benstephensworldtour

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benstephens — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 04:50:11 +0000

I’m shutting this site down. I’ve moved to a new domain. Please look here:

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Thanks.

Ben

Awesome stuff about traveling in Russia

benstephens — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:29:51 +0000

This one may actually come off as condescending or insensitive. So a lot of words in English are just transliterated, so if you know the Latin-Cyrillic alphabet equivalents, you’re halfway to knowing your word. Some examples – the stop signs say “СТОП” If you see a bistro, it might say “БИСТРО” and a cafe will always say “КАФЕ” on the door. Now some of the letters look close enough to something in English that they’re confused to be a sign in English. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you “crapdogs”

The challenges of traveling in Russia

benstephens — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:29:26 +0000

Guards and police EVERYWHERE. I can’t describe how many there are, and it seems there are untold others just watching. Occasionally I’d catch a guy in a suit with an earpiece – just sitting and looking around. It’s a very eerie experience, but I guess it’s safe.

Streets will just be closed. This seems to happen a lot – probably too many cops with nothing to do as mentioned above.

Buildings, businesses, and attractions will also be randomly closed during posted operating hours.

The snow is thick and often has ice under it. It seems that sidewalk clearing is left to the building adjacent to it, and consequently, a lot of the sidewalks can have giant slippery mounds on them.

Personal space is a major issue. Bill was at an ATM the other day and a guy came and stood next to him. their hips were touching and the guy was staring at the screen. bill canceled his transaction, but I think the guy meant no harm.

For the most part, people line up. But even if you are in the queue and leave more than a foot between you and the person in front of you – someone’s gonna come take that space.

St. Petersburg, Russia

benstephens — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:53:46 +0000

After coming from Moscow, St. Petersburg is a breath of fresh air. Compared to Moscow, it seems quite small, even though its’ population is over 6 million. The city was designed, as the name implies, by Peter the Great. The city was laid out in whole and didn’t just grow from nothing, and so it seems in its’ ease of getting around the center of the city. There are no tall buildings, though one very large project is in the planning stages, and it is meeting a great resistance. I suppose this helps maintain the smaller city feel. St. Petersburg is on the Neva River and just off the Gulf of Finland. From Moscow, it’s somewhere between a 4 and 8 hour train ride depending on the train. I opted for the 8 hour overnight in a sleeper car. There is a network of canals, but both those and the river are frozen solid.

St. Petersburg is friendlier in every way. First is the language – it seemed roughly 5x the number of St. Petersburgers speak English compared to the Muscovites. Secondly – it’s a much cheaper city. While I know I paid a foreigner tax in a few places, I still came out better than I would have in Moscow – not that it’s a cheap city, just cheaper. Lastly – the food choices are so much more numerous. In Moscow it was a struggle to find anything, but St. Petersburg has a great selection. They’re still not big on fast food, which is good, but I was able to find some kebab shops, so I was happy. I will say the city feels much more like a European city. Compared to Moscow, we get one less hour of daylight here, and it’s usually colder, but I’ll take it. I bet this city rocks during the summer.

Here are some pictures I took.

Chilly St. Petersburg horizon

Kazan Cathedral

Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood

Interior mosaics in Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood

Moscow Subways

benstephens — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:31:42 +0000

The Moscow Subway system is beautiful. It’s a system of maybe 6 or 8 lines crossing through the heart of Moscow, with a line forming a ring around it. Systematically speaking – it’s a fast, efficient system. It is the second most used subway system in the world, with 2.5 BILLION people riding it last year. During the rush hour periods, there’s a train every 90 seconds. During any other time, I never had to wait 3 minutes for a train. In Atlanta, it’s not uncommon to see the sign read “…arrives in 14 minutes.” The system is also cheap! Before 1/1/10 each ride cost 22 Rubles, or $0.75. On 1/1/10 the rate went up to 26 Rubles. It’s still pretty cheap. New York’s subway is $2.00 each way. Atlanta’s is $2.25.

The subway stations were built as nuclear fallout shelters. This means each and every station is very deep in the ground. The shallowest station is 84m underground, and the deepest is 282m below. To get to the tracks from ground level means there’s a very, very long escalator to take you down. Not one of the stations I went through required one to walk – they were all equipped with escalators. To the left is a crappy cameraphone picture taken while going down one of the escalators. As a result of the distance covered, the escalators are blazing fast. You need to get a running start to get on one. When I got back to the US, the slow escalators felt downright archaic and anger-making.

Physically, each station is beautiful. Serious, it’s crazy. Take a look at this picture I took of the Komsomolskaya Station. Each station is unique, and they’re all beautiful. It’s like each station is a different museum.

The largest McDonalds in the world

benstephens — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:32:37 +0000

It’s in Moscow. At least it used to be. The giant restaurant is still there, but a larger one has since opened in Orlando, Florida. When it opened in 1990, it was the first in Russia, and a pretty big deal. It’s quite big, but deceivingly so in that there’s not one giant area – everything’s split up down hallways. The really crappy photo below shows most of the 50 or so registers operating at the restaurant. If you’re in the neighborhood, the McDonalds is at Pushkinskaya metro station. You can’t miss it.

New Year’s Eve in Red Square

benstephens — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:33:47 +0000

I was warned, but I did it anyway. I was told there would be hundreds of thousands of drunk, violent Russians with explosives. I’d probably get hurt and if I took a camera, it would get smashed. There was also a small possibility of being trampled. Tom (the guy who’s been living here a year) said it would be a miserable experience. You know what? You can’t not go, right? So I did, but with a smaller camera and a group of people. Me, Bill, and the Finns went down around 9:30 or 10:00. Walking from the hostel, we meet a security checkpoint three blocks from Red Square. We’re all patted down, with Marisa getting an especially thorough frisking from the eager guard. We walk down one more block – guess what? another patting down for everyone. One more block and – you guessed it. Only this time we also had to go through metal detectors as well. Inside the square, there are indeed hundreds of thousands of Russians, but only maybe around 1/10 are noticeably drunk, and maybe 5% had explosives – mostly pretty small firecrackers and bottle rockets, and with a healthy smattering of sparklers.

The security presence is noticeable. Take a look at the picture to the left. See that line of people – half facing one way, and half the other. Those are police, and the line goes further than I can see. Also – that’s GUM on the left outlined in the lights, and St Basil’s is on the right.

There’s a stage set up down the hill from St. Basil’s and there are a lot of performances going on. They all seem highly lip-synced, and there’s some pretty vigorous choreography going on. Most of the dancing seems focused on kicking one’s legs out far and fast, or else twirling a lot, real fast. We headed out to the bridge crossing the Moscow River and the view is pretty nice. Just above is a picture from this location. Behind me, in blue, is the stage, with some towers of the Kremlin on the left and St. Basil’s on the right.

Just before Midnight, President Medvedev gave a (recorded) speech in Russian. I only understood like maybe four words he said. Just after he finished, the clock struck 12, bells rang, and both official and unofficial fireworks went crazy. Below is a good picture of the fireworks taken from the area of the first picture in this post – from this year, although it was not taken by me – this is an AP Photo. I was on the other side of St. Basil’s at this time.

Borsch

benstephens — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:40:37 +0000

I’ve never had borsch. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a beet. I thought I did once, but it turns out those were radishes. I’m not normally too adventurous an eater, but I kind of felt bad for all the stupid McDonalds I’ve had on this trip, so it was time to make up for it. The price was about $3.50 for this:

That did include bread, by the way, and that’s a big dollop of sour cream in the middle. The only time I’ve seen borsch before is on a recent season of The Amazing Race, and I recall it being extremely thin and nearly clear, with nothing solid in it. Happily, this was not the case with my borsch. The liquid was still pretty thin, but the soup did have a lot of beets in it. I was downright fearful to start eating, but after the first taste – It’s actually pretty good! I didn’t know this before, but beets taste just like potatoes! At least these do. Yummy!

The Kremlin

benstephens — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:36:03 +0000

The Kremlin is a large government complex in the middle of Moscow, adjacent to Red Square. It’s triangular in shape and it’s surrounded by a very tall red brick wall. It’s the center for government, and also somewhat of a tourist attraction. Now that second part isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This is a large government complex, but there isn’t actually a whole lot for the public to see. There are several cathedrals and tall bell towers inside, and the world’s largest bell, naturally, but outside of that, there’s just not a lot here for us to see. Of course, it’s all outside and very cold, so that kind of helps keep things moving. About those cathedrals – there are several, and they’re all nice, but visiting is just a pain in this weather. Today is the worst weather of the trip and running in the warm cathedrals and back out to the cold is not so fun. Anyway, I didn’t go to the Armory. I don’t remember the exact price, but it seemed pretty exorbitantly priced for what was offered. So that’s it for the Kremlin – lots of big government offices and some nice cathedrals inside a big park surrounded by a huge wall with crazy big towers at the gates. pictures below.

This is the entrance gate to the Kremlin.

Big ole Bell Tower

Nice Cathedral

Lenin’s Tomb

benstephens — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:29:51 +0000

The morning after the coffee incident, I’m struggling with being awake, but I find just a couple minutes outdoors in Moscow in January will cure that. It’s a quick 5 minute walk to Red Square. We stop in at a Cafe on the way for a coffee and pastry. I don’t remember the name, but it was Cafe Koxi or something in Cyrillic. It’s a chain, with average breakfast fare. Anyway, we cross the cold, cold square and make our way to the entrance of the tomb. I know the tomb is a very popular site, and that the lines for it are often hours long. It’s only open for three hours a day and just a few days a week, but we’re on the right day, and got there a half hour or so before opening. They are obviously prepared for crazy long lines as the entrance is a good hundred yards from the metal detectors, which are a couple hundred yards from the tomb itself. The line is slow, but being the middle of winter there are only about a hundred other people in line ahead. We have to coat check all cameras and bags before entering the metal detectors, but the process for doing so is smooth.

Moving inside to the tomb is eerie. You can tell from the picture I took above that it’s big and imposing, and the interior is similar. There’s some slippery polished granite stairs and a hallway with stern guards every 20 feet. They request everyone remove their hats and gloves. There’s not really anything to see inside the tomb except for Lenin’s body. There are really only the dark, polished granite walls. The lighting is very dim. At the center of the main room is Lenin’s body. It’s inside a glass case, and just looks a little off. Lots of people speculate that his body has been replaced with a wax replica, but the Russian Government insists it’s the real deal. I personally could go either way. It doesn’t look real enough to be a fake, and if you’re going to make a fake – it’s going to look pretty good, right? Also, his hands and head kind of seemed to just be sticking out of a platform, rather than being on a body that has sides to it. Whatever – I don’t want to nitpick. He looks like a small man. The stream of people keeps moving out the door back to the cold. All-in-all, we’re only inside for just a couple minutes. Walking along the wall of the Kremlin to exit, there are small monuments to Russian leaders Stalin, Brezhnev, and dozens more.