June 18, 2010 --  by Donna

We went to bed early and woke up today just before 11am - over 12 hours of sleep!  We had told our guide to come at 11am so I had to rush down to tell him that we were delayed by an hour.  We're all still sick, but I think the full night's sleep helped as we are improved at least over yesterday.

Given our low energy, we decided to abandon plans for the rest of our touring, and instead just go to visit Marina's orphanage, which was one of the main purposes of our visit.  The people at their Hyatt were very accommodating and allowed us a late checkout so we could rest afterwards.

The visit to the orphanage went very well.  I remembered it, once we saw the main entrance and the office.  The director, Larissa, was new and not been here when we came 15 years ago.  But many of the original staff were still here.  I had brought photos of Marina and the staff from when we were here before, so they all loved pouring over the photos to see themselves younger.  A lot of the chatter was "that's so-and-so!", "she's not working today!", etc.

As we walked through the orphanage, more and more people joined us and eventually we had a whole train of people!  A surprising number remembered Marina.  "She was very active!".  "She was MY girl!".  Several had tears in their eyes as they looked at our lovely young lady.  I realized that originally I had planned this trip for Marina's sake, but in the end, it seemed like it was a gift to the staff.  They spend years with these children, but don't know what becomes of them.  Over and over they hugged Marina, asked her questions, and were very excited to see her.
  
I had sent letters with photos to the orphanage for the first few years that Marina was with me.  I never knew whether the letters arrived.  I was amazed, therefore, when we got to the office and there was a wall of photos, including one I had sent of me, Marina, and my mother. 

The orphanage was clean, had lots of staff, and a big yard full of trees, grass and play equipment.  The ladies there clearly care a great deal about their children.  We were happy to see that Marina started her life with such nice people.

 
This brings our blog to an end.  We head home for a long journey, with a layover night in Moscow.  We hope you will join us on our next trip!

June 17, 2010 – Donna

We had our real farewell dinner last night with Missy, Karl and Joan. We went around the table to declare our favorite moments from the trip, which included (amongst others):

- the bike ride day with John Roseman
- the dinner at Nikolai and Svetlana’s house in Suzdal
- the summer palace at Peterhof
- the Kirov ballet and it's marvelous lead male dancer
- the amber room
- the memorial to the siege of Leningrad- the grand Soviet sculpture of workers
- learning about the transition to a market economy
- the two minute subway tour

Today, the three of us woke up at 4:00 am for our flight to Yekaterinburg, as the others slept in and then headed back home. Our guide, Slava, met us and we checked into our spectacular, new Hyatt. It’s quite modern, and totally world class. As we drove around the city, I was amazed at how great it looked compared to when I was here over 15 years ago. There were many new apartment buildings both finished and under construction. There were tree lined avenues, and several pedestrian walkways filled with people. Marina reminds me that I was here in the winter before, so it was dark and cold, making a different impression. But I had expected to see some modern buildings in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and saw very few … but they exist here in Yekaterinburg, which is the 4th biggest city in Russia, so not a small town. I think they should spend less money renovating churches in Moscow and St. P., and start modernizing apartments instead.

Our first stop was a memorial where a few years ago they found a mass grave from the Soviet Stalin era. It was sobering to look at all the name of the people shot in 1937 and 1938 for no apparent reason. We didn’t find any Dubinskys, but did find one name that was close.
Then we went to the place designated as the border between Asia and Russia (with “scientific evidence!”). We happily lined up with one foot in each continent, just as we have done on the equator and on the prime meridian.

They also had one of those wedding stop places here where the couples tie ribbons on a fence.

 
Next was a very strange place outside of town where in the last ten years they built a memorial church complex in memory of the last Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered in Yekenterinburg with his wife and 5 children. The Bolsheviks dumped the bodies in a mine shaft here, and the place now has these churches, one for each member of the family, although named for various saints.

 It was strange because it was a working monastery, although very few monks were around, and the interiors of the all wooden churches were decorated with fresh, new icons, sometimes just photocopies of paintings from elsewhere. Ladies had to dress in modest clothes to visit this sacred site, which basically meant putting on an apron-like garment over our jeans and a head scarf.

 The most interesting part was the wall of black & white photos of the Tsar and his family – definitely from better days.

 
This huge complex needs some work to attract visitors … when I asked for the bathroom, the driver pointed me towards the woods – which is where I went! By the way, I should mention that the woods are beautiful, full of white birch and very tall pine trees.

One last stop was a store -- in honor of Joan, we decided to do some shopping -- where we bought a few items made from stones of the Ural mountains.

We’re all feeling a bit under the weather today – seems we caught Karl’s cold of the last few days. We’ve taken it easy this evening – using room service – and hopefully will be all better in the morning.

Yes, but no Starbucks -- and the coffee here is terrible!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010, by Joan and Karl

After our interesting dinner with the local family, we stayed at a very nice, locally owned Hotel. The rooms were spacious and nice, and the beds has nice comforters, our key measure of comfort. However, it is clear that few Americans come to the hotel, because the breakfast was rather strange. First, the coffee was dreadful. The tea is already brewed, but cold. You pour some of the cold tea and then warm it up by adding hot water. The breakfast food looked like our lunch or dinner; salads, etc. Good for the diet!

Our last full day together as a group was spent in Suzdal, which is also part of the Golden Ring. Suzdal is a small village with about 12,000 people and about as many churches, cathedrals and monasteries.

They have 500 souvenir vendors, which means it is very easy to find that last minute wood piece that you will never use.  However, at our first stop, a bus of Asian tourists stopped next to us, promptly ignored the souvenir vendors and all ran across the street to an old lady in a babushka. Of course, Missy, Karl and I went over to find out what we were missing. She was selling homemade pickles, and they were all gone by the time we got there!

We saw several more golden onion domes, all very beautiful, were serenaded by a man who played 19 bells simultaneously from one of the bell towers, and we visited a village of recreated wooden structures in the old Russian style.

Our trip back to Moscow was a four hour voyage on modern highways totally jammed with traffic.

On Weddings...

As in the US, June is a popular month for weddings in Russia. Russian couples have a tradition of going to many places in their wedding outfits, usually in a stretch limo, and taking pictures at any and all of the beautiful or historically significant places in town. Since we were visiting all of the popular spots, we came across just about every newlywed couple in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. We saw more brides during this trip than we had ever seen before in one place. Outside of the toy museum we visited in Moscow we saw three or four married couples, each with their own wedding party and limousine decorated with bows and wreaths. As you turned to look around the square it seemed that there was a separate wedding party being photographed in front of every building. In some cases, there was a bit of competition for space; everyone wants the same “lucky” spot for taking a picture. In St. Petersburg, a popular spot is on the intersection of two small bridges over one of the canals. In Yaroslavl, couples go to a gazebo overlooking the Volga River, where they attach a lock to the gazebo and throw away the key. The symbolism is obvious- after this, the married couple is locked together for life.

  

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

By Joan:

Today was a day in the Russian countryside. We left our “presidential suites” in Yaroslavl and spent the morning seeing yet more churches with onion domes. Along the way we saw Russian teenagers dressed in military garb and parading in front of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier ---although one young soldier was doing it while on his cell phone!

While visiting the church, we came across a Time Warner production of the anniversary of Yaroslavl ---1000 years old this year – and Donna and Joan managed to get on tape.  Martin, the host, wanted some real world people to interview and so of course we were happy to oblige. We now need to find out when it gets shown on TV!

From Yaroslavl we passed through Pylos, a small town on the Volga River. It is famous for a Russian landscape artist by the name of Isaac Levitan. They also produce beautiful lacquered boxes and cloisonned silver products, as well as handmade garments.

From there, another few hours to our stop for the evening, Suzdal.

Later, by Donna:

Our dinner in Suzdal was one of the highlights of our trip.  Our tour company arranged dinner in the home of Nikolai and Svetlana, who serve a fantastic homemade meal using many ingredients from their own garden.  There were homemade pickels with their own cucumbers, tomatoes that had been put up, boiled potatoes from their garden, beautiful salads, dolma with beet leaves, pork cutlets (I skipped that one personally, but hear it was good) and for dessert, homemade sweet buns with apple filling.  Best of all was having Nikolai tell us his story.  He had been a sailor for twenty years in Moldavia, but in 1991, at the collapse of the Soviet Union, his job went away, and he had to start over.  He and Svetlana sold an old car and used the money to buy their land, then built a house over two years pretty much with their own two hands.  They also started their magnificent vegetable garden, and they pretty much grow most of the food that they need. It was definitely a treat to meet them.
 
Our hotel here is my favorite so far.  It is a complex of buildings, kind of like a resort, that are quite elegant and old-world.  We have a two room suite, with plenty of space, and yet another view of a lovely Russian Orthodox church. (There are quite a few here, so I expect many rooms have a view of at leeat one.)  The curtains on the windows actually go the whole length of the window (which was not the case last night), and the quilt on the bed actually reaches across the whole bed (also untrue last night) and, miracle of miracles, there actually are two robes.  Only problem ... no internet in the room, so this post will need to wait until morning.

June 14 - Donna

Yesterday evening we had dinner at the Cafe Pushkin in Moscow.  We viewed it as a special farewell dinner, even though we have several days before Joan, Karl and Missy leave - our actual farewell dinner will be at the airport hotel, which we felt wouldn't be very special.

Cafe Pushkin was quite an experience.  We selected the downstairs room - apparently the upstairs room has a different menu - and were seated near a lovely string quartet of four ladies.  We ordered and I was surprised when Karl ordered nettle soup . not because he ordered nettle soup per se but because it wasn't even on my menu.  We discovered that we had different menus, which never was explained.

The dishes were exquisite.  We assigned the girls to select dessert, and Marina picked a "cake made of cheese in the form of a book".  We figured this must be a mistaken translation, but indeed it arrived and was a cake made of cheese in the form of a book - with a picture of Pushkin to boot.

 There was a small stool on the floor next to my chair.  I asked what it was, and they told me it was a chair for my purse!  I happily set my purse on it, and noticed that all the neighboring tables had the same thing next to ladies with purses.  Much nicer than putting it on the floor.

I won't write much about today because Joan has covered it well.  Let me only elaborate on the story about getting yelled at taking photos.  We had dutifully paid a fee in order to take photos at the monastery.  We were told that you could not take pictures inside when there was a service going on.  We were carefully following all the rules when we decided to have Marina take a photo of me, Lenny, Karl and Joan in front of an icon wall, where there were no services going on.  Suddenly a Russian guide lunged at Marina and started scolding her rudely.  Apparently there was yet another rule . although you are allowed to take pictures inside including of the icons, and you are allowed to take pictures of people, you are not allowed to take pictures of people in front of icons.  Ha. we got the photo anyway!

 
We are now at the nicest hotel in Yaroslavl.  We had quite a bit of confusion about the rooms when we arrived, but the best is that Marina and Missy ended up in the Presidential Suite, a three room suite.  We told them that it is the "straight A" suite since we found out this past week that both of them got all A's on their final report cards!

 

June 14, by Joan and Karl

Today we traveled into the countryside of Russia. Our car and driver took us to the center of Russian Orthodoxy: a series of onion domes and churches which is also a working monastery and academy. The name of the town is Sergeiev Posad. If people say that religion is dead in Russia; they need to go to Sergeiev Posad. The monastery was extremely crowded with pilgrims coming to see the icon and remains of St. Sergeiev. There was a fountain with water that is supposed to be good for you; people were lined up to fill up their bottles with it.  I splashed some on Karl. Don’t know if it did him any good.

We managed to find our way into the church during a church service; the monks were singing very beautifully from both sides of the church while the congregants were receiving communion. Afterwards the priests served tea at the back of the church. In the corners, congregants were lighting candles, which looked like a real fire hazard! Very cool, and a real treat since most churches in Russia are museums, not working monasteries.

The physical crowds and obvious devotion to the religion was quite overwhelming. Monks were everywhere. They all had long beards and when we asked why, we were told that monks try to look like Jesus so were beards. Priests take care of communities, so they can marry and do not have beards.

We found our way to another church on the same grounds; this one was put up by Peter the Great in very rococo fashion. We were trying to take a picture in front of some icons –we of course had paid for the privilege –and the guard promptly stopped us.

Lunch is another adventure, since our guide is an ascetic. We do not believe he eats. We are supposed to follow suit and tour from 9-6. We differ, so are continually asking about when we eat. Today we started at a restaurant near the monastery only to be told it was full, then drove to a hotel, only to be told that restaurant was full, and, finally drove about 40 miles down the road to the next stop. We found a perfectly delightful restaurant with excellent food!

The next stop was a highlight; an iron museum (as in ironing clothes, not just the metal iron!). Boris, who was our tour guide and owner, claimed that there are only three other iron museums in the world.

On our long drive to Yaroslavl, we drove by lots of rural dachas. Dachas are very primitive. Basically, Russians, outside Moscow, are really still poor. As we drove down the road, we would find individuals sitting on the side of the road with a small bucket of their produce; some potatoes or berries, for sale. The dachas are falling apart.  You might think they are abandoned, except that there are satellite dishes on the roof.

At one point, we almost got sent to the gulag in Siberia. We were driving along and then got pulled over by the police in a very rural area. Fortunately, the police just wanted the driver’s papers and didn’t ask to see ours.

Once in Yaroslavl, we checked into the best hotel in town. Of course, the deli was closed, the ATM machine did not work and only 2 of our 3 rooms were ready at 6 pm. It was an exercise in not understanding each other, as we thought the we were being given two rooms instead of three. Instead, we were actually being given the best rooms in the hotel, two of which were essentially three bedroom apartments! We figured it out by actually going to see the rooms and by having the woman at the desk draw us pictures. No worries; the world cup was on and we watched Japan versus Cameroon. What is the line on that game?????

June 13, 2010;  "The two minute tour" by Marina
   
Our guide decided to take us out on a tour on the subway stations in Moscow. He first bought tickets for the subway stations. On what seemed to be a normal tour, we would take a train to a station, look around for a bit and the guide would talk for about two minutes.  Then we would get on a train again and go to another station a few stops away, and then we would do the same thing all over again. I think we went to about ten different stations before I figured out this was going on and the guide was talking very fast and talking for only two minutes every time we went to a new station.

June 13, part 2 by Donna

We set out on foot today for Red Square and the Kremlin.  This area has been through a lot of building and rebuilding, having been the on-and-off the capital of Russia. I frankly lost track of all the comings and goings.  Suffice it to say that lots of important stuff happened here.  My favorite touristy thing was the people in costume just outside the square ... for just a few rubles, you can pose with Stalin, Lenin and Nicholas II, all at the same time (they would be mortified, don't you think?).  I would definitely have done it, but there was quite a crowd, and Arkady was urging us on.

We walked through GUM, the famous department store on Red Square that used to be state-owned but now is full of the kind of boutiques you see on 5th Ave in New York. 

 

We got to St. Basil's Cathedral, the best known church with the multi-colored onion domes.  We had a slight disappointment in that I had a photo from there with Marina, 15 years ago, that I was trying to duplicate, but the place that exact view was shut down for cleaning up after "Russia Day".  We got close, however, so took a good approximate photo.

We then took one of all of us for the cover of our Great Russia Trip photo album.  Other places were closed as well, including Lenin's Mausoleum, although we could see it from a distance.  Another big disappointment was that the Polytechnic Museum was closed for the holiday, so we couldn't go there.

 Inside the Kremlin we visited the diamond collection, basically the Crown Jewels of Russia.  As expected, they were spectacular.  We also visited the Armory, which is a museum of all Russian historical items including carriages, coronation gowns and, of course, the amazing jeweled Faberge eggs.  At this point, we staged a revolution and insisted on a stop and lunch (after 4 hours of walking) ... Arkady clearly was intending to just carry on!

After our rest we visited several of the multi-domed churches at the Kremlin, including the one where all Russian coronations were held.  Each one is spectacular, but it gets a bit overwhelming after a while, and your eyes glaze over.  We also saw the giant cannon and giant bell, which were impressive in scale, but never shot and never rung.

I should note that because of our unauthorized lunch stop we were late for entry to the Kremlin, and were turned away at the gate.  Arkady argued with the guard a bit, and then disappeared to get new tickets issued for us.  Probably Tanya would have succeeded at this episode of the Guide Game.

Both yesterday and today were quite hot, and suddenly a thunderstorm started as we made our way through the churches.  Several of us headed back to the hotel, while Joan and Karl, not the least bit detered by some pesky rain, went on for more shopping!

I keep forgetting to mention that Marina has been quite pleased with her own shopping, having found everything on her list, including a fur hat of silver fox.

June 13 - by Donna

Yesterday morning we met our guide Arkady.  He talks fast, but is informative and experienced.  We started out walking to the Metro, where we took a "tour" of several stations (I won't go into detail because I hope to get Marina to write about it later).

 
We ended up at a flea market (Berryessa in Moscow), within which the government set up a few buildings that are hard to describe - kind of a historical exhibit of different styles of Russian buildings.  It seemed quite Disneyesque to us.

  The most notable thing was legions of brides with their wedding parties getting photographed (I won't go into detail on this one because I'm hoping Missy will write about it!).  We took a tour of a toy museum where a guide spoke in Russian about the history of Russian toys and crafts including flax making and nesting dolls (originally from Japan!).  Arkady clearly does not play the Guide Game as well as Tanya because we had to sit through this explanation being translated.

We shopped a bit then had lunch at a nearby hotel restaurant.  This one reminded me of our first night - decent food but incredibly slow service.  Arkady is full of interesting tidbits, such as "you may have noticed that we don't like customers here."  I also liked, "watch out when you are walking - you find steps in the most unexpected places"  Over lunch, we got him to tell us about what it was like during the Soviet era being a guide.  He described how they had to relay things that they knew couldn't be right and how it was very prescribed exactly where they went.  Also, "they didn't teach us to think logically". 

 

 Then we went to Winzavod which is a former winery converted into a group of modern art galleries.  We loved the art in the first gallery - interesting multi-dimensional pieces in different materials.  There also was a little craft fair set up where - of course - we shopped.

We returned and took a stroll around our well-located hotel, including a stop into an amazing food store - very similar to Harrod's food hall.  Another sign of plenty in Russia!

Our evening was spent at the Bolshoi, which is walking distance from our hotel.  Bolshoi means "big".  The real Bolshoi is quite big, but is being totally restored, so we saw the opera in their small stage, the little Bolshoi, or the Little Big.  It was an intimate, lovely venue.  We saw La Boheme, which was well done, although both Mimi and Musetta were a bit shrill, and looked like Russian babushka's (grandmothers) rather than alluring, young coquettes.

Jessica - this hotel would drive you crazy.  Bathroom has two showers, but one robe .... all marble and beautiful, but very skimpy towels!!

June 11 by Donna

Joan and Karl summarized well, but they forgot one important stop, the Vodka Museum!  Here we heard the story of vodka, which is made from grains such as rye and wheat.  Russians invented vodka when they were inspired by French wine but couldn't grow grapes.  At the end of the tour, we had a vodka tasting, with three flavors:  plan, resin (the guide kept saying raisin, but eventually we figured out she meant resin, or sap), and honey.  Pretty quickly they tasted the same to us!

One amusing aspect of travelling in Russia is the Guide Game.  Your guide basically tries to stare down another guide in order to position you for best access to whatever you are trying to see.  Tanya was particularly skilled at the Guide Game.  Every now and then, the Game notched up a level, and words were exchanged, roughly akin to the hissing of two cats.  Occasionally, we were stuck behind a big group with a long-winded guide, at which point Tanya would maneuver us to "play-through", as I called it.  We had a particularly interesting example of the Guide Game today when we went to the Steiglitz Museum, and there was supposed to be a local guide.  The only problem was that the local guide did not speak English.  Tanya erupted into a long and furious discussion with the Steiglitz guide, the gist of which was that she insisted on speaking Russian, which Tanya was to translate to us, while Tanya insisted on just doing the tour herself, since she had been there 100 times, and therefore save us the pain of hearing it all twice.  Thankfully Tanya is a very talented Guide Game player, and she prevailed. 

 

Another thing to mention is that people here generally are very dour.  People on the streets, in the restaurants or shops, all have very sad, downcast looks on their faces.  Joan speculates that this behavior is a holdover from the Soviet era when everybody was afraid that everybody else was KGB.  I have made a sport of giving these people a big smile, and they seem quite startled.  Very few smile back.  Yesterday, I gave our driver, Yuri, a happy greeting, and asked how he was today, and he shrugged and responded in Russian, which Tanya translated as, "I'm normal".  Tanya explained that nobody every answers "I'm fine" or "I'm good"; the best you can get is "I'm normal".  When we went shopping in the afternoon, we explained to the shopgirl in the department store that we wanted to purchase some "happy, pop music in Russian", she looked at us blankly, shook her head, and said no, they don't have that.

By the way, we had a grand time shopping for a few hours in the big department store.  The aisles are full of every modern item and brand imaginable.  It is a long ways from those stories of empty Soviet storefronts.

  
I have to conclude with one last story from St. Petersburg.  When we left, there was a survey from the ministry of tourism that I decided to complete.  It had all the standard questions like how many days were you here, is it business or pleasure, and how much did you spend on meals?  Then one question caught my attention:  "Were you robbed in St. Petersburg and, if so, how much was your total loss?".  Wild!!