Finally back from Russia, and what an adventure it was. First night we went exploring around St. Petersburg and saw some amazing buildings and beautiful snow covered streets. I gotta say, Russia is so much more Russian with snow. I met a real fun trio of architecture students along the way: a Scot, who reminded me of the doctor on SG Atlantis, an eccentric Dutchman who loved Goldmember and went around imitating his very non-Dutch accent the entire trip, and a rather silent yet giggly Austro-Hungarian. I ended up hanging out with them most of the trip because they were more interested in seeing Russian cities rather than drinking 2 dollar bottles of vodka. This proved to be a safer plan since, the same night that we went out sightseeing, another group tried to find a club and ended up in a shady part of town and found a dead body in the street. As unsettling as that is, I'm almost sorry I missed it.

Second day we went to the Hermitage museum, it's the biggest museum I have ever been in by far, there's just so much of everything that even with 5 hours of nonstop exploration I doubt I even scratched the surface of their collection. It was a *damn* impressive museum. After that, we went to a traditional Russian folk dance thing. Very entertaining, and pretty much what you would expect, dancewise, from Russia. They played really rural intruments though; spoons, saws, squeeze boxes and such. I guess they wanted to emphasize the rich culture of the working class or something.

The Czars were really concerned with making their country look Western, so there are a lot of Italian designed buildings that, while associated with Russia, seem out of place. I shouldn't complain though, I love the style far more than some of the works the Russians made. Most of the churches and stuff that we went to were Russian Orthodox and while everyone else is enjoying it, I'm really unimpressed. I find Russain Orthodox religious art to be my least favorite style. They all look totally identical, and the people look all wrong. Baby Jesus shouldn't look like Jack Nicholson. One of the things that the architecture students noticed was that St. Petersburg is really flat and wide. The Czars forbade any buildings to be higher than their palace, they didn't build it very high to start with so the city center doesn't have much of a skyline. Coupled with the fact that the Neva river is incredibly wide, it makes it look like someone stretched out a photo of a normal city.

An observation I had on the tour was that the Russians seem to have taken the opposite mentality to design to the Moors. The Alhambra in Spain from the outside looks like nothing more than a fortress, not particularally flashy compared to a proper palace. But on the inside it's a lush garden with fountains and fantastic artwork. The Moors designed it to look drab so no one would really care to see what was inside. The Russians make beautiful buildings that entice you to see the inside but they won't let you. On several occasions, the guide would say, "And on your left is a fantastic church with a breathtaking collection of icons and the tomb of one of Russia's most famous Czars, but you are not allowed to see it." Why take people on tours of buildings they aren't allowed to see?

Moscow was one of the cities I had on a list of places I had to see in my lifetime. There's a certain magical appeal that Russian cities have, probably because of the lavish and exotic nature of their public works. I became slightly less entraced with Moscow after seeing it, though. This might be because we were only in Moscow for 2 days and didn't have nearly enough time to do all the things I wanted. Namely, see Lenin's tomb. I could either tour the Kremlin or stand in line for an indefinite amount of time to see the mausoleum. I chose the Kremlin, which was rather unimpressive I must say. The guide said that if we wanted to we could go stand in line to see Lenin but she said the line would still be very long, so we stayed with the tour and afterwards we went to try to get in line at the last minute. They wouldn't let us in, which made me mad, but what really pissed me off is that they let the group in front of us go in. So had the old crone not told us that it would be a waste of time I would have been able to see Lenin in all his embalmed glory. The line was especially long that day because it was some Russian holiday and so they let children cut in front of the line. Bastards. They live in Russia! They can see Lenin any time they want, they should let foreigners go first. From each according to his ability to each according to his need, man! Lenin would have wanted it that way!

Returning to why I didn't enjoy Moscow as much as I had hoped, I ended up getting seperated from my group the first night. After waiting for half an hour to be found again I decided to continue on my way. I got lost and wandered around for 2 hours that night, and there's nothing quite like being totally lost and confused in a foreign country. No one speaks English, if they do, they won't try to help you and everything is written in Cyrillic.
Finally after backtracking a hell of a long way and negociating the treacherous streets of Russia (Russians are the worst drivers ever, they actually will try to run you down if you're in the road) I made it back to the hotel. This hotel is one of the "Seven Sisters" of Moscow. Stalin wanted Moscow's skyline to be equally impressive as major American cities so he ordered the construction of these massive buildings. But, in typical commie fashion, rather than design seperate and unique skyscrapers, they designed one and build 7 of them. Makes the biggest buildings in the city utterly useless as landmarks. Their grandiose stature, midcentury design and intent to mimic American buildings make the city look like 1940's New York.
We went to a club after my adventure on the streets of Russia, I had wanted to go to one that was supposed to have, trip hop, acid jazz and that kind of stuff, figuring that if those are crazy in the US they must be unreal in Russia. Unfortunately nobody wanted to go with me so I wound up going to the place where they wanted to go, a place that was described as having "a decadent erotic program." They (and I) assumed that by decadent they meant 'providing unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent' when the guide apparantly meant 'being in a state of decline or decay.'

So that was Moscow, quite underwhelming. I did take a my favorite pic of the entire trip in Moscow though:
I only hope it doesn't come back to haunt me...

We went back to St Petersburg after that and with the architecture trio saw some authentic Russian buildings, i.e. run down pieces of crap that all look exactly the same. The Soviets spent all their money on toys and forgot that you actually need to have a stable infrastructure to be a superpower.

The last city we visited was Helsinki, which has officially redeemed itself. It might not be Stockholm, but it's better than the dull city I originally thought it was. We went to this chocolate store with the most amazing chocolate cake EVER. A work of art, I swear. I also went to a Japanese pop art museum exhibit which was really quite interesting. One of the artists is critical of the monotype Japanese art with the big eyes and mouths, so he makes these paintings that are nothing but eyes and mouths.


Oh, one more awesome thing about Russia: I bought Black and White II, Age of Empires III and Civilization IV for about $10 total. That would run me about $150 back home. Now I won't be able to play those games on my laptop without vaporizing my graphics card, but hey, I can wait till I get back to the US.