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MOSCOW, SAINT-PETERSBURG, NOGINSK Traveling couple of weeks ago to Russia I encountered so many problems in writing a brief travel essay about a country where I grew up, that I gave up this almost impossible task. Actually, it is a nice job to make an assay about a country or a place being visited for a brief transit. In this case only prominent features of its foreside attract your attention, and those features become what are you writing about. In contrast to such cursory approach, while the writer is trying to sketch his own natal country, he involuntary dips into the inconceivable for any foreigner intrinsic state of things that converts the travel essay into a sociological issue which was never the purpose of my present work. Taking it into account, I decided not to describe the contemporarily Russia as an entity, but concentrate reader's attention only on the facts that amaze personally me, the person who was born there, but was more than four years away from my natal country. Thus, this essay contains much more "myself" than the real state of things in Russia. But what is featured there really attracts my attention during my ten days trip. My trip started in Moscow, then I went to Noginsk (small town in one hour driving east of Moscow), and then I went to Saint-Petersburg. Of course, I didn't forget to visit that small part of Moscow where I grew up : my so-called "small motherland" located in Schukino which is noth-west part of Moscow. This part of Moscow river, these grassed slopes, these sand beaches, these buildings, this bridge (built in 1980s) were surrounding me while I was a schoolboy. It is a pretty nice part of the city since the winds in Moscow blow usually from the west, and the river enters the city from the west side too, so this part of Moscow is its less polluted area. It is the area of universities and famous scientific and research centers mostly inhabited with educated people working for those centers and laborotories. The Russian Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" established in 1943 as a headquarters of Russain nuclear project is located in a couple of kilometers from these places. The first thing that I encountered in Russia was that everybody (at streets, in stores, in public places, in transportation) SPEAKS RUSSIAN. It was so confusing, that I was continuously asking myself: "What are they all people doing?" and slide to English in all public places and facilities. First time I even had the problem to buy a ticket from the airport to metro since I didn't know how much it is and I had no idea how to start the phrase properly, and my girl-friend who met me in the airport had to help me to buy tickets for both of us. Another surprising thing was the number of places where I could use my credit card. Today, like five-ten years ago, there are a very few of them, so it was so many times for me of being out of Russian cash, although with full wallet of dollars and a valid credit card. Nevertheless, in large cities there are a lot of ATMs and currency exchange booths; mostly, they are located inside or close to metro stations.
Not only Moscow Metro is the place where the number of people increased drastically. The same situation is at the streets. Swarms of people (especially visitors) flood the city. I was told, the population of Moscow approaches fourteen millions inhabitants. Accordingly, the number of cars drastically increases too, and there are a very few drivers who still obey the traffic regulations. Driving across the downtown, or following Moscow's or Saint-Petersburg's beltway is a crazy adventure, full of gambling with your car. The last invention of Russian criminals is a "put on". In the rush hour three or four drivers intentionally create emergency situation at the road and force the car driven by a single driver (usually, a woman) hit one of their cars. As a rule, they use an old foreign-made car, which is almost out of its resources. Then the criminals (usually, a few large men) stop their victim, and scare him or her with the size of damage which the victim is supposed to pay for, otherwise the criminals threaten to call the Police, pressing and convincing the victim that the Policemen would assess the damage much worse, and the accident would affect victim's drivers records. Actually, the real damage to criminal’s car is not too bad, but victim is upset, scared and usually fears the Police more than the criminals. That’s why the victim pays the requested amount making criminals happy and satisfied. Regarding casual life, it experienced some surprising changes too. The most amazing thing was that the Russians don't value American dollar as they did it in 1998-1999, the years of Russian economical default. Those years, no one treated ruble as a currency, but preferred to keep their savings in American dollars using them as a legal tender. I had an adventure with rubles and dollars. I had to travel to Moscow from small town of Noginsk located in one hour driving from the capital. It was a late hour. The last public bus was gone, and there was no railroad in the town. Only taxi cabs and private drivers offered their service at a deserted bus station. I came up to a cabman and asked him to give me a lift to Moscow. He agreed, but said it would be very expensive: 600 rubles (approximately 20 dollars). I was confused. I had enough dollars, but I didn't have enough rubles. I suggested the cabman to pay 20 dollars, but he refused saying the dollars are not money. I spent a few totally frustrated minutes, but the cabman came up to me himself and offered me another option: he drives me to closest railroad station (he said it would cost 150 rubles), and then I travel to Moscow by suburban train. I asked how much is the train, but the driver laughed and said that no normal person in Russia pays for suburban trains. I agreed with him, keeping in the mind that anyway I would buy a ticket for the train. Thus, I sat to the cab and fastened the seat belt. The next moment I noticed the driver became very angry because he treated my behaviour as distrust in his ability to drive safely. I started to explain him that I just came from America where everybody is fastening seat belts and nobody finds it offended, but he still didn't believe me and looked very upset all our way to railroad station. When we came to the railroad station I took off my wallet and realized that I had only 120 or 130 rubles (other money was dollars only), and I still needed money for the suburban train and for metro in Moscow. I suggested the driver to give 100 rubles + 5 dollars. So: 100 rubles + 5 dollars = 250 rubles, i.e. 100 rubles more than was initially agreed between us. Actually, the driver was very upset, but he saw my desperate situation and agreed to take some dollars instead of rubles. A minute later I was at the railroad station with 20 or 30 rubles (and a lot of dollars) in the wallet. Now my task was to figure out the train schedule, buy the ticket and ride the train. But this plan was not too easy to accomplish. The platform was empty. No trains of Moscow direction were there, just a few waiting persons who knew about the schedule even less then I. Nobody was sure that the last train was already gone. The ticketing booth (where we expected to find out the schedule) was located in a few hundred meters from the platform and was surrounded by the crowd of drunk and extremely aggressive men, so no one dare approach the booth for two reasons: one reason was the fear to be abused by drunk guys, while the another reason was the fear of being too late returning from the ticketing booth to the last leaving train. The situation was abviously coming to the dead-end, but accidentally a private driver came up and suggested me a lift to Moscow for 800 rubles. I honestly said that I had dollars only. It made the driver upset. He started to suffer making calculations, and eventually came up with amount of 25 dollars requiring from me to pay in full first. I agreed, and we got to Moscow without more adventures (not counting my attempt to fasten the seat belt that made this driver extremely angry too). As a result, my trip from Noginsk to Moscow cost 30 dollars and 100 rubles (=1000 rubles), instead of 600 rubles being offered me by the first driver. Describing the changes taking place in Russia during the last five years, I have to say that people feel their future more stable. Those people who are currently poor have lost the last hope to emerge from the poverty; while those ones who are rich and live in good welfare feel it comes seriously and for a long time, so they are not in need to look for the luck and happiness at the another side of the ocean. Thus, the idea of emigration to USA became much less popular in Russia, than in was five-ten years ago. During last years, America waned for Russians as an attractive country. I noted, everybody who was eagering to leave Russia, has already left it. Actually, it seems Russians are trying to build their own America that makes Russia a real "country of contrasts". America-like supermarkets in large cities (Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Novosobirsk, Kemerovo) neighbor with giant flea-markets (where, however, the choice of goods is usually much better than in supermarkets), while the small provincials towns seem experience no change since the time of communism collapse, and local people still have to travel for shopping to capitals. Saint-Petersburg is known is a second Russian capital, so everything what was said about Moscow is applicable to Saint-Petersburg. Such growing tendency of social polarization makes the beautiful masterpieces of architecture more beautiful than they were before (a lot of money was invested to renovate them), but ugly backyards of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg are still remain fairly unattractive places. Saint-Petersburg stays at Neva river whose beauty, power and width contrasts brightly with a "tame" look of the river in Moscow. The beautiful look of Saint-Petersburg squares, cathedrals and monuments amazes. At the same time many backyards in Saint-Petersburg (the same is applicable to Moscow) remain ugly places. Nevertheless, one may witness some pretty scenes even in such backyards ( see third image... ).
Enjoying Saint-Petersburg food and architecture we couldn't deprive ourselves from taking a one hour boat tour along the system of Saint-Petersburg channels because of which the city is known as North Venice.
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