things pretty affordable there and enhances the awesomeness
• Student discount means higher than normal savings (free entrance to the hermitage)

The Bad

• Tap water is not potable
• Signage and directions in general are pretty poorly provided or laid out
• Apparently their postal system is garbage. Someone said it'll take a month for our postcards to reach the US
• Every time you want to take a picture of something in Russia, there will be power lines in your way. I guarantee it.

The Different

• Train station and directional signs in the stations are on the ground with arrows and stuff rather than on the walls
• There are no timetables posted in train stations, they just come when they do
• Shaking hands with gloves on is considered rude and bad luck (something I'm going to try to keep with me throughout the years)
• There is no such thing as order when it comes to queues, rules go right out the window
• Hammer and Sickle emblems are EVERYWHERE
• I've never gone through more security checkpoints in my life in a place before. Into the airport, into a mall, into red square, into a church, it seems like every public entrance has some level of security detail
• The impact that WWII had on their society and its relevance to them to this day is quite huge (The Great Patriotic War)
• Most restaurants and cafes have tons of kitschy decorations all over and give off an interesting vibe
• Apparently roughly 25% of the Russian dictionary consists of words from other languages (i.e. English, German, French) and simply written with the Cyrillic alphabet (menu, restaurant, more exs)

Overall, our trip to Russia was a very awesome experience. It is an amazing country with a very unique culture and history, and I know I learned a lot while we were there. Hopefully I can make it back there sometime to explore and experience it a little more.

Original Publish Date: January 27th, 2016