April in Moscow

Home tomorrow!  I miss Jane, my friends, my mother.  I even miss work!
For those of you interested in an alternative view of the trip, try Jim Troupis' blog From Russia With Law.
Light rain in the morning this Wednesday.  The shuttle to downtown Moscow takes 75 minutes today, a little longer than yesterday.  I immediately hop the metro to the Park Kulturi station, walk across the Moscow River bridge to get to the Tretyakov sculpture park.  Across the road from the Tetryakov is Gorky Park, made famous in the 1981 novel of the same name by Martin Cruz Smith.  The roller coasters of that park are right along the river bank.  The sculpture park admission is 20 rubles, about 65 cents.  It adjoins the Tretyakov 20th century art gallery and is many blocks away from the main Tretyakov Galleries I visited yesterday. 

One of the first sculptures encountered

Yesterday I mentioned the Amazing Race Moscow Episode which required counting how many statues of Lenin and how many of Stalin are in the park.  Below is one of the Stalin statues with some of his vicitms behind him.

Stalin With Heads Behind Wire Grating

Predominantly the statues were not of Soviet Leaders.  Those occupied only a small corner of the park called "The Graveyard of Fallen Monuments".   Below are Marx and Lenin.

Its an Old Joke, But I'm an Old Guy

Some of the staures are of wood as below.

Then back across the river to the metro circle (brown) line which is recommended on Trip Advisor.  More artwork, more marble.  I need to transfer at the Mendeleev station.  It is decorated with oversized models of atoms, befitting the creator of the chemical periodic table.  I've found a station a little closer to the hotel and get off there for the 4 km walk.  There are no uncertainties about the route today as it follows the road the shuttle has taken today and yesterday.  For my physician friends, here is a photo of a TV series promotion at a bus stop.

The Title Transliterates to Interni

Some Russian acquaintances have told me they consider themselves to have won World War II.  They recount that Hitler and the Germans had their first defeat in the battle of Moscow in 1941-42.  There is a sense of personal attachment to the war.  The Soviet Union is estimated to have lost 26,600,000 citizens in the war with 8,000,000 to 10,700,000 being military casualties.  The dead totalled over 14% (1 in 7) of the population of the Soviet Union at the time.  In contrast the United States lost 418,500 in the war or 0.32% of the population at the time.  Posters are up around Moscow and were also visible in Irkutsk celebrating the victory.

My Guess is 65 Years of Victory

One last image from today is below.  This one is graphic, so be warned or look away.  I've mentioned how omnipresent cigarettes are here.  The government is trying to discourage smoking.

Smoking is Suicide

Well, it is time to re-pack my impressive mound of dirty clothes for tomorrow's scheduled flight home.  Jim Troupis told me he would get me out of my comfort zone.  Jim is not known for understatement, but he accomplished it because my comfort zone was blown away.  I'm not much of an envelope pusher.  Jim, I'm already plotting my revenge.

Da svidanya,

Bill

Kremlin Walking

Today I'm anxious.  The Sound of Music  song lines are going through my head, "Totally unprepared am I . . ."

I'm planning on seeing the Kremlin and trying the Moscow Metro and who knows what else.  The hotel has a free shuttle scheduled to take 90 minutes to get to downtown because of the unpredictability of traffic here.  I'm hoping to take the metro back as close to the hotel as I can, but it will still be a substantial walk.  Pickpockets worry me.  I hedge against loss by putting my passport in my breast pocket underneath my jacket, my phone in one pants pocket and my billfold in another with that pocket covered by the tether of my pedometer.  My daily goal with the pedometer is 10,000 steps.  I have not made it once on this trip.

The shuttle takes only 65 minutes through roads that are as many as five lanes in each direction and filled with vehicles.  As soon as I leave the van, some golden domes and spires are visible.  I head toward them passing the Russian Duma (parliament).  The street to Red Square looks like it is impossible to cross as a pedestrian and I see no one attempting it.  Then I figure out there is an underpass for pedestrians.  It leads to the metro, but also to Red Square.  The underpass is extensive with many branches and filled with shops, some upscale.

Then I am on the rain-slicked paving stones of Red Square!  A few of the tourist kiosks are just opening.  Perhaps ten other people are on the giant square, plus a few guards and workers.  To my left is the famous GUM department store, famous for having bare shelves frequently during the Soviet era, but now the Russian equivalent of Harrod's or Macy's.  To my right is the Kremlin wall with its turrets and enormous brick wall.  Lenin's mausoleum is in the middle of that wall.  Straight ahead are the golden domes and spires of St. Basil's Cathedral.

GUM Department Store

St. Basil's Cathedral

The Wall of the Kremlin

I am awed and overwhelmed by being here.  I grew up during the Cold War.  Bad things happened in the Kremlin.  Now school children line up for tours.  I don't know how much of it they get to see.  Red Square descends to the Moscow River and I cross the bridge and find a park with a striking sculpture group of 15 figures.

Children are the Victims of Adults' Vices

I encounter my first panhandler of the trip as a man approaches me and switches effortlessly to English saying, "I don't want money, but could you buy me a cup of coffee?"

Crossing the next river I come to the Tretyakov Gallery and decide to try to spend more time tomorrow.  There is a sculpture park I want to spend time seeing.  It was featured on my favorite TV show, "The Amazing Race."

I re-cross both rivers ending up on the other side of the Kremlin from Red Square and browse the Kremlin gift shop.  Now I need to find the Тверская metro stop. When I do find the entrance, again there is an underground shopping mall before the actual entrance to the metro.  I find the metro ticket office and hold up five fingers and slide 125 rubles to the cashier.  She gives me an access card.  I observe how others are using the cards and follow suit.  It is a touch system identical to the London Tube.  After going down an escalator, I try to find the signs for the train to the владыкино metro stop but do not see them.  I check my map, then notice that the sign for line 9, the grey line, points down the hall.  The station is full of marble and well-kept.  There is frequent artwork remaining from the Soviet era.  After descent of two more escalators, I see the sign for the train toward владыкино and it arrives promptly.  I count seven stops from the map in the train and everything works.  It is actually one of the easiest and cleanest subways I've encountered with the language the biggest barrier.

Leaving the владыкино metro station, I look for a map of the neighborhood and find it.  The street starting my walk back to the hotel is on the map and I think I've got the right direction.  Forty-five minutes  and 2.8 miles later I am at the hotel.  My feet are talking to me.  My pedometer says over 17,000 steps today.  Maybe tomorrow I'll brave the bus system as it seems there is no metro station closer.

Polyglot Monday

When I was 16 years old, I lived in southern Iran with an Iranian family that had 3 sons, the eldest, Omid, a year younger than me.  I was an exchange student for the summer of 1969 with American Field Service (AFS).  Communicating was a challenge.  I would study Farsi with the son who was entering first grade.  The language is written right to left with the Arabic alphabet even though it is not an Arabic language.  However, numbers are written left to right.  A challenge, indeed.
Learning some Russian is the biggest language and communication challenge I can remember since 1969.  The cyrillic alphabet, while written left to right, is confusing.  I have a hard time recognizing words as a whole, instead having to phonetically plow through them, frequently getting stresses and vowel sounds completely wrong, not always knowing which letters are silent and which pronounced.  Sign language and gestures are coming in handy.
There are 35 channels on the TV in the Iris Congress Hotel room: some in Russian, English, French, Japanese, German, Korean, Italian, Chinese, Polish, Spanish, Turkish, and Arabic.
The people sitting around me at breakfast are speaking Arabic, German, Russian, Chinese, and English.  The breakfast staff handle it all without knowing all the languages.  I think the reception staff handle it by knowing English and Russian.
Learning a language necessarily requires learning about a culture as well.  This meeting of languages and cultures inspires me.
Tomorrow I'm planning on Red Square, the Kremlin, the famous Moscow Metro and who knows what else?
خداحافظ
До свидания!
Au revoir
auf wiedersehen
Ciao
Adios
Until we meet again,
Bill

This Was Unexpected or Eyjafjallajokull

Irkutsk time as the alarm goes off: 4:50AM Sunday or US Eastern time 3:50PM Saturday.  No internet since Wednesday,  no TV,  no newspaper, but somehow we had heard there was a problem with a volcano somewhere.


All packed and ready to get back to Venice. Gala comes with the taxi at 5:20AM as planned, but the gate to the street is locked and Jim and I have to haul my luggage to the Lenin Street entrance to the university. The trip to the airport goes well, the flight if on time and its an exit row seat. Everything’s going well. Breakfast (?) is chicken and rice with ‘Nilla Wafers or similar for dessert. The flight arrives early to Moscow; 7:30AM Moscow time, 12:30PM Irkutsk time, or Venice time 11:30 Saturday night. Then the pattern shifts. After collecting luggage and a 5 minute bus trip to the terminal where Delta is, one of the baggage checking people tells me my flight is delayed. The board still says on time and the Delta counter isn’t open yet. However, a long line is waiting for it to open. I hang around the area and find a sign saying the Delta flight for today and tomorrow is cancelled due to the vulcano eruption (sic). The Delta lady at the counter gives me the local Delta phone number, but I can’t get it to work on my mobile. I call the US Sky Miles number and eventually get the last seat on the Thursday flight! Delta helps me with a room at about a 2/3 discount at the Iris Congress Hotel in Moscow. I call Jane to let her know the situation, but I forget that I am no longer on Irkutsk time and wake her at 1:40AM. After hanging around the airport terminal for a few hours, getting some more rubles, I negotiate a taxi to the hotel. He says 2500 rubles, I say nyet; he says 2000. I shake my head and say 1200. He says “1500, just for you.” Why do I think I've still been had?  OK, the Iris Congress Hotel is 25 minutes away, 8 stories and quite comfortable and modern with breakfast included.

Actually looks like this photo from trip advisor

 I’ve called Jim and hope he is not affected by the volcanic ash later this week. I call Gala and she promises to see if she can help with tours or contacts while I’m here in Moscow.
Disappointed in not getting home to see Jane.  Powerless (Surely there's a way they can make an exception for me!  Get ME back home even if they cannot get the other 20,000 people stranded at SVO out).  What to do?  Tour Moscow.  Get internet service.  Eat something other than M & M's.  All planned for the next few days.
Da svidanya,
Bill

Spring Comes to Siberia

The Irkutsk train station, one of the major stops on the Trans-Siberian Express, evokes similarities to American train stations:  high ceilings, marble walls and columns, electronic timetable boards and stairs down to the platforms with family and school groups as well as individuals walking around.  Announcements come through the PA system.  Just after 8AM, Gala, Jim, and I accompanied by two other law school faculty, Maria and Tatiana, board and sit in our reserved seats of the modern car of the circumbaikal tourist train.  The train leaves the snow flurries of Irkutsk and parallels the Angara River until it turns a bit further south climbing into the mountains.  We pass by daschas (summer homes) along the river.  They are packed closely together and remind me of the cottages in Wisconsin we rented as a family for vacations.  The snow flurries taper as we climb into the forest.  We have a huge bag of picnic goodies for the day, packed by the university dining room personnel.  Unlike my family, we have not eaten all the food before the train even pulls out.
Late in the morning views of frozen Lake Baikal replace the forested mountains and valleys.  The surface of Lake Baikal is 455 meters above sea level and we are well above it.  Our first stop is at a small station with a statue of Prince Hugo who was somebody who had something to do with the train; look it up if you need more information.  While we're out of the train, I notice the snow is great for packing into snowballs.  So does a group of students on an outing.
Upon reboarding the train at the southern tip of Lake Baikal, we start going backwards for the rest of the trip up the west coast of the lake to end in Port Baikal.  We have several more stops, mostly at picturesque areas of the railway.  We pass by picnic tables and one small tent on the shore of the lake.  While stopped where one frozen river empties into Lake Baikal, some of the group hire ATV's to ride on the lake.  Our group has a snowball fight; no injuries, no victors or vanquished and our picnic resumes on the train.  Tea and cognac are the drinks of choice.  The tracks curve on the very edge of the lake and our progress is slow.  At one of the stops a flower that looks a bit like a dandelion is peeking through the snow, which is melting slowly. Finally we reach Port Baikal, a small village across the origin of the Angara River from Listvyanka, where our van back to Irkutsk awaits.  We are told we will be on boat 3 of 4 to cross to Listvyanka, so we have some time for the museum at the train station.  Boat 3 turns out to be an airboat (think Everglades transportation) as are the others.  We walk out on the ice and get inside the enclosed cabin.  There are skids and doughnuts as we cross the ice.  We're told the airboats can travel over the ice or the water, but we stick with the thick ice.  We're back at the apartment about 9PM.  Another remarkable day!
I pack my bags for my flight home tomorrow and slice some "Wisconsin food", cheese and sausage to share with Jim and we finish the remanants of a bottle of Baikal Vodka.  Jim suggests I take the bottle as a souvenir; it sounds like a good idea at the time.

Note:  the last few days posts have not included pictures because I do not have the gear to transfer pictures from the camera.  I'll add them when I can.

Anatoli's Idosyncratic Tour

The clinics I've seen so far are at the top of the heap.  They are modern, efficient and compare to what I've seen in the United States with doctors and technicians who seem to enjoy their jobs and take pride in being up to date and providing excellent care.  However, we hear about other private clinics and municipal clinics where it seems the care may be of lesser quality and takes more of the patient's time.
Today after law school and 2PM lunch, Anatoli the dentist takes us to his dental clinic.  It is in a dingy part of town.  The signage for the clinic and the entryway are dingy.  The rooms inside have the usual dental chairs and other equipment, but it may not be the most modern.  The rooms are (how do I best say it?) dingy.  Anatoli tells us the clinic is open until 9PM six days a week and 30 general dentists and dental specialists spend some time there each week.  He then drives us to his "cosmetic clinic" named Nefertiti and featuring an ancient Egypt theme.  It turns out to be what we might call a day spa.  Anatoli, I think, is trying to make ends meet and have a little extra (he has told us a dentist might make $10,000-$15,000 annually which I could harldly believe, so I twice confirmed the numbers with him.  He tells us that, as in the US, dentists can make more than doctors.  I am doubtful of the complete accuracy of the communication).  The day spa has a tanning bed in one room, a manicure and pedicure area, a massage room, and a hairdressing room where one man is getting his hair cut.  The other rooms are empty of clients.
Over Gala's objections, Anatoli decides to show us the "real Irkutsk".  We go to the animal adoption center in the boondocks.  Dogs are there for adoption and there is a dog hotel for owners who will be gone.  Amazingly, there are three Siberian bears in small cages as well as a Siberian lynsx and wolf.  Many horses are there as well.  We see the airplane factory where many MIG fighters were made.  We do go to the Eastern Orthodox cathedral where Anatoli buys Jim and I each a small piece of the building in a small bag to carry with us for good luck.  Confusingly, he announces that he is an atheist.  We drive to a high point in the city where the panoramic view is less spectacular than it used to be because of broken bottles and new construction.  We drive through the military officers school.  Jim feels he could now handle driving through Irkutsk confidently.
The tour lasts so long Anatoli must drop Gala, Jim, and I off at Svetlana's apartment where we are expected for a real Siberian dinner.  Pascha (Paul) and Svetlana are on the sixth floor where they have what appears to be a one bedroom condominium built recently that they share with their 15 month old son, Tim.  Pascha is the head public prosecutor for one of the Irkutsk districts.  Svetlana is the translator that shared duties with Gala on Jim's previous teaching stint at the Baikal National University of Economics and Law.  Svetlana has read an American theory of early reading and many items around the apartment are labeled with their names in Russian in large print so Tim sees them and may recognize the words.  She will add English labels later.  The label "Mama" has an attractive picture of Svetlana.  The label "Papa" has a newspaper photo of Pascha with accompanying article detailing his team's investigation and capture of a murderer.  The public prosecutor is a combination investigative policeman and prosecuting attorney, unlike the US.
Dinner is served with juice and, kanyeshna (of course), vodka.  There are slices of beef tongue with mustard, fish patties, small pickles, a cabbage salad, and delicious mushrooms.  The neighbor, a young woman, comes to take Tim to her apartment for babysitting during the adult dinner.  Pascha drops Jim and I off at the apartment and then takes Gala home.
Tomorrow is the CircumBaikal railway trip at 7:30AM.

Vodka Wars, Part Deux

A teaser for the title of today's post:  Two years ago Jim participated in a Russian tradition with the head of the Trans-Siberian Railway.  Once the bottle of vodka is opened, it must be finished.  He refers to the episode as "Vodka Wars."

In the morning Gala takes me to the Foreign Language Department, where I've not been previously, but understand Karen Troupis spent every school day there on the trip two years ago.  After some tea with faculty members, the class starts with about 20 second year students.  I've stolen a page from Jim's lesson plans and require each to stand, give a self-introduction and tell something about the US.  The discussion is lively and I'm sure I learn as much as they do.  At the end of the 80 minutes, I give each a Sharky's postcard and a fossilized shark's tooth explaining about the postcards that Mike Pachota is a businessman and looks one everyone as a potential customer.  One of the faculty remarks, accurately, that he must be an optimist!
After a fifteen minute break, the fourth year students come in.  The routine is the same, but the quality of English is more sophisticated.  All the more impressive considering Chinese is these students' "first" language and English "second."  Several students stay after class, including one desperate for information about work in the US for this summer.  I give her a Sharky's postcard, circle the phone number and write my name and Mike Pachota's name.  So Mike, if someone with a Russian accent calls Sharky's . . .
Finally lunch at 2PM as usual and Jim decides he cannot accompany us to the ophthalmology clinic as he is showing Anatomy of a Murder and he wants to see which students are there.  We tell Jim we'll be back in just over an hour.  Gala and I ride across the river to the modern looking clinic and are introduced to the director.  He directs one of the other doctors, "Doctor Natalia", to give us a tour.  They do 55 eye surgeries daily in this clinic in addition to various laser surgeries.  The equipment is modern and sophisticated and the layout is efficient.  People are walking around with eye patches.  After the tour the director invites us into his private office along with Doctor Natalia and the secretary, "Helen", whot tells me she has been to Ocean City, Maryland.  There are plates of cheese, meat, pastries and unopened bottles of liquor.  Tea is serverd, then a large bottle of Teacher's whisky is opened.  It is not vodka, but the tradition is the same.  Doctor Natalia is driving so she is drinking only tea.  Helen prefers Hennessey's so she is not sharing in the whisky.  Gala drinks some, but the director and I have the majority of the bottle.  Two-thirds of the way through the bottle, after the director says he has been to Carnegie Hall to see his brother play the piano, he invites us down the hall through an unmarked door where he takes the cover off a baby grand piano.  Soon we're all singing Beatles' songs and others to his skilled piano playing.  Then back to his office to finish the whisky.  We go back to see Jim tipsy and happy, and 3 hours late.