Surfers, Prisons, Pictures, Sunny spring days

Last week Vas and I became apart of the Moscow Couch Surfing group. We signed up with the Couch Surfing website last month and just began taking part in the activities.

If you don't know of Couch Surfing, it's an international network of travelers. It's like a grassroots, DIY movement to traveling. It's for the more adventerous travelers, not those who stay in chain hotels and sight-see with guided tours.

No, this is the "roughing-it" side of traveling. But for those who appreciate the adventure in it. So the name is pretty self-explanatory. It's a network on-line for couch surfing. Unless you have friends in every place you want to visit, you can use this website for surfing couches of complete strangers. Yes, it sounds strange and I'm sure it would worry any mom and dad. But there is a great verification system and references are used- it seems pretty reliable. I have not surfed anyone's couch nor have I hosted any surfer yet, but I have friends and have met plenty of people who have used the network to it's full potential and have loved it. My first encounter with the website was back in October when I visited NYC and stayed on my cousin's couch in Brooklyn. His roommate is a user of the network and was hosting a young couple from Vienna. This was their first trip to the U.S. and while staying in one of the most expensive cities in the world they were able to save $$ by staying on someone's couch. They were also able to make a new friend and learn about the city from a local- this always beats a travel brochure.

Ok, so enough background. The Moscow Couch Surfing group meets weekly and last Tuesday Vas and I went.

Most of the people were Russian but we made company with a guy from Kazakhastan, the group organizer from South Korea, a guy who works for a Czech beer company in Russia (from Czech Republic), a couple of guys from Turkey, and so on. We had a great time. It was fun to go out and be social with people other than each other and family.


Last weekend we took a day trip with the couch surfing group to Vladimir, Russia.

Vladimir was a midieval capital of Russia, about 120 miles outside of Moscow. Our purpose of the trip was to visit the famous prison there, described as the "harshest prison in Russia"

They don't do tours anymore but they made an exception for the CS'ers. Stalin's son was imprisoned here, Nazis, famous artists/authors, and many political prisoners. It is still in use and holds only Russians, and some of the most dangerous in the country. Although, as the guard told us, no political prisoners are held there anymore. This video describes the prisoners as the "murderers, rapists, thieves, etc"
According to the guard, lol, the government has no political prisoners anymore.

I can't seem to get a video about the prison to work, so go here to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrqaWiicr-8



Pictures from Vladimir:

Assumption Cathedral, 1160



St. Demetrius' Cathedral is famous for its masterfully carved exterior, representing the Biblical story of king David, 1194







Golden Gate, once the cities main gate, 1160



A remarkable view, and walking around the city/edge of the city

I love the faces on old European buildings:

Prison Entrance (we couldn't take pictures inside and this picture is incredibly deceiving and does not come anywhere near capturing the feeling of a prison or what it actually looked like)

I took this picture because I seriously thought that this guy was selling rodent brains. Turned out they were just funky looking mushrooms.

and I love the colors of buildings here

The train on the way home (my worst train experiences to date. On the way to Vladimir it felt like we were on a bus- the seats were horrible, it was crowded and uncomfortable. For the first 1 1/2 hour we had no seat. Inbetween cars we saw either pee, human feces or vomit. On the second train we had these horrible beds instead of seats and the all too common aroma of body odor to add to our discomfort)

(I don't know this person.... sorry dude)

Pictures of the west side of Moscow, driving to work on Sunday afternoon:

Every city has an "Arc de Triomphe"

"Moscow City" a new area in the city being built by the present Mayor.



New apartment/condo buildings

yes, the weather is absolutely GORGEOUS.

Spring is magnificent. I am in love with this city right now. It is so green and lush!! The spring colors are complimenting the new and old of this city so perfectly. Every day is sunny- the sky is SO blue and the green is SO green. And it isn't dark until 10 PM so there is more time to enjoy it all.

On another note- I am visiting the States in a week and a half!!! I can't wait to see my friends, family, speak english to everyone and eat my weight in vegan ice cream. Ellwood's, I hope you are all stocked up for me, because I am coming with a craving you have never seen before!

"I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within."
--Lillian Smith, The Journey (1954)

A post of pictures.

Pictures from some daily Moscow adventures:

Last Saturday it was warm out. So we bought some cheap rollerblades and went to Gorky Park. It was a strange amusement park, carnival, meets typical European metro park from the Soviet times.

The Entrance.




Our friend Dema joined us.


An old, out of use Ferris Wheel (one among many strange rides)




Us


Soviet Shuttle (actually been in space)


The gang


Gorilla Vas


Camels in Russia are totally the norm around here


Abandoned pirate restaurant entrance


Me and the Green Man (my parent's will laugh at this)


Peter the Great on the Mockva River


Vasya my Great on the Mockva River




It's still slightly chilly here. There is a constant crisp breeze that makes a thick sweater/jacket a must. But the sun is out more often than it is not. The sun is perfectly blue, the grass and leaves are bright green and the sun doesn't go down until about 10 PM.

Also, a trip to The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which is the tallest Eastern Orthodox Church in the world. It is situated in Moscow, on the bank of the Moskva River, a few blocks west of the Kremlin.





Picture shot down the river/street, you can see the red wall of the Kremlin in the distance


A shot turning the other way (notice Peter again)


Me and Alexander II


Wild doggies playing outside of the metro downtown


Oh and I found my comfortable place here in Moscow:


AFHV with Bob Saget in Russian!

Something that I am finding rather frustrating about my experiences so far.... is that I really want certain people to be here to share it with me.

There are times when I go out exploring by myself, and each time I see many new things- not see as in a site, landmark, monument, etc... but the kind of things you can't find listed in a tourist phamphlet. The sort of things that I can't even begin to explain in a blabbering blog post. The way people act, the way places make you feel, the way different things touch you or just puzzle you because they are so different than anything you have experienced.

When I lived in Switzerland for a short time I changed and grew a lot without realizing it. I returned home a very different person. Travelling does that almost inevitably, I'm sure anyone has experienced it. But it's difficult to predict how much you are affected, until long after the experience. It is only months after Switzerland that I am able to really understand the experiences I had and the changes that followed.

So when I think of what to write in this blog, I feel like I'm robbing myself and friends that are reading because I am unable to accurately explain what each event really means.



Yesterday, Saturday, is the one day of the week that Vas and have all to ourselves to do whatever we choose with it. Neither of us have any responsibility on Saturday... so we usually end up just trying to enjoy the freedom. We relaxed all day and then tried to go see a movie. The listings were wrong so we decided to visit the Starbuck's on Stary Arbat. Stary Arbat is a pedestrian street that is one of the best places for a tourist to visit. There are lots of shops, good restaurants, artists upon artists wasting their talent on simple portrait sketches for dollars, musicians busking, street vendors upon street vendors all selling the same Russian souvenirs and Soviet Union knock-offs.

After the sun goes down, the street transforms into an entirely new world that neither of us had ever experienced. All of the vendors and artists had broken down their sets and tourists had retreated to their hotels. In their place were carnival games, crews of angsty Russian teenagers, the more talented musicians drawing large crowds dancing, the most extreme cases of drunk in public you can imagine upon other strange spectacles. People find peculiar ways to make a few bucks here. As we walked down the street we saw different people who had brought rabbits, displayed them upon cardboard posts with signs that said "Photo: 20 rubles" So for a dollar you could have your picture taken with a rabbit. And people were actually doing this. It's legal for anyone to ride horses in the city (you can't even have a horse in my hometown of some 12,000 residents... but this is a city of 10.5 million) and a teenage girl was taking her horse around the drunk-crowded street. One guy had a bottle with little tiny baby turtles in it and somehow was making money from it. I've seen people selling kittens here before. This was a moment where I really wanted someone in particular with me. Having certain people in certain situations can really make them into something entirely different. I would have done anything to have my friend Chris there.



Afterwards Vas and I did something so typically Russian.

We ate and had drinks at a Hard Rock Cafe. I had never been to one and we didn't feel like taking a taxi to another restaurant.



In the short time I've been here, I've had "first times" like this that I could have had easily done in the States, but just never got around to doing.

For instance, last week I gambled for the first time.

It was April 1st, Fool's Day, and I went to an event with one of Vas' colleagues. It was a big celebrity chess tournament that is held annually on April 1st at a French hotel and casino. My "date" is a well known businessman/politician who won last year's tournament. He introduced me to all of the Russian bigwigs and I enjoyed the free champagne and fresh fruit. I had my picture taken with a producer, director, musician, poet, the great hockey goalie and current president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Vladislav Tretiak. All of the players received giftbags from the hotel which included some playing chips. So while my friend played I hit the Roulette table and won a wopping $10.

I'm sure if I understood the games a little bit better I would have enjoyed myself, but I didn't quite get the whole gambling fever thing. It's probably better that way anyways.



Something I dislike and at the same time like about Moscow...

women are very, very different. In general, they are very feminine and to me, can look provocative. The make-up is always heavy, the clothing ensemble is always over the top (I would say gaudy but they would probably call me dull) the boots always very high-heeled and overall very suggestive.

Aside from my tattoos I think that I present myself rather conservatively. For the most part I stay away from anything too short or too low, I wear minimal make-up and jewelry and don't try to show off anything... be it money or my body...

so men don't notice me as much. Which I think of as a blessing. Being approached by strange men makes me extremely uncomfortable even if they are harmless. I should find it flattering, but instead the whole situation makes me embarassed. So being a sort of plain jane American girl here works for my favor.

In Europe last summer I was approached by men regularly (not for anything special about me, that's just culture.) I don't think that I was dressed any differently, but I think that Moscovite men are use to a different kind of woman.

The other evening I was waiting for my friend outside of a restaurant at another pedestrian street that's populated by the young and trendy with a little bit more money to spend- so a safe place, I think. And I was approached by a young Russian, presentable looking man. He asked me where one can get ice-cream around here (which is hilariously typical of Russians because they LOVE their ice-cream. Even in below freezing, blizzard-like weather they stop at a street kiosk to satisfy their cravings). He continued to ask me further questions... he invited me for a walk and to see a photo exhibition with him the following day, etc. I made sure to show him that I was not interested and to tell him that I was happily in a relationship. He was relentless, however. About 10 minutes went by and he finally gave up, said goodbye, shook my hand, kissed me on the cheek and pulled the creepiest move. He sniffed me. It was a move straight out of Saturday Night Live. He sniffed up my shoulder, neck, to my hair and lightly groaned. Ugh it was so filthy! I pushed his shoulder and he took off. I looked around for a group of his friends laughing as if they had just dared him to do it, but I didn't see any.

So those creepy guys you see in those "far fetched" SNL or MAD TV skits... they actually do exist.

A friend told me a statistic that Russian women spend 17% of their income on make-up. This is strange to me because Russia is known for it's beautiful women. To me, money in general seems to be used differently here. Well, I should rephrase that. I think that my family and many of my close friends are very careful with their money, they don't put a lot of it towards the smaller material things. So my view is probably different than many Americans. I've been raised to spend money in certain ways that is entirely different than what I have seen from the average Moscovite. I predict that if I had been raised here, I would not be so different. After thinking it through, and talking about it with a couple of people, I realized that there is nothing wrong at all with this difference. It has been almost 2 decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. With the new era of a market economy people for the first time have money to spend and products to spend the money on. People that are my age are the first generation to have this financial freedom. So who wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity... the opportunity to buy stuff while you're in the metro stations, riding the metro, walking across the street, walking in the tunnels underneath the streets, in the open markets, boutiques, or shopping malls the size of Cornelius (my hometown in North Carolina).

To quickly revert back to the beginning,
I'm beginning to miss people back home a little bit more. I constantly catch myself thinking about what this person would think of this situation or that situation... I catch myself making up the conversation we would have in my head.. then I just catch myself missing the sound of their voice or their little mannerisms.
But I'm okay with missing everyone. I think that this is one of the most important adventures of my life, and I am happier than I have ever been going through it, especially with Vas. I know that you have to give (up) a little to gain a little (/a lot). But everything that I am doing and seeing and learning is more than I could ever have expected from life and I welcome all of the good with the bad.
As this is truly the happiest I have been in my life, it really is the greatest challenge I have faced yet.

And although this is a lesson we have all learned many times before and has been solidified into all of our minds since childhood, a great doctor on a great t.v. show called Scrubs told me this morning,

"nothing that's worth it comes easily"