Moscow - St. Petersburg - Home! (Vodkatrain part IV)

It's strange now the school has started again and I am still about to finish my story about the vodkatrain. Been home now since the 16th of August already. Tonight I am actually planning to finish it all. After this is finished I will work on making a book-like version of all this and put all the pictures online, since I haven't done that yet. This is mostly due to my lazyness but also because since I got back home I spend a lot of time with people I hadn't seen in a while. Back to the story then. last time I stopped just before arriving in Moscow, so there is where I am going to continue from here on.

On that saterday the 11th of August we finally arrived in Moscow after a full 3-day train trip. Relieved as we where we got out of the train where we were met by our honcho. We were brought to a van that took us to our hostel. The hostel was a bit outside the city centre. Our honcho said the red square is reachable by foot, but it would take about 20 minutes. Our hostel seemed quite good, it was a shared dorm, but boys and girls were separated. We all refreshed before heading for a metro station that would take us near the red square. Actually we first went to a theatre because some people wanted to see a ballet and wanted to get tickets for the next days evening performance. I hadn't decided yet if I wanted to go, but upon arrival I decided to go anyway. It's like Yoko said; when in Moscow, you've got to see a ballet. After purchasing we headed over to the red square. It was still light outside but soon enough night started to kick in. Red square is pretty awesome, just for the fact that it's the red square. The st. basils cathedral is beautiful and looks even better litten up during nighttime. Before entering the red square you see a big red building which serves now as the national museum. In front of it is a big statue of a guy on a horse... I forgot to ask who it is... Everything looks really impressive. Lenin's mausoleum is also located on the red square and looks quite dull. However with the kremlin walls on the background it sort of looks like Lenin is guarded by its immensity and this gives a strong feeling of history and what the kremlin ment for Russia and the former Soviet Union. Speaking of it, the USSR is still vividly appearant in the Russian streetlife. A lot of stands and tourist shops surrounding the red square almost exclusively sell Soviet stuff, and a lot of museums in the city remind people of the not so distant history of the country. However, it is obvious that Soviet times are history since Moscow on first account really is a cosmopolitan city. Especially the neighbourhood surrounding red square breaths capitalism, money and progress: completely something different than the rest we had seen from Russia. I found Moscow quite stunning and I wasn't the only one. That night we didn't do much more. We went to an internet cafe and back to our hostel.

The next day we woke early to go to Lenins mausoleum. Not everybody went though, Helen and Jack didn't want to go. I can understand why, but I still wanted to go for the sake of being able to say afterwards I've seen it. Not the best argument, but that's just how it is. We had to stand in line for an hour and were inside for not even 30 seconds. Lenin was lying there in a black suite lit up by lamps. I had my hands in my pockets but even that was seen as disrespectful because some guard came over asking me to get my hands out of my pockets. We had to keep walking as well, and in no time we were outside again. Lenin looked more like a doll since his body is preserved with the use of wax. Every 18 months he receives a full treatment and every 2 months a minor one. And imagine this, he actually wanted to be buried next to his mother in St. Petersburg... Outside we walked passed graves of significant Soviet leaders including Stalins.
Afterwards we walked through the park of the kremlin towards the entrance of the kremlin. prices to enter where quite outrages. If I remember well it was 250 roubles to enter if you aren't a student (not all of us where) and something like 40 for students. Never seen such a price difference, but so be it. Luckily I had a student card on me so I had the discount price. Afterwards I found out we have to pay seperately for the armoury (a museum within the kremlin which is filled with treasures and such). The armoury was way more expensive even for a student, so I decided not to get in. Steve, Dave and I just went around the kremlin grounds before going out again. We hung around for a bit, had lunch and wandered around the tourist stalls before chill in the park. By that time Dave and I lost Steve since he has the tendency to wonder off without notifying anyone. We rendez-vouz-d with the group in the afternoon and some of us went to see the insides of St. Basils cathedral, as did I. It wasn't as impressive as from the outside but it was worth it anyway. We then proceeded to the theatre for the ballet. The theatre looked nice upon entering, compete with balconies and stuff and I must admit that ballet itself wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it still isn't something I would do again in the near future.

The next day we headed to 'Sparrow Hill' where we could witness the skyline of Moscow to the fullest. However, it's not as spectacular as Hong Kong I'm afraid... Afterwards we to a local market and to a vodkamuseum where we drank vodka with certain added flavours which tasted real nice. Next we went to the Church of Christ the saviour which is a big white church with golden towers. Unfortunately we could not enter because most of us wore shorts which weren't permitted. Afterwards we headed for the park again and ended the day in a local pub.
The next day would mark the last day in Moscow and me, Tash and Dave went to the museum of revolution in the morning. Next we went to a park to chill out for a bit before having lunch and continued to do not to much. It was a relaxing day and not much mentionable happened. The ending of the day wasn't perfect by all means. The thing is that the night before we would depart to St. Petersburg a train was bombed between Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was the exact same train as ours but one night earlier. The Russian authorities assured that all trains would as scheduled that day from 3 pm and we arrived that evening at 0.15 am for the 0.30 am train. At first it was delayed half an hour but this became more and more and eventually we left by approcimately 4 am. It would only be a 7 hour trainride and we were supossed to enter St. Petersburg by 8 am the next day but this was not possible any more. I was hugely dissapointed by this since I already would have one full day in St. Petersburg because of our plane leaving the next day at 12 am. Things got worse however because when we all woke up we were only half way yet and not much later we stopped completely. Nobody knew what was happening or when we would arrive. Every once in a while the train would go again, but only for a short amount of time. During the stops airconditioning would be turned off and the temperature would rise immediatly. Even the train conductor ended up wearing nothing but his jogs. Eventually we arrived at 11 pm that day, a delay of 14 hours and Jamie and I only had 10 hourse left before having to depart for the airport. We then decided to just stay awake and wonder around St. Petersburg by night.

At 11 pm I was already quite tired but I might be in St. Petersburg only this once so I had to make the most out of it anyway. I already thought Moscow was awesome and beautiful, but St. Petersburg is way better in that aspect. Although I have only seen it by night now, I can tell it's like walking through a museums of buildings. The only people on the streets were either drunks or (Chinese) tourists. It was amazing that at 3 am we saw 4 tourbusses stop around the centre square. Having that said St. Petersburg is a city which I would love to visit again. It's a city of palaces, statues and cathedrals of the kind I've never seen before, and as I said it's like walking through a musuem of architecture.

At 8 am that morning we went back to the hostel to pack our stuff and say goodbye to the group. We had such a cool group and it was a pity to leave them and I hope to see them again in the future if I can. If everything goes according to plan I might see Dave soon enough since he says he wants to come to the Netherlands. Steve and I intend to go running from bulls next summer in Pamplona, Spain, and you never know, I might meet some of the others again as well.
That morning of the 16th we left the hostel at 9 am to go to the airport. First we took the subway to a certain stop from which a bus would take us to the airport. The bus was really late and we started to worry, but we reached the airport in time. it was the weirdest airport I've ever seen since all people had to line up in fron of the building to get there bags checked even before entering. Than we had to enter the building to get in line for our check in desk. However, this wasn't our desk yet. First they check a list and if you are on there we could proceed. There our handlugage was checked and finally we could proceed to the desk where a long waiting line was formed. Once we were finally checked in we had to wait in line for customs again. This process is so inefficient, it's unbelievable. But finally we made it through and set off back to home!

We arrived 2 hours and 45 minutes later in Köln where we were awaited by our family. It was good to see everyone again after such a long time. Since I hadn't slept at all for more than 24 hours at that point I felt like I was on drugs or something. My dad saw me and decided to not let me drive... probably a good call. After an hours drive I was back home, and noticed everything was the same as always. Not suprising, but it still felt weird, sort of an anticlimax. I felt like that for a couple of days before it went and over the passed weeks I met almost everybody again I know back here. It's now hard to imagen everything actually happened but writing this took me back a bit and I feel like going on a trip as soon as I can. And I will, because coming January we all have to go on an 25 weeks internship in a foreign country. I am now aiming at a place in New Zealands, Autralia or the Pacific. School has started again and I am in my first week now. Back to normal completely, but my class is cool so I'll manage. This marks the end of my story. It was a good experience and I would love to relive it all again. Unfortunately I can't but I hope to have a similar experience again.

For now,

Thank you, bye bye!

Lake Baikal, not in a nutshell (Vodkatrain part III.b)

It's been a while now since my last update. Many things have happened, but most importantly; I'm back home! If you'll remember (or indeed, just read the previous update) last time I put something on here I was still in Irkutsk, ready to hop on the train that would depart for Moscow. Since it has been 2 weeks ago all of this occured I'll try to do my best to give a complete as possible story. Basically I still have to report on the whole Russia part since the last update was just a short one... so anyway, here we go...

When we departed from Ulaanbatar we were already told the bordercrossing could take as long as 12 hours. Luckily, it didn't take that long for us, since we could continue our journey already after 11.5 hours! This basically tells the whole story about that period of time since all we could do was just hang around and wait for stuff to happen, which it obviously didn't. This part of the journey would take us a similar amount of time as from Beijing to Ulaanbatar. The main difference was that instead of two days like that one, this was two nights. The whole waiting part was during daytime so as soon as we got moving again nightfall was kicking in soon enough. In the train we met our first Russians, a father and son. They were travelling with various bottles of vodka that without any doubt took us as a complete surprise. It turned out to be a fun evening after all.

The next day we arrived in Irkusk and were greeted by our honcho. We were loaded into a bus and taken straight to lake Baikal. From what I've seen Irkutsk seems a nice enough town but we didn't visit it much in the end. The trip to baikal didn't take long and we arrived after about one and a half hours. The weather was really shitty, very clouded which gave everything a bit of a depressing feel to it. I'm sure the baikal area looks great when the sun shines, but it wasn't that obvious with the weather we had. We were brought to our accommodation which was actually really nice. It was a big wooden building with several rooms, just a 5 minute walk into town from lake baikal itself. After checking in and arranging which room goes to who, we went for a walk. The honcho wanted to show us the lake and took us uphill where we had to take a chairlift to go up higher. This chairlift was probably the slowest chairlift I've ever seen or been on in my life. It took us seriously 15 minutes for about 100 meters or so. Anyway when we came up the hill it was very foggy. Hence, we couldn't see much. We kept walking again and came to a spot which is supposed to be an amazing lookout place over the lake. Unfortunately we didn't see anything because of the weather, so this plan didn't work as well as our honcho wanted it to work. Not much we could do but head back for the amazing chairlift and head down again. Coming back down we just walked down passed the lake again and saw the same weird guy we saw on previously. I forgot to mention the first time, but we saw a guy that could seriously compete with Chuck Norris and probably win. This guy was pure evil disguised as a pure evil russian. You had to be there... Anyway, upon reaching the village again we saw some boats no doing much, so we decided we wanted to go on a boat trip. After some negociation (which didn't work well for us at all) we managed to get on a boat for an hour. The great plan was to eventually jump off, adventurous rascals as we were. The boatsmen first didn't let us because the water is supposed to be freezing cold, but after some persuation we could. And we did. And yes, the water was indeed freezing cold. Nevermind that, at least I can say I swam in the worlds deepest lake and on top of that we all had a blast.
That evening we didn't really do much. We had dinner at the accommodation since it started raining severly when we wanted to depart for a restaurant. That evening we just stayed inside. John, Yoko, Tash and me played some cards, and Tash did the occasional dancing now and then.
The next day we set off for a walk first because some of the pansies didn't go on the boat and wanted to swim off the shore. Before that we actually went to a local market where we bought some stuff and John showed off a bit by demonstrating his excellent bargaining skills. It went something like this: John wanted to buy an extremely cool matruska doll of former Russian presidents. It had Putin painted on the front. So he after hearing prices of similar kind of those things he decided to offer the lady selling it 600 roubles to buy it. She stared at him for a bit before answering "no, 550".
We went back to the accommodation and hung out for a bit before Steve and me decided to take a small hike up a hill to a observatory we've seen from the boat the previous day. After about an hour or so we arrived there and saw there was a fence surrounding it. Behind a the fence was a the most vicious dog we had ever seen and it was ready to attack. However, it seemed it was attached to a line that was attached to a fence so we considered to walk around the complex and see if there was an easy to access it. We found a gate which so poor constructed we could both perfectly fit through it (keep this in mind, this bit is essential before reading the next part). Everthing seems fine at first; no evil Russian guards who wanted to make us political prisoners what so ever. So I started to pose in front of the observatory to take a picture and stuff. Suddenly we heard the noise of a chain and barking. We looked at the right side of the building and saw a dog (whether it was the same one as before or not) approaching us with great speed and before knowing it we were running as fast as we could back to the fence, naturally assuming that behind it we would be perfectly safe. Of course, if could get through it the dog wouldn't have a chance reaching us any more (right!). To make matters worse, I got stuck in the fence with my body (fat bastard) and the gate just swung upon. It was never locked! The dog was luckily attached to a chain (it probably was the same dog as before) and we couldn't stop laughing. We went back inside to actaully take the pictures and look inside some windows. Steve then spotted some Russian soldiers coming out of the building and yes we run for it again. Although I wanted to experience Russia to the fullest, spending some nights in Russian prison didn't really appeal to me that much so we kept running for a while.
Afterwards we walked around for a bit before heading for a restaurant back in town. The rest of the group went for a sauna while we were doing our running excersice so we met them afterwards in the restaurant. The evening we didn't really do much. It was quite late already before we came back at the accommodation. Dave and I went to do a bit of nigh photography and some beers, but not much interesting happened.

The next day was moving day and in the morning we had to pack our stuff before heading back to Irkutsk where the train to Moscow would depart at around 4 pm. We departed from Baikal at around 12-ish and had lunch in Irkutsk. We went to an internet cafe there, which was the place I had my last update before arriving home. The train left for Moscow as predicted around 4 pm. The traintrip would take a good 78 hours which immediately marks the longest consecutive time I've been on a train. The trip was doable since we went drunk the first night and just hung around the other two (!) nights.
I'm going to leave it at that for now. We arrived in Moscow on saturday the 11th which marked my return to Europe after almost 7 months of absense. I will discuss the Moscow and St. Petersburg the next time since a lot happened as well...

thank you, bye bye!

Lake Baikal in a nutshell (Vodkatrain part III.a)

Since I haven't got much time to properly update my website, I'm going to write a small story about what happened since last update. First thing, we are in mother Russia! After a 2 night traintrip we arrived in Irkutsk from Ulaanbatar. The bordercrossing took an amazing 11.5 hours but eventually we got through. After arrival we were awaited by our honcho that brought us to the bus that took us to Lake Baikal. We stayed in a guesthouse. The first day we walked around first and went on a boat on the lake. There we jumped in the lake which was freezing cold. It was really good. After that we had dinner and went back. The next day we went for a walk again and some people went swimming again. that evening me and Steve went to find an observatory point up the hill, which eventually we did find. We climbed through the fence and wanted to make pictures when a dog came running towards us. Scared as we were we run for it, but luckily the dog was chained to a fence. This could have been quite nasty, but afterwards we couldn't stop laughing. After that we had dinner again and me and Dave did some nightphotography. The next day we took the bus at 11.30 back to Irkutsk where we are now waiting for the train that will bring us to Moscow. This will take us 3 days, since it is now wednesday afternoon and we will arrive on saturday afternoon. Big trip!

Next time I will try to go more into details, but now we have to go, so I can't

thank you, bye bye!