St. Petersburg

Close to Olga's metro station is the travel agency - a small window in the entry of a grocery store where we caused quite a line to form, buying three round trip tickets. They add on a commission, but save several hours of waiting in line for a ticket in Moscow. We presented our passports (rigorously inspected) to book the tickets.

A 4 hour train on the way over, a night train (!) for the way back, for about $100.

We would leave Saturday evening (10th), and Emily and I return the next Thursday morning (15th), while Olga would return earlier on Monday to run errands.

We exited the Moscow Metro at Komsomol'skaya, emerging from a curious high-ceilinged square building that looked to be anything but a metro exit, and Olga pointed out the three train stations around us. Each station went to a specific region: Leningrad, Yaroslav, Kazan. We walked into the Leningrad one and found our train car - and we were off precisely on time. Our cabin was full - three seats facing three. The land passed flat by us and forest changed into swamp and back several times. "When the architects of the St. Petersburg train line asked the Tsar (?) where to put the train, he drew a straight line with a ruler from Moscow to 'Peter' mostly through swamplands. Except that his thumb was in the way, so there was a slight bump at the beginning of the route. Absolutely attentive to the wishes of the sovereign, the train route actually featured that small half-circle, until the USSR straightened it. Incredible and enormous acts of will have been conceived of and completed because of the authoritarian system," she finished.

We passed through birch forests and ordered hot black tea, served with a lemon slice, in the iconic* and elegant black worked metal tea glass-holders. I stood much of the trip in the aisle, watching the land, seeing lots of little wooden shed-houses. "Shanty towns?" I inquired.

"No, that's not a phenomenon we see here - it's simply too cold for most of the year, and social programs during the USSR are such that people have apartments, regardless of income. Those are country-houses to grow vegetables, maybe take a cup of tea, and go home before nightfall."

[In the cities there are homeless people, no more in the areas I've been than in other places, if not less. Frequent sights are maimed younger men - legs amputated - and old shrunken "grandmothers" bundled in coats and with a shawl and covered hair, with signs, generally demurely silent holding out corner-kiosk plastic tea mugs in a plea for coins.]

The birches had begun their sunset - yellow leaves gilding over green summer sprays.

The St. Petersburg Metro is one of the deepest in the world - the venerable source Wikipedia lists the deepest station to be 105 meters deep. The deepest in DC is about 60 meters. Escalators in Russia move quite fast - otherwise the escalator-ride would be the most substantial part of the daily commute! Several stations in the center appear to simply be a floor of dozens of elevator doors, closed to patient riders until the timer on the far wall notes 2:00 minutes and after a whoosh of air and grinding of rails, the doors open to reveal a train. As in DC, people politely stand to the sides of the doors to let out-going passengers off (UNLIKE CHILE).

St. Petersburg was built on a swamp (another act of will) so in order to keep certain stations from flooding (the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya swamp was split in two from 1995 to 2004 when an underground lake flooded several stations, including the one our friend's apartment was at) the groundwater must be frozen year-round. By what magic this is done I know not.

Regarding the flooding: http://books.google.com/books?id=53IPHH32OgYC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=st+petersburg+metro+freezing+groundwater&source=bl&ots=h2px6IZtjC&sig=bXH3aszigsZ_z-RGuilZ3qKyZ74&hl=en&ei=zhySTNu8NNKTOMfKyNMH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

- - - -

We stayed in the night we got to St. Petersburg, and Emily and I had Russian dumplings, pel'meni for the first time. They're a cheap student food here, bought frozen, boiled or fried, and eaten with sour cream and sometimes ketchup (which tastes a bit like cocktail sauce here).

- - - -

We decided, upon Olga's mother's recommendation, that we go see the Yekaterinsky Palace near the town of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoe Selo).

Getting in to Moscow

Arrived in Russia - smooth flight, a mere 9 hours 40 minutes. Loved seeing the flat farmland interspersed with mixed deciduous and evergreen forest, marked with the granite-white bones of birches.

Caught an "electrikaya" back to the city - a train which runs every forty-five minutes. The wind blew clouds across the station as we waited. I was surprised by the cold, in early September, and snuck my coat out of the bottom of my luggage. On the train women walked by offering books and magazines, soda and chips. Industrial buildings interspersed with countryside passed by the windows.

At the metro connecting station, we bought a warmed bread filled with seasoned and sauteed cabbage, my friend drank a plastic mug (complete with handle) of black tea.

The Moscow metro is rather logical: lines that radiate out from the center of the city, and a ring (about half of the lines' diameter) that connects all of them. My friend has a month pass, and we all ride on it. The turnstiles hurt if they close on you - like two mallets that swing shut!

I'm staying in her aunt's apartment, in the complex where "The Irony of Fate" was filmed. Security appears to be serious: one presses a pass to the entry door, then another entry door, goes up a very small elevator with a mirror (just in case one looks ridiculous and need to run back home), unlocks gate before the apartment doors, and via a three step process with two keys unlocks two locks on apartment door. It's a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment; a washer/dryer machine tucked next the toilet. There is a flat mown park across the street, and beside the apartment building, tucked behind another house, is a park dappled with birch shadow.

Went over to Olga's apartment - in a closed compound - and met her other US friend who will be with us. There we ate marinated garlic (!), marinated eggplant and red pepper (!!), and had tea (of course).

That evening we went out and met friends of hers from an archeological dig in the Crimea a few years back. Not one admitted to speaking English, although the language is given in schools. I struggled along with tangled Russian. We walked through the city for several hours with them, plaza after city square after park. We lingered a bit along the streets where The Master and Margarita begins, saw the trolley featured in the opening scene. The exchange rate is roughly 30 rubles to a dollar - and Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world. http://www.citymayors.com/features/cost_survey.html

We returned home to her parent's around 1 am, and had a light dinner (sliced cucumber salad, cubed beet and potato salad, more marinated veggies) and tea (of course).

I haven't bought anything besides a $2 dollar borscht soup, so I haven't felt shock at the prices (yet).

----

Second day:

Slept soundly until 2 pm (6 am in the US).