"Werlcome to Morshcow"

Warning: This is a longass entry.

So I left on an express day train to Moscow at 1pm, which was kind of frustrating because I had my first ultra fail miscommunication with my host mother. She had no idea we had an excursion to Moscow planned, so I had to tell her but with our limited communication, she got confused about when I was leaving and where I was going, so I ended up being a bit late to the train station x-x.

But I got on the train, and we were off, and it was a really nice sleek business class kind of train. Comfy seats, little table in front of us, etc. There was a little tv screen playing really old Russian cartoons, but with no audio, which kind of weird. But just seeing the animation was cute enough. All of us went to the cafe car for lunch and these two guys, Sergei and Dmitri, were having a good time drinking tons of..well i guess everything, and offered all of us a shot with them. Jonathan gladly walked over, to the horror of Olja, our lovely program deputy. What ensued was a hilarious conversation ending in Jonathan, Eric, and Olja each taking a shot of vodka, the rest of us having a sip of whiskey, and Dmitri and Sergei calling Olja "soo smart, like a fox, no, like a SPY." So funny.

Getting to Moscow, the infamous Moscow traffic let us get to our hostel at 7. We all checked into our hostel, the Monroe Hostel (complete with three random black and white poster images of marilyn monroe in cheap Ikea looking frames randomnly on the wall near the receptionist table) with a minor hiccup about room reservations. We were all supposed to be in the same room to ourselves, but the hostel placed three of their guests in that room, so we had to ask them to move to another room which was...awkward. But everything pretty much worked out by the end and no one really cared. We all went out to dinner to a really hilariously Sixties themed diner that had pictures of famous American actors and actresses, a neon Coca-Cola sign, etc. Had a very Orangina tasting Fanta and a chicken burger which had pickles, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and cucumber in it, which was interesting. Was going to go for the "kesedillo" or the "tortillo" but I decided against it...

After dinner we bought alcohol from one of the universal little stands on the sidewalk. Eric and Victoria bought cigars as well. Gin and tonic in a can. Yeah. I pretty much got apple cider since I'm still a wuss, but it tasted good and got me buzzed so it did its job and I was satisfied. We walked around forever to find a toothbrush for Olja, but at the end of the night we were all back in the hostel, watching funny youtube videos and enjoying our very classy drinks haha. Too bad we didn't have any Bloody Cherries or Chocolate Papas though.

Waking up at 8 was painful, but we all got ready for our full day of Kremlin fun. First, though, we had breakfast at a painfully expensive cafe (Coffeemania). I will never understand why they charged $10 for a small glass of orange juice. After breakfast we headed back onto our little tour bus and was dropped off near the Kremlin. We walked in and went into the Treasury/Armory Museum. The tour guide was a nice enough woman, but walking 10 feet, and then stopping to talk for 10 minutes, only to walk 10 feet again, really fucking hurt my feet. I can not stand for that long, let alone move a little bit, then stand for twice as long. It also didnt help that we went in during tour group rush hour, so the museum was packed with tourists from all over the world, which was kind of cool but mostly annoying since there were also so many damned cases of royal gifts, which by the way, all put together in one huge show case, made everything look tackier. All in all, it was just too overwhelming of an experience for me. The things the tour guide was also saying was interesting, but all she was saying was "this is a ____. it is made of (silver/gold). it has (semi-precious stones/gems). it weighs (insert kilos). (insert royal person) gave this to (insert person of Russian royalty)." So we went to a lot of cases, pointed out a lot of objects, and with so many other people around, it all become one huge experience of white noise. The museum itself was beautiful and huge, with ribbed arches but it carried the sound so well that it only heightened the overall noise. There was just so much white noise in my head I couldn't do anything but zone out and try not to focus on my painful feet. We had a 30 minute break and then took the slowest walking tour of the kremlin, and the slowest tour of the Assumption Cathedral, which was absolutely gorgeous, but once again, pain in feet+lots of noise+tour guide = me listless.

After that eternal tour, we went to have lunch in some food court that was way underground near the Kremlin and I had Sbarro. In Russia. And I had stomach problems for the rest of the day. Lesson learned. We then visited the Tolstoy Museum, (yay blue plastic slippers lol) which was honestly my favorite place. It was a really beautiful (but not overdone) estate, and Tolstoy had a very interesting life and personality. The museum is set up to be as authentic as possible, as though he and his family had just left the house for the day. Knowing that everything was in the same place it was all those years ago gave me a bit of a creeped out feeling, especially in Vanechka's room, because he was the youngest, the favorite, and most gifted but unfortunately died at 7 from scarlet fever. So being in the nursery and seeing his personal belongings and pictures of him felt like I was invading a very private space that caused a lot of pain at one point. But all in all, it made for a very interesting experience. Our tour guide was soft spoken and simple, and Firtich gladly translated for all of us. I turned around at one point and realized another tourist had trailed in after our tour and ended up listening to our tour haha.

After the tour, we got onto the bus and the tourist that trailed after us...also got on the bus. Firtich introduced him as "here is another visitor to Moscow, he's from England." And so we were off o_O; We only drove for about two minutes since our next destination was a really famous cemetery nearby where many revered celebrities, writers, poets, scientists, politicians, artists are buried. The tourist apparently was planning on visiting the same cemetery, so Firtich offered him a free ride haha. I talked to him since he seemed like a nice enough dude and not as sketch as the guys our group has encountered before and learned that his name is Ewan, he's from somewhere north of London, and is a Ph.D. student visiting Russia for a space science conference? I dont know, I think his story panned out but others didn't really seem to think he knew English very well, so maybe he was sketchier than everyone else we met. But at least he kept to himself during the tour and was not a drunkard, a douche, or a creep. The cemetery itself was really interesting, but I don't know enough Russian literature and culture to appreciate all of the famous people our tour guide pointed out. Our tour guide also did not know who Khrushchev was, which was....kind of unbelievable. But yeah, Khrushchev, Gogol, Chekov, many greats were buried in that cemetery.

Post-cemetery tour, we all went to visit a really famous convent, but because we were 5 minutes late, we couldn't go inside. Instead we walked around the grounds, looked at the beautiful buildings, and found an old artillery gun and weapons stash in one of the arcades. There was a gun, an air bomb, and many other rusted weapons just...lying on the ground in this arched area. After that interesting find, we went to a specific spot where we could see the skyline of Moscow, which has Stalin's 7 Skyscrapers, the biggest in our view being the state university, but what definitely stood out was Moscow's business district, which was kind of an eyesore considering how level everything else seemed. But that's current times for you, I guess. We then all went back to the hostel to finally rest for a bit before going out for dinner. I was talking to Olja in the hallway of the hostel and that's where I met Vladimir. Olja and I were chatting and all of a sudden this tall Russian dude comes up to us and goes "Where are you from?" Olja answers "I'm Russian" in Russian, and the dude looks at me and goes "Where are you from?"

"The states."

"Vat?"

"The United States."

"Oh. Vat state?"

"..New York."

"Oh."

"...Yeah."

"Vat is your name?"

".............Ste--(I look at Olja). Tiffany. My name's Tiffany."

"Oh. I am Vladimir."

".........Cool."

"Vat?"

"Uh...cool?"

"....."

At that point Olja just jumps in (FINALLY) and explains to him in quick Russian that we were kind of having a conversation and that maybe we could talk later. And she actually looks at me after he leaves us be and goes "Oh, Russians do that all the time, he just wants to practice his English. So now you know, you can speak English to him later!" Yeah. Okay. Sure.

Found out later that that very morning, Victoria met Vladimir as well, but in the bathroom while she was brushing her teeth and Joe was in the stall. Apparently he was staring at her in the mirror and she uncomfortably muttered "Privet" while still brushing to get him to stop. He then left, and came back, and tried having a conversation with her that was equally awkward as mine. But I think hers definitely trumps mine in "awkward moment" just with that beginning.

Oh..hostels. Never know who you're going to meet ha. I did see a lot of Asians in the hostel, but didn't bother talking to any of them. I kind of dont want to be one of the sketch people.

Anyway, dinner. So we went to Le Pain Quotidien, and I started feeling really out of it and just needed something of substance, so I got chicken soup in a bread bowl. It was delicious and very filling. I also had a glass of white wine sangria, which wasn't the best sangria, but it was fine so whatever. After dinner we all went to the grocery store to stock up for breakfast and lunch for the next day since we'd be traveling for most of it, and chipped in for two boxes of wine for that night's fun. So we had two boxes of wine that night in our little hostel room, playing Never Have I Ever...but with gross (but cheap, seriously it was $4) box wine. It was fun, though. At one point I had to ask a question to one of the hostel people because I heard people speaking English in the "common area," and met a guy from Kazakhstan who actually lived in New York, specifically the Brighton Beach area in Brooklyn. He described it as "a very bad neighborhood. There were...the guys...paying...trying to sell the drugs." And my response was "...ah yeah. That happens. Well, thanks again and nice to meet you." Got to falling asleep at 1am, which wasn't that late, but for our wake up time it was still painful.

Woke up at 7? 8? Who the hell knows, it was early and I hated it. Groggily got up and ready for the day. Had breakfast in Olja's room, so I enjoyed my strawberry yogurt and green seedless grapes, which were good. Eric unknowingly put his entire breakfast in the freezer, so he had a frozen banana, apple, and fish. After our grocery breakfast, we waited in the bus for Firtich, his wife, and Anya and we were off to the Romanov house. I love museum slippers a lot, it's a nice idea and fun to slide around in haha. The Romanov house was really interesting because they were nobility, but not royalty until after Ivan the Terrible's whole mistake, so we visited their first estate as nobility. The house was really nice and interesting because it showed how the nobility lived, which wasn't as tacky as the Armory >_>;

After the Romanov house, we went to the Red Square, which a lot of was closed off for...a concert? For military music? Whatever it was, it took up a ton of space in the Red Square and there were a lot of tourists so it was kind of a bust in my eyes. We then walked over to St. Basil's Cathedral which was really beautiful but once again, the crowdedness really just took away so much of the experience for me. But beautiful paintings and the steep stairs made up for some of it. Getting out of St. Basil's, we decided to visit Lenin's mausoleum, which had a ton of security outside of it and therefore a huge line was formed. We had to remove all cellphones and cameras before we got into the line, and then had go through metal detectors and have our bags inspected by the guards. Walking along the wall of the Kremlin, we saw the burials of many famous military commanders and leaders, and of course, Stalin's grave, which was covered in carnations. Lenin's mausoleum was a Mayan-inspired red marble structure that was nearly completely dark inside. We had to walk down the stairs, which were barely lit, and a soldier/officer stood completely still in every corner. At one point I thought I had gone blind and was going to fall down because it was just that dark, only to look up and see the most severe looking officer staring at me. Lenin's mummy is...interesting. It was...definitely quite the experience overall.

We had lunch at the famous гум (Gum) trading house, specifically at a very inexpensive and pretty good "Asian Buffet." I forgot my kimono and blue hat, so unfortunately I could not fulfill the stereotype presented in the little photos, which is a shame. I had a flaky bread thing with lamb (and a bed of oil) inside, as well as a "lamb samosa" which was flaky, triangular, and covered in sesame seeds. Not bad at all and at $5, definitely worth it. After lunch we got back to the bus and went on our way to the Tretyakov State Gallery, the more modern of the two first. We were allowed to walk around the gallery space for an hour and a half and I didn't realize the contemporary art was on the second floor, so I stayed mostly on the avant-garde third floor, staring at "Composition VII" by Kandinsky (breathtaking painting, seriously, my iPod does not do it justice) The whole space was enormous and the art was beautiful. We went into the Salon de Refusee-styled sculpture garden, which has statues that are now out of their time periods and contexts, so it was kind of a little vintage amusement park, which was interesting. Saw one of the few remaining marble statues of Stalin, and this one in particular had a broken nose and was placed in front of a wall-length memorial to the victims under his reign. The tackiest sculpture in all of Moscow, though, has to be the ginormous sculpture of Peter The Great/Columbus, which just towers over everything and is just. seriously. An eyesore of all eyesores.

Well after all of that, we headed over to the original and first Tretyakov Gallery that holds classical and traditional Russian artworks starting with icons and leading up to the avant garde. We met with Professor Lydoev (sp), who is a world-class scholar on Russian icons, and he took us into the Orthodox Cathedral adjoined to the museum to show us the most famous and revered of all Orthodox miraculous icons, "Our Lady of Vladimir." It was simply breathtaking, and even more so that it is in the place of worship, with people praying to it and pressing their lips and heads against the glass to be blessed by the Virgin Mary. We unfortunately did stumble upon a service being held after looking at the icon up close, and moved into the galleries to hear the professor's lecture on icons. It was really interesting and the only downside was how much my feet hurt. Everything else, though, was really interesting, especially since he was using the icons in the gallery to show his point and explain the history and aesthetic of the time. We even saw the most famous Russian icon of all time, Rublyev's "Trinity," which was very beautiful. After his lecture, we had a bit of time to wander, and I ended up wandering with Olja and Joe because I didn't want to get lost in the space. Some very beautiful works of art were on display, and it was all so interesting. Olja provided some info on some of the subjects, pointing out who was who, and explaining some stories that went along with the paintings. After our little wandering I bought a few postcards from the museum shop and then outside I bought a little (lol not little, actually) shotglass for Irene (I REMEMBERED :D).

We had some time to kill since our train didnt leave until late and we didnt want to have dinner early so we took a short 45 minute tour to a few famous Moscow metro stations. The first one was eh, but oh my god, the second metro station was ridiculous. It was Komsomolskaya on the Koltsevaya line and was literally like a beautiful palace, which was the whole point of it. Taking the palaces away from the elite and giving to the common commuter. The ceiling had mosaics of Russian victories and beautiful moldings, and there were huge chandeliers down the middle in between the mosaic pieces. It was just. unreal. The last station we went to was also very interesting since it was one of the oldest stations and built during Soviet times, Ploschad Revolyutsii, so there were all these arches down the platform and in each arch were two bronze sculptures of people being happy. Happy children happy workers, happy soldiers, everyone was happy during Soviet times of course! But when we got there, I was just creeped out because even though the idea is that the sculptures were of happy people, they were just staring out across the platform to the other side, where the other sculptures were, and they were elevated so that you had to look up to see this unsmiling face staring out above your head. There were certain parts of sculptures one could rub for good luck, like a certain dog, the bottle of a soldier, the gun of a soldier...definitely interesting haha.

Then we had our epic dinner, finally haha. We went to a really great Ukrainian restaurant and had all of these delicious appetizers of cheese, grapes, vegetables, meat buns, veggie buns. We also had red wine, white wine, morse (cherry and cranberry juice cocktail i think), beers, etc. My side of the table took care of the red and white wines and went through about two bottles haha. There were toasts, fun conversation, and definitely a lot of laughter (and being "urseholes"). I had rabbit as my main course, and it was really delicious except that it was in such a rich sauce that I couldn't finish it all. Joe got the trout and it literally was an entire trout haha. After our lovely dinner, we took the bus to the train station and boarded our midnight train to Saint Petersburg, our home :) The train was really nice and classy, and had red velvet everywhere. It was all sleeper cars, so there were four to a room. I stayed with Elizabeth, Olja, and Anya, so we had a little girl talk before moving to the cafe car to drink just a bit more. Had a beer, talked with Victoria, Elizabeth, and always wonderful Professor Firtich. We turned in at about 2, which was kind of a mistake since we'd be at Petersburg by 8am haha. I definitely woke up feeling like I only closed my eyes for about 5 minutes and found myself groggily walking back to my apartment building, which took way too long because I got confused about what street I was on. But coming back to my room and my host mother's breakfast was definitely nice, even though the weather in Petersburg today was grey.

In general, Moscow just feels more like New York on a larger scale, so the tacky is over proportioned, and there are so many more people. I actually felt what a lot of people feel when they come to New York for the first time: trapped. I felt like I was trapped in a huge box, but trapped nonetheless. The weather in Moscow is warmer, since it's more south, but everything is just a bit more expensive. There are definitely a lot more tourists around in Moscow, which was to be expected I guess. Saint Petersburg is definitely more of European city, with canals and beautiful buildings that don't stick out like modern skyscraper eyesores. Even when the weather is grey, the bright colors stick out, which is the whole point of that. Also staying in a sketch hostel vs my nice comfortable room with my very nice host mother makes me biased. But I honestly do believe that I would not be as happy being in Moscow for my semester abroad based solely on the fact that I left New York for Vassar because I didn't want to get trapped in such a cold, urban atmosphere. So in conclusion, I'm glad for my trip to Moscow for many reasons, but the chiefest of them at this point right now is for making me feel that Saint Peterburg is my home.

Tomorrow: FIRST DAY OF CLASSES AT THE HERMITAGE, 11AM WHOOOOO.