Dan vs. SovietLand

Greetings, World!
It's update time! Since you last heard from me, I have been to Russia and back! It was a great trip, we packed a lot of stuff into one week. It was super busy but immensely enjoyable! We went to Moscow for three days and St. Petersburg for four days. We saw shows, cathedrals, palaces, famous works of art, and a few religious services.

I took a whole bunch of pictures in Russia, most of which are on Picasa, check them out! One album is dedicated to my traveling companion affectionately known as "Gorby" who is actually part of a nesting doll set of the Russian leaders. It's classic.

While we were in St. Petersburg, we (the study abroad guys) decided to make a funny video about our trip in the style of The Office. It turned into quite a project, we had a lot of fun with it, and we were pretty impressed with the results! If you want to check it out, it's called The Hostel and here's a link to the video on my friend Kevin's blog. Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

And now, for my epic tale of peril and adventure:
Before heading to Russia, we stopped at a place in Lithuania called the Hill of Crosses. It is literally a hill covered in hundreds of thousands of wooden crosses. Some big, some tiny, some fancy, some simple, some just wood, some with engravings of loved one's names, all over a hill. It's quite a sight.
We started by taking a bus to Riga, Latvia, where we caught an overnight train to Moscow. The train was fun, a little cramped, but for just one night it wasn't bad. We were told that the Russian border patrol would be demanding and ruthless, but our guard was friendly and casual. As far as I know, no one from our group had any troubles at the border, so that's good!

As soon as we got to Moscow, we dropped our luggage off at the hostel, and quickly hurried off to our first genuinely authentic Russian experience - Pizza Hut! Okay, maybe it's not that Russian, but after that we took a tour of the Kremlin, which is the heart of the Russian government. It's in Red Square, which is also the location of St. Basil's Cathedral and the Goom Department Store. We got to see the cathedral and it is honestly one of those places that you can see in pictures hundreds of times, but it is truly breathtaking to be there and look up at it in front of you. We took lots of pictures (there are more on Picasa). We also got to see the Church of Christ the Savior, which has enormous golden domes on top! It wasn't open for tours of the inside, but it was fun to stand outside it. (Note: this picture definitely does not capture just how huge this church is...)

Later, we went to Vernisazh Market, where there are lots of stalls of souvenirs and Russian stuff to buy! There was a plethora of matryoshka dolls painted to look like anything from Russian presidents to American football teams! This is where I got my set of Russian leaders that open and fit inside each other, including Lenin, Stalin, Yeltsin, Putin, and of course, Gorbachev. That night we went to Stariya Arbat, a famous street in Moscow that has a McDonald's, a KFC, and a Starbucks. Ah, American commercialism, is there a corner of the world you haven't ensnared? For the record, I did not buy food from any of those places. Instead, I went to Teremok, where they serve Russian pancakes, which are sort of like crepes, filled with jelly or ham and cheese, or anything else you could imagine. Back at the hostel, we played an intense game of Mafia with a bunch of people from our Study Abroad group, plus another traveler named Scott who's from Canada. He was cool, and I felt bad deceiving him in the game (I was the mafia, and I won! mwahahaha!)

Another fun thing we did in Moscow was go to the circus! It was a great show, even if I didn't understand what they were saying. They tried to make the acts fit into themes, but I didn't really catch the relation from act to act. Regardless, it was fun. There were alot of animal acts, like one with a seal doing tricks, and a bunch of lions and a tiger in a big caged-in ring! There were also quite a few acrobats, like some guys dressed up like mummies doing human towers and flips and balancing and all sorts of hardcore stuff! (here's a picture of the lions; for more, check out Picasa!)

The last thing we did before heading to St. Petersburg was go to Lenin's Tomb. Apparently when Lenin died, his body was saved and preserved and kept in a glass case for people to come and visit. The idea of creepily staring at the delayed decomposition of a famous person's corpse may interest some people, but I wasn't too excited about it. I did end up going in, for the cultural experience, and honestly it was cool to be there (the body looked fake though). Dead body or not, it was interesting to see a place that is very important and sacred to the Russian culture.

After viewing some 20th century Russian art at the New Tretyakov Gallery, it was time to continue our quest! A five-hour train ride later, we arrived in St. Petersburg! I can honestly say that I enjoyed my four days in this city more than anything else I've done this semester! It was truly great, wonderful, epic, and awesome.
We started off our first day in St. Petersburg with a tour of the "unconventional" sites (non-touristy stuff, roughly translates to the "back alleys and graffiti" tour). It was actually quite interesting, we heard much of the common history and some of the lesser known stories of the city. Here's a picture of St. Isaac's cathedral, another stunning architectural wonder. That night, we got to see the ballet Swan Lake performed at the Mariinsky Theatre! I liked the music, but I think I was expecting a little bit more of a plot than there was. At some points, I wondered, "What are they doing? What's happening to the prince guy now?" when, honestly, he's just dancing, for the sake of dancing. Once I got past that concept, I really enjoyed it!

The next day, we split up into groups and visited different places around the city. I went to Yusupov palace, which was built for someone royal (Catherine the Great, I think). Whoever had the palace built only lived there for a decade or two, then it was turned into a museum for people to visit and see how the czars used to live. It was actually really neat to see all the fancy furniture and ornate decorations. There was an audio guide headset with a narrator who had a very British accent, so it made me want to use words like Cheerio and bully and cheeky. It was at this point that Gorbachev started following me everywhere, as documented in the Picasa album, "The Adventures of Little Gorbachev".

That afternoon, we went to my favorite place in all of Russia, the Hermitage Museum. It's inside the Winter Palace (again, built by czars) which is enormous and brilliant. Inside is the world's second largest collection of artwork and artifacts. I spent three hours perusing the halls full of giant paintings, sculptures, armor, and furniture from around the world. The palace itself is ridiculously decorative, and some of the rooms were set up to look like they did when czars lived there, with fancy furniture and such. There was not any one particular room or item that I especially enjoyed the most, I just liked being there and soaking in all the historical and artistic awesomeness around me.

Later, we went to another palace for a performance of "Feel Yourself Russian", the cultural folk show. There was singing and dancing and traditional instruments, it was great! Some of the guys from our group even got pulled up on stage to dance! The folk dancing involved a lot of leg kicking and slapping and shrieking, it was wild! And at one point, there was a guy wearing a costume that looked like two kids fighting and he "danced" around and jumped on people's laps and made quite a scene!

The next day, we split up into groups again. This time I was in a smaller group that went across the river to see the battleship Aurora (it was closed to tours, but we got to see it). We also went to the Political History Museum and learned all about Soviet times and about the lives of the REAL Stalin, Lenin, Khruschev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev! It was an important moment for me and Gorby, my small wooden companion. Interesting and informative, too! After that, we went to a small cafeteria in the basement of an old building for lunch. Apparently that's how they used to do it in Soviet Times - simple tables, simple service, low prices, mediocre food. For most people this was very ordinary and mundane, but I really enjoyed it, I felt very Russian! Gorby of course had to inspect my food...

After our hearty meal at Soviet Times Cafe, we visited a nearby Mosque and observed the men attending their Friday prayers. We went inside and saw the mullah presenting the prayers and people were around bowing and reciting prayers. It was very interesting to see how different their worship experience is than the type I am used to.

That night, it was time for another show! This time we attended the Barber of Seville opera. We had fun dressing nicely and going to the fancy theatre. The show was a Russian translation of an Italian opera, and the setting was updated from the 1600's to the present. It was a little disorienting as far as the set and costumes go, with one guy wearing a motorcycle outfit, and the extras roaming around as mental patients in the background of the scenes... It was weird. But the singing was good, and I liked the orchestra!

And suddenly, it was upon us: our final day in SovietLand. We spent it wisely, starting with a visit to the Church of Spilt Blood. At first glance, the outside of the Church of Spilt Blood looks similar to St. Basil's Cathedral, but as stunning as the outside is, the inside of the church is truly magnificent. The walls, ceilings, and support pillars are all covered in mosaic murals depicting Jesus and the saints! It was so colorful and intricate and amazing. Here are some pictures, but again, you really have to be there to truly appreciate it. (Go to Picasa for more photos!)

After visiting the church, we had some time to explore the city more on our own. I chose to walk down the busy main street and see all the people and things going on. I ended up back at the Hermitage, where I enjoyed the art for another hour before meeting the group at Kazan Cathedral. We attended a Russian Orthodox church service. It was strange at first, because there are no seats or pews - people stand and walk around during the service. Also, the walls of the church are adorned with portraits of the saints that people light candles for and meditate upon. These Icons are all around, and it sometimes seemed like people were paying much more attention to these pictures than they were to the Bible or Jesus! It's sort of a foreign idea to North Americans, but the Icons are a very big deal in the Orthodox church. The service involved people reciting prayers and chants after the priest, speaking in Old Russian, which most of them don't understand. It was very personal, people hardly even acknowledged that there were others around them. A very interesting and intriguing cultural experience.

And with that, we headed back to the train station, got back on the train, went back through border patrol (again, much less intimidating than we had been told to expect). We returned to Lithuania, and to the routine of classes and schedules and homework...

It was a great adventure! If you haven't caught on yet, here's where you can see more pictures from my trip on Picasa ----> Click Here!
And don't forget to check out our tongue-in-cheek take on Russian culture in the episode my friends and I made ----> Click Here!

Thanks for the comments and suggestions on the last blog post, let me know of any other question you might have about my European Adventures, and I will be sure to answer them!