Russia & Norway July 2018
During our planning of the trip, it came to our attention that the World Cup was going to be happening in Russia while we were there! In addition it was summer, the peak season for travel to Northern Europe. I was worried about this but it turned out that it was probably for the best. The main reason is that the notorious stringent rules for travel in Russia were quite relaxed. I never saw police and I was never harassed. Everything was clean and organized and the people were helpful and friendly.
My flight routing took me from San Francisco to Zurich where I had a mad dash to catch my flight to Oslo. I spent a night at the Blu Radisson airport hotel so I could catch a morning flight. Having landed in Moscow I had to again run through the entire airport to catch a flight to St. Petersburg. The language and Cyrillic signage were a challenge, but I made it in the nick of time. On the flight I met a wonderful young software engineer who was returning from working in Taiwan. We hit it off right away and I call him my angel since he helped me navigate finding transport to my hotel. I had arranged a transfer but they didn’t show. It turned out that Uber was up and running smoothly in Russia!
The next challenge was finding my accommodation. The Swift Camel Hostel was in an alley with the tiniest of signs. Again, local angels helped me call them and get safely to my room. At first I was not impressed but after a beer and some dinner my attitude changed and I began trying to talk with the young lady who worked there.
Although the hostel was a bit sparse, it was in a reasonable location. I was able to walk from there down to The Admiralty which is the center of St. Petersburg. For the first time in my travels I discovered the Hop On Hop Off buses. How wonderful to sit in the open air and get an overview of this vast city while listening to the history and anecdotes of its cast of characters. I spent four hours doing this and loved every minute.
Peter the Great won the war with Sweden in 1709 and took over this strategic area on the Baltic Sea. Interlaced with waterways this area was a challenge on which to build a city and is called by some a city built on bones as so many died while building it. He brought in many European architects to design the layout and the buildings as he was trying to modernize Russia. He then moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg and through the years it became a bustling trading area.
I had an opportunity to visit The Hermitage Museum which is set in the Winter Palace of Catherine the Great. It is so huge and extensive with 360 rooms and over three million items (not all on display) that it was worth our hiring a guide so we could skip the waiting lines and have someone to sort out the highlights. We used the same guide to visit Peterhof which was Peter the Great’s favored palace. Again his love for European Baroque architecture was obvious and after my tour there I realized I had seen enough ornate gold for this trip. This palace, as with all of Russia, had a fascinating history. During WWII the servants dismantled much of it and buried the art and statues under ground. It was nearly destroyed by both Hitler and Stalin’s bombs but has since been rebuilt to match its original glory. To get there we drove with our guide and this was actually quite interesting because she showed us different apartment styles that represented different eras throughout the complex history of the country. Some were more ornate but she said were not built as well and were small. Some were just plain square cement blocks which she explained were actually built better with more insulation and larger apartments. Honestly the history here is so complicated I had trouble keeping up with it all; Peter the Great was 1682-1725. The history had quite a few women in power including Catherine and Catherine II the Great. She even dressed like a man at times just to make sure no one thought she wasn’t a capable leader. Then a whole series of Nicholas’s and Alexanders throughout the 1800’s. In the 1900’s the Soviet Union started with Lenin and of course Stalin 1941-1953. Khrushchev 1958-1964. Brezhnev 1964-1982. Gorbachev 1985-1991, right after the Soviet Union collapsed, and Boris Yeltsin took over. Putin has been in power since 2008.
I did not bring up politics while I was in Russia but some people brought it up to me. I only met one person, a taxi driver, who said he liked Putin. Some people said they just didn’t watch the news or like politics. Some admitted they did not vote for Putin. None believed that Russia had affected American politics and none liked Trump. What I sensed in this country, as in most places I’ve visited in my life, is that people just want to have their basic needs met, have a job, a family, a sense of community and be left alone to live their lives. The people here that I met did not confuse me with my government and assumed I would not do that to them. And I didn’t. I liked the people here. They were kind, funny, helpful and smart. My Yandex drivers (I switched from Uber to the local company) were often from Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan since they could make more money in Russia than at home.
On the 4th of July I went to see the ballet at the Historic Mariinsky Theater. I saw The Fountain of Bakhchisaai which is based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin. It is the story of a Tatar invader who falls in love with a woman, Maria, whose fiancé he just killed. But favorite wife Zarema is jealous and kills Maria so he has to kill Zarema. Ah, love -- it’s the same all over the world.
Another day alone in St. Petersburg, I took a canal boat tour in Russian. I like to do this sometimes because I can just zone out and see an area through my own eyes and not be influenced by what someone is telling me. This is a magnificent city. The waterways pass under countless beautiful bridges and by buildings and churches painted in myriad colors. The iconic dome churches are everywhere. The history of Orthodox Russian religion is closely connected to the political history and the soul of this country. There never was a separation of church and state until the communist revolution. There was also a great divide between the educated city dwellers and aristocracy versus the peasants who occupy the vast majority of Russia. This is an enormous place and the two main cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, are nestled over in the far west corner of the country.
One evening the friend I made on the airplane took me on a tour of the Metro system in St. Petersburg. Their metro is nothing like our crappy dirty noisy tunnels in New York. They are beautiful works of art and clean and efficient. Once again I had to ask myself why so many people in the United States insist on thinking we are the single greatest country on Earth when we clearly have so much to learn from the rest of the world. Russians have free health care and free education. Abortion is legal. Women’s rights seem to be supported. Homosexuality is not illegal although they cannot marry. Russia is by no means a perfect place; there are big problems with free speech, corruption and proxy wars, but we are not free of those issues either.
On one of my days walking around St. Petersburg I stumbled upon a bath house. Saunas are very popular here so I was curious to see how it worked. I had not discovered Google Translate yet so it was quite a humorous interaction. The building was three stories and I refused to take the teeny tiny rickety old elevator up and down so I used the stairs. At the top the man (who took the elevator) met me and showed me the sauna, the cold plunge tub, the bucket shower and the bundle of leaves used to beat yourself or each other with. He also showed me the communal kitchen and game area which had ping pong tables conveniently adjacent to a pole dancing stage, complete with an overhead disco ball. I did not partake in a sauna alone at this time but resolved that I would try to get one in the future. On my way home I stopped at what had become my local bar hangout and, lo and behold, the Russia versus Croatia game was on. I joined in with the crowd cheering on the home team and it was absolutely wonderful. We were all jumping up and down and screaming and hugging, it was quite exciting! Unfortunately Croatia won, but wow it was close!
My friend Sara and I joined up to take a train to Moscow and again I was impressed by the cleanliness and efficiency of the mass transit here. I also guessed that with the World Cup the streets had been cleared of any homeless or mentally ill and that the officials had all been told to make things smooth and simple for the vast throngs of tourists that were visiting. Or maybe it’s always like this?
Once in Moscow I fell in love with this city. St. Petersburg was beautiful but Moscow had soul. Our first night out for dinner was right across from the iconic St. Basils (actually Pokrovsky Cathedral). It is called St. Basil after a medieval “holy fool”, a man who walked around basically naked but who was revered for his piety. We were able to get inside the following day when our amazing guide Sascha took us there. Sascha is the founder of Guys2 (Guys Squared) a local low cost tour company. When we met him we said we were interested in more sub culture sites such as LGBTQ and he immediately admitted to being gay. We all hugged and knew we were going to get along well. Sascha had been a history teacher and even though homosexuality is legal in Russia he was still pressured out of his job.
One night in Moscow we went to the Opera at the historic Bolshoi Theater and saw Boris Gudonov based on another Pushkin play. This opera is based on a true story that is just so crazy it could be a soap opera. Back in the 1500’s Boris was a Tsar and the way I understand the story he killed the young boy, Dmitry, who was supposed to take over. Then years later another boy named Dmitry (the False Dmitry) shows up saying he didn’t really die and now he should be Tsar. We were so close to the stage we were right by the orchestra and could see the singers mouths moving and facial expressions. It was incredible! And it was way too long. So we left a bit early and went wandering the streets looking for pizza. Why they separated out all of the toppings I cannot say but I did enjoy the irony of an American Pale Ale, made in Russia. The Summer Nights in Russia are a big party time since it doesn’t get dark until after 11:00pm. In fact, it really never seems to get dark and I was grateful for the thick curtains in every hotel.
Sara and I joined Sascha the next day for an exploration of the Golden Ring. This is a circular area to the East of Moscow that entails stopping at many of the old villages out in the countryside. Some of the main stops include Sergiev Posad, Rostov-Velsky and Suzdal. Each one was spectacular with the old Kremlins, which are walled cities, and the monasteries with their onion dome churches. At one stop we took a short boat ride in the rain on Lake Nero. The rain was fierce and a few times the roads seemed to just disappear. Eventually we came to Sascha’s family’s dacha which is their country home. There was a time in Russian history when the Tsar would give land to loyal subjects. The tradition continued and most city dwellers own a country home, usually with a garden. Sascha’s mother had a beautiful garden and she prepared a delicious home cooked meal using their own fruits and vegetables. They then prepared a sauna for us with a wood burning stove and unfortunately Sara and I could not take the heat and barely lasted ten minutes. Later that evening we had a typical Bar-B-Q (Shashlik) over wood with meat kebabs.
I have to say that the highlight of my trip to Russia was this time with Sascha and his mother. In fact, as always with travel, the best parts are not the sites one sees but the people one meets. I have said this so many times but I will say it again, we are all the same for the most part. And most people are good. There are many Russians who are fighting for freedom of speech and for basic human rights. Pussy Riot the activist group of women ran out on the field dressed as policemen on the final of the World Cup to protest for the release of political prisoners. They were arrested. We stand with you, fearless freedom fighters.
We flew out of Moscow to Oslo and spent two nights there. We did the Hop On Hop Off (HoHo) bus again. And a canal tour boat. I had a chat with a captain and he said it had been quite warm in Norway and not enough rain for the farmers. He didn’t believe in Climate Change or Global Warming and pointed out that La Niña was there and that if you looked at history you used to be able to sail around Greenland because there was no ice. I did not get into an argument with him and simply left it with “better safe than sorry” as to why not just go ahead and embrace clean energy.
From Oslo we took yet another clean efficient train to Myrdal and from there we were going to bike down alongside the famous Flam Railway. The guy organizing the bikes took one look at us and the shape we were in and said “no way." It is very steep, parts have gravel and there are numerous switchback curves. We opted to take the train down and it was lovely passing countless waterfalls and rivers. At one waterfall they put on a show with dancers representing Hulders, which are seductive forest creatures. They are said to lure men into the forest and if the men do not satisfy them sexually then the men are killed. The joke was that this story was the old form of birth control. Down in Flam we had reservations for a zodiac boat ride through the Naeroyfjord which is a UNESCO heritage area. Norway has hundreds of fjords and waterways and this one was narrow so you could get the full effect of the high cliff faces towering over the tiny villages speckled throughout in the valleys. Some of the houses were built at the top of the cliffs and you could see the pulley system used to raise supplies up the mountain side. There are many sheep and goats here. The farmers have two or three homes at different altitudes to allow for feeding areas at different seasons. We saw a herd of goats perched precariously on a cliff face and amazingly we witnessed a fox catch a bird!
It was late in the evening when we finished this full day and we waited for a ride to our accommodation in a nearly empty parking lot. An old friend of mine who we were supposed to stay with had cancelled at the last minute so we had scrambled to find a place to stay in peak season. We found one called the Aurland Apple Farm which was about a twenty minute drive from the Flam Railway station. Our driver and host was a young artist from Latvia. He spoke English well and explained that he ran this place in the summers to make extra money. The hostel was at the base of a lovely cliff with a waterfall far from any shops or civilization. We had to take our shoes off inside and make and strip our own beds. There was no food or drink options of any kind. It was an odd place and slightly creepy (there were apple trees but no apples...) The only sign of civilization nearby was a closed gas station with six Tesla charging stations! But we were both so tired we slept anyway.
The next day our Latvian artist host still dressed completely in black with his hoodie up drove us back to Flam where we caught the train back up to Myrdal so we could continue on to Bergen. The views through the valley were lovely and once again we were struck with the incredible engineering feats this country has accomplished. In seemingly impossible terrain they have built thousands of miles of train tracks, winding roads, tunnels, ferries, and bridges to manage all the waterways.
Bergen is the quintessential Norwegian town with rows of UNESCO heritage site wooden houses alongside the waterway. We had a home near the main drag and were able to sightsee easily. Again we took a HoHo bus and at one point I hopped off to go to the Magic Ice museum where they had carved the entire bar out of ice. They gave me a parka and a drink and I wandered admiring the sculptures and pictures based on the famous artists Klimpt and Munch, all made out of ice. We also took the funicular up to the top of a mountain to get an overview of this picturesque city. It was here we could see the five enormous cruise ships that seemed to overwhelm the waterways. Summer is the high tourist season and these people seemed to take it in stride and handled the massive influx of tourists quite well.
From Bergen we flew north to Alesund in a rather small plane with questionable wheels. We had tried to find a port-to-port ferry with Hurtigruten but they really only wanted the tourist who would do the entire eleven day trip, and that was not us. Flights were cheap -- under a hundred dollars. In Alesund we picked up our rental car and quickly found our hostel. It was another place with rules of stripping your own bed and there were a lot of young people there. It had been years since I stayed in a Youth Hostel but it worked for one night. We wandered this quaint city admiring the Art Nouveau architecture along the waterways. We ate another pizza; Neither of us were overly fond of the typical food here, a sort of pea stew and, of course, fish. I don’t eat most fish. The most famous dish is Bacalou which is Cod that has been filleted, dried, and salted. Not my cup of tea.
We had our rental car for four days and we traversed the countryside on two of their famous drives: The Atlantic Road took us along the coast and over many bridges and through long winding tunnels. We would also have to catch ferries frequently to cross over waterways. The efficiency with which they ran things was impressive. The highlight of the road trip was The Trollstigen, a road which started in Andalsnes and ends in Valldal by the Geiranger fjord, another UNESCO site. There are eleven hairpin curves as it climbs 2300 feet passing the Stigfossen the impressive waterfall that goes 1,050 feet down the mountainside. After this breathtaking journey we felt obliged to stop on the other side the mountain for some delicious (and well deserved) strawberry waffles with cream.
In Geiranger we took another zodiac boat ride to get up close to this fjord with its storied waterfalls - the seven sisters (waterfalls) who rejected the bachelor (another waterfall) who then drank himself to death (the bachelor fall is shaped like a bottle). Around a corner, the bachelor's ghostly image is caught in the cliff face for eternity.
We headed home from here again with multiple ferries, tunnels, and bridges and ended up back in Alesund where we reviewed our trip and prepared to return home. The two countries were vastly different from each other and ultimately I expressed my preference for Russia. Norway is beautiful in Nature. And it’s expensive. Russia had grabbed my curiosity with its fascinating history, human rights struggles and the soulfulness of the people. I do not say this very often, but I would go back there!
Thanks to Michael Bish for recommending Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. Reading it during the trip increased my appreciation of the importance of the arts in Russian culture. I wish I had read it before starting the trip!