Moscow, Russia

Going to Russia was a little more than we bargained for.  For example, who knew that you needed to get Visas over a month in advance to go.  And who knew how expensive Russia is.  We had always heard from Sam how Russia was so depressing and dirty and falling down.  But, in pictures it never looked that way.  It looked like any other tourist trap city.  But, we were in for quite a surprise when we found out how right Sam really was...

When we first got off the metro stop closest to the Red Square we were mesmerized at how clean and colorful the city looks.  It is the best part of Russia.  We kept on finding ourselves coming back here because of how it lifted your spirits.

(Here Michal caught another picture of me "trying to figure out what was going on." I never did figure out what was going on though.)

Within the Red Square everything looks pristine and classy - but the rest of the country is such a different story.  Buildings give off the appearance that they are going to fall down if you lean against them wrong.  We couldn't find any stairs that weren't crooked.  Things are dirty.  To top it all off, it's hard to find a place to eat unless it's (a) McDonalds or (b) someplace ridiculously expensive.  

 So McDonald's it was.  Our first meal was there.  The lines were ridiculously long... actually did I mention that such things as lines don't exist in Russia.  It's called "giant mosh-pit" with people pushing and shoving their way to get to the next cashier available.  Seriously?!?  I couldn't handle it, so Michal "stood" in line to order a meal for us... that and he spoke enough Russian so that he didn't get pushed around and could order off the menu.  Once we got our food Michal was shocked at how much it was - for two Big Macs and fries it was over $15, and he was surprised at how large the portions were for Europe.  To prove his point he decided to raise his hand against the fry-box to show how large the box was.  Even though we were famished when we got there, and after being used to "European portions" for the last 9 months, there was just too much food and we couldn't finish it all.

The Red Square was our favorite part of Moscow.  We spent quite a lot of time there and took loads and loads of pictures.  We had serious trouble finding other tourists to take our picture for us.  No one spoke English period.  So, Michal asked them in Russian, and then it was like they still were too shy to help us.  We ended up finding a few Germans and Dutch who were patient enough to help us out with pictures, especially our infamous jumping pictures.  After some terrible pictures we just decided to take each other's picture instead of dealing with terrible shots by others.

After touring the Red Square, we headed over to the Luzhkov Bridge where there are several trees that contain thousands of locks on them.  It is called "The Lock Trees of Love."  Here newly married couples, or any couple, can attach a lock to one of these trees.  It is very similar to the idea of attaching locks to the fencing on bridges - it's just that these locks are in the MIDDLE of the bridge on trees.

Anyway, here we met up with Grant Newman. Grant was a roommate to Sam his freshman year at BYU and when they got their mission calls a month apart from each other - they found out that they were going to the exact same place: Novosibirsk, Russia.  Since we had a professional Russian speaking tour guide - we took advantage and had grant show us all the cool sites of the city.

The first place that Grant took us was to a monument entitled: Children are the Victims of Adult Vices. When describing these statues the artist said it "was conceived and carried out by me as a symbol and a call to fight for the salvation of present and future generations." There are 13 bronze statues which represent evil vices of the world.  A human body with an animal head to emphasize the allegory of the fight against the World Evil.  While in the center children play oblivious to the evils going on around them; thus representing "indifference." The 13 vices represented are: Alcoholism, Exploitation of Child Labor, Drug Addiction, Prostitution, Sadism, Ignorance, Irresponsible Science, War (holding a strange Mickey Mouse Bomb), Poverty, and Theft (with the statue in the middle representing those without memory and the two children in the center totaling 13). There has been controversy over these statues as how propagandistic they appear to be.  I thought it was interesting and something I never would have taken the time to see... luckily I had a great tour guide.  

The last place we wandered by was Tolstoy's house.  It was extremely late - almost around midnight - so the picture quality isn't the greatest... but Michal was excited to see his house. 

Thanks Grant for being an amazing tour guide and showing us things we never would have seen nor experienced unless you had been with us.

The next day we started out by going shopping.  We wanted to see what great deals we could find at some local flee markets... Remember how I said that people in Poland wear American paraphernalia?  Well, I found it all over Russia too.  It was hard to get pictures of some of them, but I got these of a lady's shoes on the Metro.  American flags plastered over some ballet flats... very in-ter-es-ting! And I decided to show my Russian "team spirit" by posing with the manequins wearing the official Russian Olympic gear.  (Needless to say, the only Olympics you could watch while we were there was if Russia took in the top 5.)

At the flee market Michal found some interesting buys.  We bought him this classic Soviet Union hat and one Russian doll - we got both for under $15 and felt like we got a deal.

Shopping can sure make you hungry, but the only thing that even looked appetizing were the crepes at the local "mall."  Michal made me try to order on my own.  It was a disaster... but he thought he was so funny by trying to catch it on camera.

I have no idea who the statue on the right is, it was just one of the many different statues located on one of the Metro stops.  

The statue on the left is of Dostoyevsky.  Michal idolizes Dostoyevsky, partly because he was a Russian Literature minor - but also because he really likes his books.  A picture of the statue had to have Michal in front of it - he just makes the picture complete. 

We wanted to spend the remaining time that we had in the Red Square.  We were going to go see Kremlin - but after getting in our Mosh Pit line - we realized it would cost $60 a person and that they closed in 2 hours and that it wasn't worth it.  So we wandered everywhere else instead. We figured that if we REALLY wanted to see it... I'm sure there is some video tour on YouTube that we can watch and feel like we didn't miss out at all.

Michal really wanted to see Mausoleum of Lenin.  Unfortunately, it's only open for about 2 hours each day - in the middle of the day - and we missed that window.  I felt terrible, absolutely terrible that Michal didn't get to see this (since we won't be coming back)... but there's always YouTube - right?

 At least this time we got MUCH better pictures of us together.  Don't you agree?

 Here we saw hundreds of people taking their picture on this "thing."  We had no idea why it was important... but of course... we couldn't miss out... so Michal jumped in and threw his coin and we figured we'd look up its importance later.  Well, come to find out, it's Kilometer Zero.  Apparently from this location is where all distance in Moscow is measured. There is also a legend that if you stand here and throw a coin over your shoulder while making a wish, your wish will come true.

Just as we were leaving, look who showed up...

Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky!  They wanted a lot of Rubles to get your picture taken with them - so instead we just snuck a few in when they weren't looking!  Michal isn't exactly posing WITH them, but we are happy with the outcome of the picture.

Last, but not least... remember how we said there were NO straight stairs in Russia.  Well, as we were headed home and out of Moscow - we wanted to document how true this statement really is!  Judge for yourselves from the pictures below...

The next city we went to was St. Petersburg.  The stairs there were straighter and things were cleaner.  It was more westernized and a major improvement from Moscow.

To be continued...