Partners in Crime

Don and Lari attempting to look innocent

The first of my friends, Larissa, or Lari as she’s always known, is due to join me here today later in the afternoon. The train tickets are also meant to be arriving too, so I wind up staying in Alisha’s apartment, surfing the web, looking out the window, reading and doing very little. Around three in the afternoon I finally get tired of inactivity and decide it must be time to go out and meet her. In record time I’m heading for the city and having a bowl of soup and a beer when my mobile buzzes with her message asking where I am. I tell her to head for Alisha’s train station and travel there myself to meet her. Alisha kindly agreed yesterday to let Lari stay at her apartment as well and this morning she’s letting my other friend, Don, stay from tomorrow too. Alisha is rapidly becoming my favourite host ever; her calm, relaxed approach to everything is addictive and fun. I find Lari outside the Metro station and greet her in Russian with “Welcome to St Petersburg”. I introduce her to the way of the marshrutka and advise her about the hot water situation as we head for the apartment.

I’ve known Lari for about fifteen years, a Darwin local always up for fun, parties and travelling adventures. She’s of part Serbian extraction and had spent a year living in the town her father came from; which had both made her curious to visit Russia and wary of Slavic men. So travelling with a six foot tall, huge, crazy Australian like me seemed the best way to avoid problems. We can always pretend to be a couple as required, which generally makes life easier. She is fairly tall and slim with a fantastic figure and broad, cheeky smile. Her eyes speak as much as her mouth does and she still hasn’t entirely gotten over a pushbike accident that left her with some light scarring on one side of her face and her arm. That wasn’t enough to stop the Russian men trying it on with her and I still think her beauty always shines through those huge, soulful eyes.

When she unloads her backpack on the floor she rummages inside it to produce an Australian power adapater for me. I give her a huge hug and thank her profusely for remembering. I plug it in first and then plug in the four point powerboard I’ve brought with me. Her eyebrows rise as I search for my phone and mp3 player chargers and plug them both in,
“That’s a good idea, can I use one of them for my phone?”
“Of course, that’s why I bought it. I figured we’d all want to charge things all the time and this would make it easy.”
She plugs her phone in and we sit and have a beer as I acquaint her with the wonder of Alisha’s window.

We soon make the short trek to the local supermarket and buy a stack of food, wine and beer to last for a few days. By the time Alisha returns home from work we have dinner ready, dessert planned and the wine flowing. It’s at this time that I realise that the tickets haven’t arrived and we’ve had no note or sign that anyone even visited. I jump on the internet again, beginning to feel the anger of desperate helplessness set in. I wrote what I really felt in an email, then deleted it and phrased a simple, but direct and more polite query asking what had happened. I’m more amazed to receive a response in under five minutes telling me that DHL had visited, would visit again the next day and I could check on the website for verification. It seemed I’d managed to miss them in the time I’d been in the city waiting for Lari. Don is arriving in the morning, so we agree to just wait at home until the tickets arrive, then we’ll launch ourselves into the city. It will also be a chance to catch up, since the three of us haven’t been in the same room at the same time for a number of years. With that, we rearrange the loungeroom and pass into a gentle rest.

I meet Don outside the station and we share a hug as I greet him with a ‘Welcome to St Petersburg’ in Russian. He wants a shower and I tell him about the hot water issue. He shrugs and says,
“When in Russia do as the Russians do. Got any vodka?”
I laugh and admit I don’t. Don’s long black hair reaches almost to his waist and he’s cared for it like that for as long as I can remember. His face is narrow and elongated enough that he can do a mad impression of a rodent whenever he chooses; which fits is wiry, tiny body perfectly. His eyes are always alert, watching everywhere and absorbing everything; meaning he can be easily distracted by shiny objects. There are streaks of grey appearing in his hair and I get to hassle him about that since I’m definitely the older brother and still showing no signs of grey. He’s not my brother by birth, he’s my brother from another mother. And father for that matter…and country. Don largely grew up in Jamaica and Africa, before a stint in Fiji leading to Darwin in Australia; which is where we had met at University. I’ve travelled with Don across Australia before, shared houses for three years in Darwin and Melbourne and been involved in countless festivals, parties, events and trouble together. He saw the same Total Solar Eclipse that I did in the desert of South Australia, at the week long trance festival that was held to celebrate it. So it when I was planning my Russian adventure he jumped to join it.

On our return to Alisha’s apartment we sit down to have some late morning beers and catch up on Don’s adventures in Moscow.
“I noticed one beautiful moment when I was in the Kremlin too”, he begins,
“There’s a McDonalds right near it and I saw a pack of sick, skinny, feral looking dogs sniffing around the bins. There was meat and leftover burgers there, but they turned up their noses and kept going. Even pack dogs in the Kremlin won’t eat that crap.”
Don also has his own illustrative story about trying to get a train ticket in Moscow. After an hour of crawling forward in line he finally lurched to the window and presented the piece of paper with his desired trains on it to the sour faced middle aged woman. She looks at the piece of paper, looks back at him and emphatically announces,
“Nyet.”
Don looks at her and at the piece of paper, then points at both the train departures listed and looks hopefully back at her. The answer returns equally surely,
“Nyet.”
Having exhausted his knowledge of Russian and reservoir of ideas he points at where it says ‘St Petersburg’ in Russian on the ticket, then at the date.
“Nyet.”
He pushes the paper through to her, thinking maybe she can’t read it properly and she gets a new idea. She picks up a pen and carefully writes, in Russian, ‘Nyet’. Now he produces the piece of paper in question amid peals of laughter from myself and Lari.

The three of us talk until after two in the afternoon and then begin to wonder if the tickets are on their way. I check on the web link the agent had given me and now it does say they had tried to deliver it the previous day. It also says it’s been dispatched again this morning. Taking some hope from this, Don and I take some time to wander to the shops to find more beer, food and general supplies. Over the next few hours, time slows down to a trickle. Our joint tension grows as the fear of not having these tickets becomes more and more real. We begin talking about what else we can do and how we could find the guy in Moscow. This had been on my mind for more than ten days now as the tickets continued to remain conspicuously absent, so I’m feeling flashes of anger. Lari points out that we can all post incredibly bad references for him at the website we had used to buy the tickets in the first place. I’m actually drafting the reference when the doorbell rings. I answer it and a voice says, “DHL”, in a suitably Russian accent. My heart leaps into my mouth, I can’t believe this might be the end of the torment. I buzz him into the building and sign for the envelope a minute later. It’s just after five in the afternoon, we’re over 10,000 kilometres from Vladivostok, it’s light and I’ve got my sunglasses on. I tear the packet open to find three envelopes inside; one for each of us and I distribute them so we can check through everything. It’s all there, for all of us. Our Trans-Siberian adventure is now officially ready to begin.

Mammmoth Ahoy!

I wake up late, feeling particularly calm and relaxed.  The day has other ideas for me that it lets me in on when I try to have a shower.  There is no sign of hot water.  I think that maybe the heater might need to refresh after Alisha’s shower and wait for a while.  Still no sign of hot water.  I wonder what’s going on and send a message to Alisha asking her if she knows.  Apparently I’m now enjoying one of the privileges of living in Russian apartments.  They use hydronic heating, which pumps hot water throughout the building, this same hot water is the supply for all the showers and kitchens.  During summer they turn the system off for weeks at a time and claim to perform some kind of maintenance on it.  Alisha thinks they just do it for the hell of it since it can happen in winter as well.
“So what do you normally do?” I ask, unfamiliar with the experience.
“Boil a kettle of water, pour it in the broad plastic container you’ll find in the bathroom and use that with the hand towel to wash yourself. You get used to it.”
“Does this happen often?”, I puzzle aloud.
“Every year, all the time.  This is very normal for Russians”, she explains in a resigned tone.
”You should be happy to have the real Russian lifestyle experience”, she chides with an impish giggle in her voice. 
I smile to myself and put the kettle on.

I think I could sit at the window all day doing nothing but absorbing this ever-changing view.  It’s a meditation on the ephemeral nature of existence and I enjoy it immensely.  I finish the Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice) I’d made for us the night before and decide that since I find myself in one of the most famous cities in the world; I had better get outside and see it.  On my way out of the building I notice a sign in Russian that declares the hot water will be turned off for three weeks from today.  I don’t remember seeing it before.  During the marshrutka ride a beautiful, young Russian woman gets on and demands to exchange a thousand rouble note for all the driver’s small change.  He resists and a few people support him, I don’t understand her answer; but he does eventually give in.  I suppose that’s another way to get small change in Russia, but the rules change everywhere for beautiful women.  On the train I spend some time thumbing through my guide and eventually resolve to check out some of St Pete’s Metro stations before heading for the Zoological museum to get amongst the mammoth collection.  Mammoths have always fascinated me, so the chance to see a whole collection of them can’t be missed.

Pushkin in Pushkinskaya metro

The St Petersburg Metro stations are all deeper than the Moscow versions; you stand on the escalators for over a minute heading down.  Apparently this is partly to get the subway lines far enough under the river and partly to serve as bomb shelters.  Whilst sporting some fine statues and marble walls, I never found one as purely excessive as those in Moscow.  The mammoth museum I’m heading for is positioned on the strelka, ‘spit’ of Vasilevskiy Island just next to the Naval museum and very close to the giant rostral columns in front of that.  The columns were originally lighthouses used to guide shipping through St Petersburg’s busy port.  They stand about thirty two metres high, are painted coral pink and have the prows of boats protruding from them – just like the one underneath the giant statue of Peter the Great in Moscow.  Apparently each boat represents a naval victory, but there’s no simple way to tell exactly which victories these might be.  Probably not the under 20s kayak championship.  Maybe more like something involving warships firing cannons at each other and perhaps the occasional skirmish of men with swords swinging onto the decks of an opposing boat yelling ‘Arrrrrgghhh’.  In any case, at their base are four sculptures representing four great rivers of Russia; the Vodka, Beer, Urine and, of course, the Big Vodka.  Well, I’m sure that’s not entirely true, but the Russians I meet on the train later think it’s probably more accurate.

The zoological museum is a lot larger than I expect and contains a vast array of stuffed and preserved animals.  The horse that Peter the Great rode in the battle of Poltava in 1709 is stuffed and mounted in the entry stairway.  I briefly wonder if horses ever think to do the same for their humans, before realising they have no opposable digits and wouldn’t really be that good at taxidermy. 
“You’ll do better next time Ned… I know it’s hard to hold the knife in your hoof”
“Mbruuuuuha.”

On reflection, I suppose language would help them learn more too. After that introduction the museum has everything from mammals to birds and reptiles, whale skeletons to mounted dioramas of Rockhopper penguins.  Okay, so I love penguins and I often use a photo of this particular kind of penguin as my avatar on the internet.  Imagine my joy and surprise at finding a whole family of them mounted in a rocky landscape inside a glass case in the middle of St Petersburg.  I then stumble across a glass cabinet filled with albino animals, including a peacock and, unbelievably, an albino emperor penguin.  My penguin fetish well and truly satisfied by this completely white version of one of my favourite animals, I look harder for some hot mammoth action.

I’m delayed by a display of Australian birds and pause to check the labels, all written in Russian.  I’m dismayed to find a few of them are incorrect, but not entirely surprised.  I’m not entirely sure how good Russian-Australian scientific relations are, but if what I hear from other disciplines about how carefully the Russian government prevents scientists from sharing data, then I’d be more amazed if the labels were correct.  Just when I thought I was at the mammoth section, buried deep inside the building, I come across a stuffed angler fish.  These denizens of very deep ocean have a bioluminescent globe suspended in front of their mouth on a long antennae-like stalk; just like a fishing rod.  Scientists are divided on whether this is just to attract food or their mates, but the reality is any light in the absolute darkness probably does both.  I think they actually run deep ocean nightclubs with tiny shrimps acting as DJs inside their mouths; they turn the light on and off rapidly to create crazy effects for the tiny dancing fish. I also begin to suspect that cold showers do strange things to my thought processes.  My arrival at the mammoth section comes suddenly and with a strange feeling.

They have preserved baby mammoths that had been trapped under the Siberian ice for about 40,000 years.  This is a strange idea for me.  Mammoths have always been gigantic, hairy elephants with excessive tusks.  This diminutive version is the size of a large dog.  I am caught by this anomalous entity for quite a while before finally noticing the array of full sized mammoths beyond it.  I hope some scientist somewhere is working on bringing the world a tiny mammoth through the wonders of genetic engineering; mostly so I can have a little one at home.  I already know that scientists have already isolated the genes that control size, so you can make animals eight times bigger or smaller than they normally are.  So imagine a one foot tall mammoth running through your house to meet you as you arrive home from work.  Your young children could ride it around for fun as it sprays them with water from its trunk.  This thought keeps me distracted for the remainder of my visit as I wonder how you would order a mammoth around and what language would be best suited to the task.  As I leave the museum I’m picturing myself and a group of friends, each astride an adult mammoth charging through the Siberian tundra – yelling commands in Russian.  I just think Russian would be the best language to order around mammoths.

Ya Mammoth!!

Nevskiy and the Canals

After our very relaxing Monday together, Alisha decides she will return to work in the morning and hands me the spare key to the apartment.  This allows me a delightful sleep-in before launching my first real journey into St Petersburg.  I decide I’ll return to the city and walk along Nevskiy prospect to absorb the feeling of the place again and allow whatever takes my attention to consume my day.  I pass through the St Petersburg Metro like an old hand already – thanking my foresight in learning to read the Russian alphabet for the fortieth time.  I emerge in the middle of the city again, through Nevskiy Prospect Metro station and into the surging street.  I can see the spire of the Admiralty building at the end of the street, sitting on the edge of the Neva river; St Petersburg’s river and heart. 

Because pavements are for cars too...man.

I spend the next few hours drifting and floating on the waves of people crowding the city.  I decide I’ll walk away from the river first, back down to Vostanniya square and Moskovskiy station; where I had arrived the previous day.  I pass a huge building that has scaffold placed along its entire frontage and wonder what it is.  There’s no signage I can find, so I consult my guide to discover it is the huge bazaar they call Gostinyy Dvor.  Inside is Russia’s answer to the department store.  Broad passageways about twenty metres wide lead around the whole building on two main floors.  You can move between the floors via regularly placed stone staircases.  In those passageways are an endless series of stalls and shops of various sizes and types; each one run by a different person or people.  Sometimes the whole passageway is taken up by an electrical goods supermarket or a fabric shop.  Other times there are just a couple of benches or display cabinets with a single, bored looking shopkeeper hoping someone will stop.  I find one that only sells batteries and take the chance to stock up, since they are less than half the price of exactly the same battery in Australia.  I find myself wandering through the passageways faster and faster, enjoying the endless flow of different shops with people swarming in every direction.  There seems to be one shop I see over and over again that sells the same set of jewellery, umbrellas and t-shirts.  I wonder if its some kind of weird franchise stall as I sail into a hobby shop filled with radio controlled devices.  The experience is strange to me, different from the bazaars in Istanbul; somehow more modern and consumeristic. 

Then I turn around and amble along most of the length of this fabulous road to land at the Admiralty and the statue of the Bronze Horseman.  Crossing the Fontanka canal at the Anichkov bridge I wish the amazing four statues on it weren’t under restoration.  The statues on the bridge are by Pyotr Klodt and are all very beautiful renderings of men taming wild horses; engaged in the battle of strength as man bends the natural world to his will.  This is a particularly appropriate place to have them displayed so centrally; in this city that represents that idea to perfection.

After Peter had travelled in Europe for a year (1697-98), working to learn boat building and absorbing culture everywhere he went, he returned to Russia with an astonishing plan.  Russia would have a port on the Baltic Sea that would be the equal, or superior, of any European city.  This was the first time any Russian leader had taken this view.  So he did what any six foot eight inch Tsar with a mission does; he started a war with Sweden.  In just a few years, in 1703, he had secured the mouth of the Neva River as the location and started building the SS Peter and Paul Fortress (the double S there is for the two Saints) on an island there.  Opposite was a shipyard that he planned would become the birthplace of Russia’s navy.  He fought Sweden and enslaved prisoners for another six years until the battle of Poltava where he led a decisive victory against their forces; Sweden had been one of Europe’s most powerful countries at the time.  Amusingly the fortress was never actually used or defended during that war, but by then, the city was being planned and built at a reckless pace.

There's more than one way to TAME a horse

 

His determination to see this city come into being drove him for the rest of his life; and considerably shortened the life of the tens of thousands of Russian serfs he conscripted to the cause.  The land was a foetid bog that flooded constantly, it is far enough north to have limited sunlight for half the year, as well as the river and ground frozen at the same time.  Despite everything being piled against this proposition, his will held iron to the end, in 1712 he made it the Russian capital, when he died in 1725 there were 40,000 people in residence and many more in labour camps nearby.

 Kazan Cathedral

Strolling down the Nevskiy Prospect is something I enjoyed doing quite a few times during my time in St Petersburg.  So many beautiful buildings.  The canals, statues and the constant buzz of the people is addictive.  There is little sign left of the torment and death that went into producing this city, it has been replaced by one of the most photogenic and inspirational landscapes I’ve ever seen.  This is a testament to a further three centuries of history, construction and life in the heart of the empire.    The Dom Knigi (House of Books), Kazan Cathedral and a host of other buildings form a constant flow of visual feasts.  each have their own style about them and all locals have their favourites.

The Fontanka, Griboedova and Moyka canals are calling me to get onto a boat tour.  I notice a sign pointing to an English language one and head for the ticket box.  I’m not sure if the boat will have drinks on board, so I spend the fifteen minute wait acquiring some beer from a local shop.  On arriving at the boat I can’t help but notice that there’s only myself, the captain and two Russian crew members on board a wide canal boat with tables and chairs to comfortably seat forty.  They gesture for me to sit down and wait.  In a few more minutes a beautiful young Russian women descends the gangway and, glancing my way, walks over to speak with the captain.  It turns out I’m lucky enough to have the boat to myself. 
“Hello, I’m Ivana”, she says with a curious smile,
“I may as well just sit here then.”
She joins me at the table as I introduce myself and give her a beer to help settle into the best value for money tour in St Petersburg this year

We travel up the Fontanka, down the Moyka and then out onto the Neva past the winter palace (now part of the Hermitage museum/gallery) and the SS Peter and Paul Fortress.  Looking back and forth across the river I can see the huge, towering spires atop the Admiralty on one side and the belltower of the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul on the other.  Both seem impossibly tall and slender and on top of the Admiralty spire is a weathervane in the shape of a frigate; on top of the Cathedral is one in the shape of an angel blowing a trumpet.  The two spires look particularly beautiful glowing in the warm Russian summer afternoon sun.  I see for the first time the beach in front of the fortress swarming with people in bathers enjoying the day.  Beaches and St Petersburg are still two ideas I find hard to associate, but here they are.  We float gently past gardens and palaces, cathedrals and churches, bridges and waterways.  I discover my guide is doing this work to help fund her university studies and improve her English, which is already very good.
“What hotel are you staying in?”, she asks me. 
It seemed an odd question to me when I first arrived in Russia, but it’s quite common for locals to ask where I’m staying to get an idea of what kind of tourist or traveller I am; a businessman staying in the Sheraton or a backpacker in the cheapest place that has a spare room.
“I’m Couchsurfing with a local, staying for free”, I explain.
“Couch…what?” she replies, looking very confused. 
I spend some time explaining the idea to her. It’s greeted at first with the base suspicion that the unknown always causes, then she warms up quite a bit, enjoying the novelty of a new kind of traveller.
“You have to visit this local franchise pub called Tolsti Fraer!” she exclaims. 
She marks my map where a couple of them are located and tells me to go to one in particular. It’s the one she and her friends often visit on a Friday night.  I decide I have to go there this Friday with a group of Couchsurfers to see what happens.

“Are you familiar with the Russian way to ask for another drink without saying a word”, Ivana asks me pointedly.  I think for a moment and reply slowly, still thinking,
“No.  I don’t think so.” 
She turns the palm of her right hand away from her body and raises it to the side of her neck, where she flicks her throat gently with her index finger.  I smile and say,
“That’s sure to come in handy while I’m here.” 
She returns the smile and adds,
“Do you know why we do that?”
Again I think and admit I have no idea.
“Well, when St Petersburg was a much younger city, not long after Peter the Great started building it, there was a time where storms with high winds were lashing it for days on end.  One day in these high winds the angel shaped weathervane on top of the cathedral’s belltower broke and stopped being able to turn properly.  Peter feared the new spire would be torn asunder as the high winds continually caught the weather vane.” 
I grimace, picturing the towering Tsar being made aware of the problem and likely suffering more than normal from his facial tic.
“So Peter called for someone in the new city brave enough to climb the tower and fix the weathervane.  Soon enough, one crazy Russian man approached and said he would do it, but the price would be free drinks in all of St Petersburg’s bars.  Peter agreed to this, since the act would take considerable courage.”
I had read in my guidebook that the spire rises 122 metres from the ground, glancing at it right now assures me it would indeed be quite a feat to climb it even today.
“The man took rope and the tools to fix it, consulted with the builders (the cathedral wasn’t completed until after Peter’s death) on the best way to repair it and set off.  The winds were still high and no-one believed he would make it to the top, let alone actually fix it.  Somehow he stayed firmly attached to the spire, repaired the broken angel and descended slowly amidst cheers and celebration of everyone present.  Peter arranged for a certificate to be created directing all of St Petersburg’s publicans to honour this man with free drinks, signed it and handed it over personally.”
“So I’m thinking this guy isn’t working very much anymore”, I quip. 
She smiles and continues,
“Well, you would be right, he spent many nights getting very drunk and more than once he lost the certificate and had to beg Peter for a new one.  Peter got tired of this process and arranged to have the certificate tattooed on the man’s neck, right here”, she explains, flicking her throat again,
“So all he had to do for endless vodka was flick his throat! …and all the Russian people still use this action to get another drink today”.
She sat back for a moment as I consider this awesome story and sip at my beer.  I smile suddenly and offer her another beer from my bag,
“Oh that’s not what I meant!”, she exclaims, blushing.
“But..since you have enough for me….”
She trails off as she opens the fresh can.  I look out the window again as the buildings drift past.
“I don’t know if the story is true or not, I only heard this last week and liked it”, she explains between long sips.
“Nothing lives as well as a good story, I like it too”, I agree, knowing that I will be telling it again.

Onwards to St Petersburg!

I say my goodbyes to Anna and Natasha as I have to change trains to get to the inter-city station I need for the journey to St Petersburg.  This is my first experience with these trains and I have no idea what to expect.  I find the station and the platform surprisingly easily; this information is printed on my ticket in Russian.  The train is already there when I arrive around midnight, half an hour before departure.  I acquire a couple more beers for a nightcap and then a litre of water to help me out.  I then find my wagon and hand my ticket and passport to the provodnitsa.  Each wagon has its own provodnitsa who is a combination of ticket officer, cleaner, caretaker and general boss of the wagon and everyone in it.  I experience some trouble finding my cabin, partially from all the beer I’ve been forced to consume and partially because I’m expecting to see four beds arranged in it and can only find two bunks on the left hand side.  The disabled sign on the door also leads me to believe it must be for someone else.  The provodnitsa comes by and indicates brusquely that it’s correct and points at the lower bunk.  This is the first time I notice the number affixed to the wall above it that confirms it is indeed my bed.  Jackpot!  A two bed cabin on my first train journey in Russia!

I stow my backpack by lifting my bed to reveal a ready made storage area.  As I’m doing this, a young Chinese guy enters the room and greets me in Russian.  I return the greeting and smile before continuing,
“Do you speak English?”
He smiles and concentrates for a moment before replying,
“Only a little.”
We move to stand at the window in the corridor and between my bad Russian and his bad English we manage to talk for a while.  He’s a student here in Moscow, but he’s now going home to china for the summer holidays.  His parents are also on the train, since they had come to visit him before they all returned home together.  He shows me the four berth cabin his parents are in and then I head for a cigarette and nightcap before turning in for the night.  Imagine my surprise when I find his parents in the two bunks in our cabin.  I stand, baffled for a while, until he reappears and says we can use the beds in the four bunk room while they sleep here.  I look at my suitcase and wonder where it will go, not happy with the idea of sleeping further than arms reach from it.  I’ve heard bags, or their contents, have a way of disappearing on these trains and Natasha warned me again about this just before we parted.  I must look upset at the idea of moving, because as I’m trying to console myself with it, he moves his parents back to their cabin and tells me to lie down.  I have no idea what else to do and have no energy left, so I curl up on the bed and fall into a black, silent sleep.

I wake up feeling dazed and confused, but sporting a smile in memory of the arse slapping antics of the previous night.  I grab the water I’d bought in the station and drink a litre of it in about ten seconds.  I watch the landscape of St Petersburg roll past as we head for the city station.  Already the place feels very different to Moscow.  Certainly the classic soviet apartment buildings dominate, but somehow here they seem further apart, less frenetic and hurried.  As the train approaches the centre of the city these buildings give way to an amazing array of 18th century architecture still in remarkably good repair – or at least the facades are kept scrubbed.

Alisha, my host, is meant to be working, but she messages me saying she’s sick and has stayed at home instead.  Navigating the Metro here feels easier than Moscow, there are less lines and I only need one change to get to her station.  This does involve walking down a short stretch of the famous Nevskiy Prospect – the road at the heart of St Petersburg.  It’s busy and directed, with the flow of people relentless in every direction.  It seems St Petersburg too is in the midst of a construction frenzy; with scaffold cradled buildings a common sight.  The street feels burstingly alive; like an artist wracked by inspiration and struggling to capture it all and make it real before this moment passes.  This feels like a breath of fresh air after the twisted depressiveness of Moscow and I wonder how much of this style is still the living expression of Peter the Great’s dream of a European capital.  I stroll out of Alisha’s Metro station and message her that I’ve made it; she says she’s still ten minutes away.  I sit with my bag near the Metro exit and immerse myself in the constant flow of people.  This station is to the north of the city centre and right on the Gulf of Finland.  I notice again the flower shops that seem to always exist at station exits in Russia.  I imagine in a country that knows winter too well, flowers are a welcome blessing anytime. 

A woman with dark brown hair and huge sunglasses walks laconically towards me.  Her every movement is a study in smooth efficiency that seems like a lazy dance.  Alisha’s smile comes slowly, with the same calm fluidity, and lights her face from within with a warmth you feel to your bones.  She holds my hand as I kiss her cheek and then explains we have to go and catch a marshrutka.  We walk towards a line of yellow minivans as she explains them to me.
“They run a set route, but you can wave them down and get on or off anywhere at all along it.” 
Her voice is husky and earthy, but her sniffles give away her sickness. 
“You need the number 123 to get to my place, just sit on it until the end.” 
Her accent is fairly soft, but definite.  As we scramble with my suitcase into our marshrukta, I ask,
“How often do they run?  When do they stop?”
“All day as long as the trains are running.  They drive to the other end of the route and wait there and have a smoke or something until some people get on.  It costs ten roubles, which you pass down to the driver after you get in”. 
I settle down as someone takes it upon themselves to sort out change for everyone in the back half of the minibus and passes a single handful of notes and coins to the driver.  In all the times I travelled in these across Russia, I never see anyone try to get away without paying, but locals tell me it does happen.

The trip takes about fifteen minutes and the last stretch is along the coastline next to a large park.  The final stop for the marshrutka is at the end of that road, right in front of Alisha’s apartment.  With much grunting and sweating I manhandle my suitcase out of the van and into the complex.  We enter her building and it again meets the standard of being pretty decrepit on the outside, but giving way to a lovely and recently renovated interior.  Her apartment is on the third floor and looks out across the park and over the water of the Gulf of Finland.  Another friend of hers is waiting for us, a woman in her thirties from near Novosibirsk (the capital of Siberia); just like Alisha who is from Barnaul (a few hours drive to the south of the capital). 

Alisha really is sick, her friend is as hungover as I am and the effort of manhandling my suitcase has drained the rush of energy the city had given me.  We alternate sitting in her loungeroom and kitchen, drinking fruit juice and staring out the window at the ever changing view over the sea.  The view from Alisha’s window becomes an integral part of my days in St Petersburg.  At first I’m watching her staring at the horizon dreamily, then I get caught by it as well.  Every day the combination of sunlight, clouds and the water itself provides endless variations on a beautiful scene.  Adding to that is the small river mouth to the right that features a steady flow of boats and the park in front of us with people walking alone, in couples, with dogs and sometimes in small groups.  Much farther to the left is the mouth of the Neva river (St Petersburg’s primary watercourse) that produces even more shipping and the hydrofoils that take happy tourists to visit Peter the Great’s amazing summer palace.  It’s possible to stare out of this window at any time of the day or night and be rewarded with a view that is at once profoundly relaxing and invigorating.  The slow movement of the water and boating is offset by the faster pace of people walking through the park and down the street.  I try to capture this a few times with my camera, but the relatively narrow view always renders the result at best a dull reminder of the feeling in the moment.  This is one of the first times I truly appreciate what might be captured in a single painting that might take a lifetime to find in photography.

The Sunday Session

In the morning I pour Victoria tea and find the last couple of Tim Tams to put with it.  “Hey thanks for letting me stay here last night.  I wouldn’t have been good company for anyone”, I offer as some kind of backhanded apology.
 “You were better off staying home last night, it rained most of the time and we ended up mostly being cold and wet, huddled under umbrellas”, she says sadly, before brightening up and continuing,
 “Did you find something to eat?” 
I’m sure I look guilty for a moment before answering,
“I found some pasta and used some random vegetables.  I’ll get some more today.”
“Oh from that jar in the front of the fridge?’
“Umm… the pickled stuff..yeah.”
“Oh don’t worry so much about that, it’s been there forever”. 
I smile and thank her again before heading out into the street.  I’ve just realised that I haven’t actually been inside the Kremlin itself yet and want to see the Armoury before I leave Moscow tonight.

I’m glad to visit it, the electronic audio guide I pay for takes me on a neat cruise through the rooms discovering the crazy array of weaponry, clothing, dinnerware and carriages that Russian royalty had enjoyed over time.  I haven’t seen a sleigh-carriage before and there’s a crazy array of them to choose from here.  By the time I finish the Armoury I’m eager to keep moving and return to Victoria’s apartment.  Whilst I’ve enjoyed my time in the city, I’m more than ready to leave Moscow.  The place hasn’t exactly captured my imagination, but Moscow was never the reason I wanted to come to Russia.  Those experiences lie on the other side of the Ural mountain range. 

I explain to Victoria that I will take my suitcase to the Sunday Session party and then go straight from there to the inter-city train station.  She suddenly realises and exclaims,
“So I won’t see you again!”
“Well, not for a while…..but I have something for your collection of stuffed animals and teddy bears.” 
On her windowsill, a coffee table and a desk of drawers in her room are an amazing array of these little keepsakes she has collected on her travels.  I give her a small Koala to add to them, to remind her she has to come and visit me in Australia sometime soon.  I then also produce a section of an enormous scarf my sister-in-law had made for me the previous Christmas.  Karen had spent a lot of time knitting it, capably assisted by my nephew and nieces as required, to remind me of my connections to the rest of my family.  The full scarf is well over five metres long, composed of different coloured sections made from different kinds and styles of yarn.  At one point we had it wrapped around all my family sitting around the loungeroom in Darwin.  Karen wanted me to take it on my travels to be my reminder of all of them.  When it was completely rolled up it formed a disc over twenty centimetres in diameter and over ten centimetres tall.  When I was leaving Australia, I cut off a section a bit over a metre long that was small enough to take with me.  My aim was to get pictures of my hosts and their friends to remember both their connection to me and for me to my family.  Victoria poses for a lovely shot wearing the scarf and her glorious smile.  With that formality finished we hug and I drag my suitcase into the street.

The Sunday Session is an Australian pastime to deal with the problem of wanting to have some beers with your friends, but not wanting to be hungover Monday morning.  So the answer is to start drinking around midday Sunday and finish up by nine to give you plenty of time to recover.  A couchsurfer from Perth, Ben, is living in Moscow and he’s arranged for a Sunday Session to happen at his apartment today.  After trying to find my way alone, I decide fate is pushing me to try a taxi.  Two drivers are sitting inside the second taxi on the rank sharing a cigarette sheltered from the rain.  I smile and say hello, in Russian, and hold out the piece of scrap paper I have written the address on in Russian.  They look at each other, have a brief discussion and decide who will be taking me somewhere.  My driver waves me to sit down and we lurch into the traffic, turning completely in the opposite direction to where I thought we should be going.  I’ve heard taxi rides in Russia can be a fun experience for foreigners, but since my own brief attempt to find my way met with abject failure, I decide to trust him for a while.  With his next turn we enter the street I’m looking for.  During this time I manage to tell him, in Russian, that I’m Australian, I’ve been in Moscow for one week and I like Russia.  He tells me it’s raining and that’s about as far as we get when he points at an apartment building with the number emblazoned on it. 

Ben meets me downstairs where he checks the paper sign he’s posted advising the Couchsurfing party is at this door.
“The babushkas in the building don’t like anything foreign or unusual, so when I‘ve done this before with a note in English, they’ve pulled it down within an hour.”
Ben’s apartment is true to the style I had already discovered, decrepit on the outside giving way to luxury inside the front door.  There must be a lot of work in doing renovations in this country.  I’m somehow relieved to be talking to another Australian, especially one from my adopted city of Perth.  I’m about to suggest I go for a beer mission when he shows me the slab of half-litre cans of Baltika 7 he’s acquired.  He smiles and says,
“No worries, there’s plenty here, if we need more later, we can just get them from the shops downstairs.”

I love his proper Aussie style and crack one open with him.  I’m running Moscow early, being exactly on time at four. 
“The other Sunday Sessions I’ve had here had people arriving from six or seven and staying all night”, he says.
“They don’t really get the idea of the session.”
 “Nope, but I kind of like their style too, they party like Australians.”
“They do know how to keep a session going”, I add with a broad smile, remembering Friday night’s madness.
“So what do you make of Moscow life then?”, I ask.
“I liked Moscow when I first arrived”, he begins thoughtfully,
“but after a few weeks I grew to hate it, everything’s difficult, it’s like the city hates you.  I’ve spoken to a few other people who’ve moved here and told me you go through a time of hating everything about it and then you seem to form a truce.”
“I don’t think I like this city, it’s just another big city to me.  Sure it has things that are different, but it’s still just another big city.”
“Maybe…I dunno…I wonder what I have left to eat?”.  He distracts himself, wandering into the kitchen to check the fridge.
“I have some vegemite with me if we want to make something Australian”, I offer. 
He smiles and says sadly,
“I have no bread”.  So with this patriotic need established, I stride off purposely to find some bread.

After walking for a few minutes I begin to doubt I’m even vaguely in the right place.  Nothing looks like it should and I keep looking back to his apartment block trying to find his window; hoping he’s on the balcony.  While searching for the apartment I realise it’s on the other side of the block.  Now oriented, I walk back and find the shop more easily.  This navigating within the nests of apartment buildings can be tricky.  Inside the shop I meet some of the people from Friday night while I’m acquiring the bread and a one litre can of Baltika 7 so I can get a picture of myself holding it. 

Nastya and Ben

Ben and I immediately set about preparing vegemite sandwiches for everyone, eating a few ourselves before switching into a mass production mode.  All Australians love to share this spread with everyone around the world, mostly for the incredibly distasteful expressions it normally causes.  It is an acquired taste and, for me, is best consumed with bread with butter.  Thus prepared, the two of us hand them out to the six or seven people who have arrived, waiting expectantly for their faces to contort.  They don’t.  They love it.  I’m lost for words.  Ben looks thoughtful for a moment,
“Oh yeah…I gave some to some Russians when I first got here and they liked it too”.  I shrug and keep making more as everyone tries and enjoys it.  This just isn’t meant to happen and I find myself wondering what it is in the Russian palate that makes vegemite such an agreeable option.  Only one person doesn’t like it so much, but doesn’t really mind it either.  I’m almost disappointed to miss out on the normal reaction, but at the same time I’m amazed with the unexpected connection with the Russian people.

The Sunday Session has begun in earnest and over the next few hours grows with more and more Couchsurfers and their friends arriving.  I spread the word about my eclipse chasing madness and discover that one of the girls there, Irina (who made the Irish Cream on Tuesday night), will be a part of a group who will ride horses through part of the Altai Mountains at the time. They will see Totality from a small village in the hills.  I’m impressed with her dedication to the cause and we agree to meet up afterwards to trade photos and stories.

Someone asks me what I think of Moscow and Russia.
“I like the Russian people but I don’t really like this city”, I begin and then pause, thinking how to continue.
“In so many ways it’s just another city.  I think when a city reaches a certain size it becomes its own country”,
“Moscow is not a Russian city”, Sasha the Siberian interjects, “I’m glad you’re going to visit the real Russia beyond the Urals.  Life is different there, people are different.  So many tourists only visit Moscow and St Petersburg and think they’ve visited Russia.”
There are nods and noises of agreement from all the Russians who are listening, even the Muscovites seem to agree.
“It’s not really a Russian city, but it’s still my city”, Irina adds.
 “I think there are plenty of cities that don’t belong to their country anymore”, I begin, thinking out loud,
”I mean, they’re still inside that country, but not any part of it.  London, New York, Sydney, Moscow and others.  It’s like they all belong some another country”.  It’s the first time I’ve really seen it this way and I start to wonder what kind of country it is exactly.

Nastya and Maya

Suddenly an exuberant redhead taps me on the shoulder and looks at me expectantly.  I don’t recognise her or know how to react until she says,
“Hi, I’m Natasha”. 
I surge from my seat to give her the hug Healey had asked me to pass on.  Formalities aside, I duck into the kitchen to the fridge to rescue the packet of Tim-Tams I’ve brought for her.  She is one of the Couchsurfing Ambassadors in Moscow and I especially want to meet her, since she knows a Couchsurfing friend of mine from Perth, Healey.  He’d stayed with her when they were both in Poland a few years earlier, so he had more recently entrusted me with a packet of Tim Tams to deliver to her personally.  She stashes them in her handbag and we shift to the balcony to trade news while she has a cigarette. 

Natasha and Sasha the Siberian

What follows is a long session of laughter, photographs and increasing madness as the beers take hold of the group.  At some point I fetch the small number of tiny clip-on Koalas I had put aside to give out today and make sure everyone that I’ve met more than once receives one.  Ben then puts his huge Australian flag across the door to his loungeroom, which leads inevitably to even more photographs of Natasha wrapping herself in it and posing salaciously.  One of the very cute local girls, Nastya, asks

“Do you have any more Koalas? I missed out before.”
She looks so sweet and forlorn it’s hard to refuse, but I look at my suitcase in despair. 
“I have some more, but it would take time to get them out…. and I need to keep them for the rest of my trip.”
She looks so sad, that I add,
“If I get a kiss, I’m sure I could find the energy.”
She withdraws at first looking shy, then both her and her friend, Maya, who also wants one, decide to provide the necessary encouragement.  Maya is a very beautiful young lady with huge, soft eyes that make me feel like I could drown a sweet death inside them.  Koalas suitably distributed I notice my scarf on top of everything and proceed to spend a long time taking photos of almost everyone wrapped in it. 

Natasha’s friend Anna and I have our picture taken together and Natasha thinks we look like we’re a good couple.  We immediately agree we’ve actually been married for a few years already and have been keeping it a carefully guarded secret.  We then pose for some more pictures to prove the point and I ponder that it has taken me just over a week to find myself a Russian bride.  Around eleven I start to pack everything away and then hear the sound of slapping and giggling coming from the entrance of the apartment.  I venture into the area only to have my arse suddenly slapped by two different women, one of them is Natasha.  Ben has explained to everyone this is an ancient Australian party tradition and I confirm it wholeheartedly by returning the favour.  After a frenzy of arse slapping madness we find eight or more people all standing against the walls between the doorway, the bathroom and the kitchen.  Every time someone ventures into the zone a solid slapping session commences leaving us all howling with laughter.  I realise I have to go and fetch my bags from the loungeroom to get them to the door.  Natasha and her friend, Anna, also have to leave.  So after lengthy goodbyes to everyone, I’m escorted back to the Metro station by my wife and her beautiful friend.

There goes a day...

Sometimes I think I cram two or three days into just one, which is the best excuse I can summon for losing a day every now and then.  After the amazing day and the night's festivities, I awake suddenly only a few hours later being evacuated for the cleaner to arrive. I have another shower to try to become at least semi-conscious and shamble into the street, still riding on the effects of a six in the morning beer. I can’t say I remember much of how I spend the next few hours, but at the end of it I’m lying on a bench outside her apartment building waiting for her to respond to my troubled query on when I could go back to sleep. I think the effects of the beer have well and truly worn off by now and I’m left with only the body sickness that comes with a good hangover. I had acquired some Mors juice and finished a litre of it, which was helping a little. This kind of juice is something Victoria introduced me to, its made from different berries from the forest and is something Russian people still make for themselves. This version is packaged, available all over the country and utterly delicious. When I receive her message, I’m working on finishing the second litre carton. It gives me enough energy to shamble back upstairs and pass out again just after one o’clock.

Victoria wakes me around five to tell me,
“I’m going to a celebration that the American embassy is running and I’m wondering if you would like to come?” I check with my proprioreceptive nervous system on this question and discover that whilst all my limbs and organs still seem to be intact, none of them like the idea of working together to move anywhere. I try to negotiate with the warring parties and can find no resolution to the problem that doesn’t involve sleeping for another twelve hours.
“I don’t think I can move anywhere right now”, I say meekly, hoping she won’t beat me mercilessly.
“Oh I thought so… I just wanted to ask in case you were planning on going. Oh..you know you won’t be able to get outside without the key.”
“Yes, I think I’m not going to be able to go anywhere until tomorrow”.
With that response she checks her bag and pockets for everything before waving goodbye and heading out the door. Being locked inside her apartment seems entirely a better prospect than roaming the city with a torturous hangover. I know she isn’t entirely happy, but I still thank her quietly for letting me lie and suffer by myself.

I wake up again after eight feeling significantly less like my internal organs have been blended into a kind of sick slurry and venture to the kitchen to see if I can find anything to eat. It’s moments like these the guidebooks never seem to cover. I now cannot leave the apartment, since I can’t unlock the deadlock. I don’t have any food here. I can’t drink the tap water and there’s only a litre bottle left that isn’t mine. I hope for forgiveness when I replace everything in the morning and turn to the cupboard to try and find something filling. I can’t understand the Russian written on most of the packets, so figure I’ll have to go with something I’m pretty sure I know. I’m overjoyed to find a packet of instant spaghetti and set about getting a pot full of water boiling on the stove. While the pasta is cooking I see if I can find something to use as a sauce and come up with a few gherkins and something pickled in a jar involving tomatoes and…..other things. In the interests of the exploration of international cuisine I give you “Pickled stuff and gherkin on a bed of spaghetti”; a delightful mixture of Russian and Italian mainstays brought together in a moment of desperation. It isn’t bad actually, so I finish it and check my email on Victoria’s laptop. I return to bed again and sleep provides blessed relief from the torment I do like to inflict on my body.

The Demon's eyes in the Russian night

The Tretyakov Gallery
 

It’s Friday and today has been an emotionally draining time.  Later in the day I discover the train tickets are still not ready and I ask him to send them to my couchsurfing host’s apartment directly.  I’m glad I’ve already been talking to Alisha for a couple of weeks about my visit, so this is no problem.  It does add to my worries; without those tickets, this is going to be a very strange journey in Russia.  The thing that’s really twisting my mind is a painting I saw in the Tretyakov gallery this morning.  The gallery is awesome and I had already seen a number of the paintings before, but there’s nothing like the real thing.  I can’t find a good picture on the internet of the painting that is haunting me and I suspect no picture can capture it.  You just have to be there.

It’s called ‘The Demon Prostrate’ and is kind of a picture of Satan just after his exile from heaven.  And it kinda isn’t.  The body in the picture is angular and beautiful, with dark skin; but it takes a while to be able to notice that, because the entire picture lives in the eyes.  Betrayal, fury, disappointment, confusion – like a child punished savagely for someone else’s crime.  These eyes beg for sympathy, but warn of a purely malevolent intent.  They draw you closer to empathy, but reject you with spite at the same time.  There is pure animal madness in them as well as the savage pure discipline of a conquering hero.  I’ve never felt anything like the flow of emotions this picture draws from me effortlessly.  You’re left feeling somehow robbed and richer at the same time.

My guide tells me Vrubel produced this piece of mad genius when he was on the verge of the massive nervous breakdown that heralded the end of his career and soon life.  Already driven by his own demon, it seems Vrubel tried to take control back by overthrowing him and instead captures the moments before it claims him entirely.  He repainted the eyes in this picture over forty times.  Even after it had been exhibited to some acclaim, he continued to change them until they reached this final state.  Probably exacerbated by third stage syphilis, this was the beginning of the end of the artist’s mind and provides a dark and complete insight into his internal struggle.  If you’re passing by Moscow, I’d highly recommend a visit.

On the street in Arbat

I still feel like my insides have been rearranged with a cricket bat when I meet Ludmilla at the entrance to the Metro station near the café.  I just want the demon’s eyes out of my head.  The place is certainly very new, modern and belongs more in Europe than Moscow.  Ludmilla’s English is not conversational, but still so much better than my Russian, so we chat in stilted fashion while we peruse the menu.  Alexander arrives just after our drinks and this helps conversation a lot.  He asks me to call him Sasha, so I should take a moment to explain Russian names.  Everybody has at least three or four.  Your first name and family name are pretty set, but there are standard shortenings for first names that everyone uses with friends.  Alexander and Alexandra both get shortened to Sasha, but Vladimir is Volodya, Dimitry is Dima, Nataliya becomes Natasha and Anastasia becomes Nastya.  To further confuse this there is not a huge variety of first names in Russia, so it’s quite normal to have two or three people with the same name at any gathering.  To add to this you also have a patronymic name which is derived from your father’s name.  It has male and female versions so you can always tell someone’s sex from their patronymic name.  Lenin’s father’s name was Ilya, which is why he is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.  Volodya to his mates.  So in the interests of identifying this confusing array of Russians with the same name, I’ll add my own epithet to their short name.  So anyway, it turns out that Sasha the Siberian had been a top English graduate in his hometown of Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia.  We all chat much more freely as more people arrive and soon we have a group of eight or so Couchsurfers, including the Dutch guy, Hanspeter, and Tanya, one of the locals from Tuesday night.  Tanya is short for Tatiana by the way.

During dessert Ludmilla and the other locals discuss our itinerary before we gather together and leave.  What follows is an incredible trek across the city to discover places that were full, weren’t open yet or were too expensive for some of the group to want to pay to get in.  We see a lot of the streetlife at night and not so much of the nightclubs.  I’m amused to see large black vans filled with beautiful women parked next to the entrance of a casino.  I ask what they were doing and my hosts diplomatically explain it’s for rich men to have some fun.  We end up getting beers at pavement shops twice during the mission and drink them on the way to the next place.  On the way I find myself explaining the Australian love of shortening words to Sasha the Siberian.
“Anything with three syllables is going to be pinched, even two is a little long.  A heavy Australian accent is made unique by the way words are shortened and slid together into an endless stream of whiny noise.”
“Yes, we like to shorten words too…everybody’s name, places…it’s common to not say the whole thing”, he says.
“True? I suspect all languages do it to some degree, but one of my favourites is un-fucking-believable.”
He laughs at hearing the sausage word created,
“But that’s longer!”
“True, but it’s spelled u-n-f-k-n-b-l-v-b-l”
He bursts out laughing and we toast with the beers we’re carrying as he says the letters over and over again.
“But it’s not the best one, the best Australian saying is ‘No wuckers’.  It was originally ‘No worries’.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that before”, he says, nodding.
“Somewhere it became ‘No fucking worries’, then ‘No wucking furries’…Until someone realised that’s too damn long and made it ‘No wuckers’.” 
He laughs with each variation and his eyes shine with the amusement of learning the final part.
“You don’t get that one so much in cities, I’ve heard it more in the country”, I add.
“So Australian changes around the country?”
“The accent certainly does, words do as well, but you can normally understand it everywhere.”
“Russian doesn’t really change across the country, we speak the same language everywhere.”
“Really? Over such a big country I’d expect so many more variations!”
“Not really, the Trans-Siberian line connects everyone and we all move around doing national service too.  So the culture might be different, but not so much the language”. 
I make a note to see if I can pick different accents as I cross the country.

Beery goodness from St Pete's

Actually the beer stops introduce me to another curious part of the Russian psyche, when in a group; everyone likes to wait for someone else to take responsibility for leading.  It doesn’t seem to be for politeness, more that nobody wants the burden.  We stop to pick up the beers and then ten minutes later we’re still standing around sipping them and finishing second cigarettes. 
“What are we were waiting for?”, I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Well…Davai davai”, I chant, trying to move everyone.  This is followed by more of the same as all the foreigners present agree they also thought we were waiting for something or someone.  The locals agree that indeed we aren’t waiting for anything and we stand sipping beer for a while longer.  I’m not sure who moves first, but a few of us start walking saying,
“Davai davai”. 
They point in the right direction and we surge onwards.  After a little while it occurs to the two of us at the head of the group that we have no idea where we are or where we’re going; but somehow we’re leading everyone.  We pause and wait for a couple of our local group members to stroll by and start following them.  After a short time, they realise we aren’t quite heading in the right direction and cross the road and curve back slightly in the direction we had come.

By the second stop I’d figured out this would probably happen again and keep up the pressure to keep moving.  The only other explanation of these pauses is that it is technically illegal to be walking down the street drinking beer, but everyone does it.  So if we finish beers near the shops, we’re less likely to be hassled.
“When was the last time any of you have been bothered about this law?”, I ask. 
They look thoughtful and generally agree it’s been a long time.  All it really takes is someone prepared to say, ‘Davai davai’ and everyone will follow pretty directly – just as Ayuna had done yesterday.  Finally, we resolve to head to a place called ‘Soup’ to actually sit down for a while.  The walk across the city has stretched into a three hour tour and we all just want to sit down anywhere.  Well….anywhere with a beer.

We’re led to a table and I’m forced to order a beer and two shots of vodka.  Sasha the Siberian smiles and does the same.  Some of the others order soup, apparently it really is well known for the soups they make here.  This is apparently a common format for Russian clubs; you enter in a group, are seated and enjoy table service.  You could head for a dancefloor, if it has one, but this one has more of a café style atmosphere.  I enjoy sitting down more than anything and learn some new Russian toasts.  Most of the Moscow locals were horrified at the thought of saying ‘Ha zdorovie’, a traditional Slavic toast meaning ‘to your health’.  It’s probably the first toast any foreigner learns and I discovered I had to find some new ones to be really Russian.  To make it more difficult, when I ask for another one that was the equivalent of ‘cheers’, their faces cloud over and then they say, ‘there’s too many’.  I laugh and demand they pick one.  Sasha the Siberian tells me the Russian word that effectively means ‘to our future’ and we drink our first shot together.  A while later he tells me another one of his favourites, which means ‘Let’s do it’, so we can finish the second one.

Thus armed against the cool night air and regenerating our tired legs we make for Krisis Zhanre.  Apparently the live music only gets started there about midnight and when we enter the first band is only a couple of songs into their set.  The clubs name in Russian glows on the wall and the place is packed and vibrant.  Sasha the Siberian and I stash our coats in the coatroom I find hidden at the back of the dancefloor and he volunteers to find some beers while I wait with the rest of the group.  We finish them quickly and all of us launch ourselves onto the dancefloor with mad abandon.  The band finishes, we don’t, but the DJ keeps us going as they setup for the next band.

This new drug called 'B' will explode your mind

Dancing, beers, vodka and shouted happiness prevail for a few hours.  At one point all the Couchsurfers join together in a circle with arms around each other and keep dancing together.  This only lasts a minute thanks to some filthy looks from bouncers, we have to break it up.  I’m baffled as to what was so bad.  Konstantin, one of the locals, leads me to a back area for a cigarette.  We travel past the end of the bar, finding ourselves in a group of tables and then open French windows that lead to a small outdoor location designed for smoking.  The back ‘wall’ of this area is a canvas tent that conceals a building site.  Konstantin produces a cigarette which I then drop on the floor almost instantly.  As I bend over to retrieve it, he looks appalled at the idea and stomps on it whilst producing another.  I can’t picture anyone in Australia doing that; a single cigarette is worth up to seventy five cents.  However, in Russia a whole packet costs the same; which would help to explain why almost everyone smokes, everywhere.  Konstantin leans forward after lighting up and explains the bouncer’s reaction to our mini-mosh.  Apparently the worst thing you can do is to be moving together in a big group like that, it’s banned in every pub, club and venue.  Moshing is strictly forbidden thanks to the bad reputation it has for causing unforeseen injuries as the mass hysteria takes over and everyone in the room is heaving together as one.  People have been suffocated, trampled and generally damaged.  Which is probably why I love the mosh so much, I’ve already been in many good ones and loved every minute of it.  The surge of energy I get from moving both together with the crowd and by myself within it is spectacular and invigorating.  

Somehow we get talking to a pair of Mexicans who are visiting Moscow and I discover this club is a huge hangout for ex-pats in general.  I’m more than happy to throw myself into the night and see where we all land. For most of the next few hours I find myself drinking beers and returning to the smoking area to enjoy random conversations with Mexicans, Americans, Germans, Serbians and a host of Muscovites.  I meet an extraordinarily drunk local who gives me his card so we can go out drinking again tomorrow night.  He’s out with his girlfriend and an old mate who’s in town for the weekend.  All three of them are at the level of drunkenness that would get them removed from an Australian pub with vigour, but none of them seem to have a problem finding another round.  I pass Tania on the dancefloor and she leans in close to be heard,
“Are you coming back with us all to my place after this?”
“Definitely! When are we going?”
She shrugs and says,
“Soon maybe.”

One of the rarer effects of drinking too much Russian Vodka

It’s while talking to an American journalist about where the country is going under Putin that I realise I have no real idea where I am in the city.  We walked here after the monster trek, leaving me with no orientation for a Metro station and I’m not entirely confident about organising a Russian people’s taxi with my poor language skills.  The idea of being alone and lost in the middle of Moscow makes me feel suddenly vulnerable, so I move to return to the group.  To my horror they have disappeared.  I look in every corner of the club and can’t find anyone.  I retrieve my jacket and begin to work through my options on finding my way home.  It’s just after six in the morning and I’m floating on a sea of beer inspired warm comfort.  I think if I can get directions to the Metro I can navigate myself home safely without a problem.  So when I walk into four members of the group standing together outside, I give a little cheer.  They look up at me and smile.
“I thought you’d gone home already!”, I accuse them.
“You’re still going!”, the chorus of voices chime.
“I couldn’t go, I have no idea where I am right now.”
They laugh and Hanspeter says,
“Moscow!”
“Really? I thought I was in Africa somewhere!  How the hell did I get here?!?!.....What happened to Tania? One minute she’s saying we’re all going there and now she’s disappeared with her friend.”
“Oh they left half an hour ago, I think they were looking for you, but you’d disappeared.”
“I was out the back in the smoking tent talking to drunk Russians”

 

And that's what Moscow really looks like

 

They laugh as we meander to the Metro station.  As we separate at the circle line station I wonder when exactly the best time to send a message to Victoria is.  I opt for an SMS five minutes before I arrive back and follow with a phonecall when I get there.  She buzzes me in the building and ushers me inside the apartment with a tired smile.
“Good night?”
“Was extensive and great fun; good people, good music, good conversations, what more is there to cram into an evening?” 
She smiles evilly and adds,
“Oh maybe one or two things, but you can’t have everything.” 
I laugh on my way to the shower.  By the time I return she’s already sound asleep again, so I stretch out onto my mattress setup on the floor and blissfully follow the trend for unconsciousness.

Novedevichy with a side of Beach Volleyball

I decide that the Novodevichy convent and cemetery will be my primary destination for the day and bounce into the street to find my way there.  I stop at a small pavement shop to get something for breakfast and discover they can’t change a thousand rouble note, so I can’t buy anything.  I don’t know what to do exactly, so I wander back into the street, still hungry and looking for a bigger shop.  I end up being refused at two more pavement shops and start to wonder if it’s because I’m a foreigner or if they really don’t keep change.  I now wish I hadn’t already spent the last of my small change; fifty and hundred rouble notes.  I soon walk past a supermarket and this time manage to acquire a packet of chips and a curious flavoured liquid yoghurt drink.  There is always a broad range of milk based food and drink in any shop in Russia.  This varies through milk, butter and cheese from different animals to yoghurts with consistency from almost cheese-like to pretty much milk.  This drink is a chocolate flavoured milk-like yoghurt and goes well with the sour cream and chive chips.  It doesn’t, however, encourage me to have more later; the yoghurt is just too bitter for my taste.  I’m used to drinking Iced Coffee from a carton almost every day while I’m in Australia; a habit gained during my misspent youth.  It has too much coffee and too much sugar, but in perfect balance.  It sets your heart beating and your eyes spinning; I know anything that feels that crazy good has to be bad for me and I love it.

The Cathedral of the Virgin of Smolensk in the Novodevichy convent truly is gloriously beautiful; the iconostasis is the best I see in Russia.  Five tiers high and richly ornamented, it dominates the room entirely.  I have to tear myself away from the incredibly detailed visual smorgasbord to appreciate all the other amazing frescoes on the central pillars, walls and ceilings.  One dour looking nun watches over the visitors idling through the building that has already stood for almost five hundred years.  I walk around the convent grounds and decide to sit on a bench under tree for a while, absorbing and luxuriating in the calmness of the gardens.  The strange and twisted history of this place (as a prison, refuge and storehouse) doesn’t seem to sit heavy upon it today. I sit and soak in the warmth and idyllic calm of the convent atmosphere.

Some time later I stroll next door to the cemetery.  I decide I don’t really want to pay for a tour this time and just wander in to drift around the place.  There are plenty of large, spreading trees providing shade to the cool cemetery grounds.  I tag along with an English speaking tour group for a few stops before tiring of it and decide that since I can read the gravestones, I can figure out who’s in them and the more decorative ones are probably more famous people.  I turn from Gogol’s grave to discover Anton Chekhov’s almost opposite and figure I’m half right, Chekhov’s grave is decidedly unornamented; but is unusual in that it’s a simple Gothic arch shape with his name printed on it.  The cemetery is the resting place of many figures from the worlds of Russian politics, arts and the military.  Stalin’s right hand man, Vyacheslav Molotov, lies here.  It is after him that the Finnish people named the Molotov cocktail.  This was the humble petrol bomb they used to great effect against Russian tanks during the Winter war of 1939/40.  Since then the Molotov cocktail has been used by many countries and has become a universal symbol of both a people’s resistance to armed forces and a university student’s idea of a fun night in Paris. 


However, it’s Boris Yeltsin’s grave I’m interested in visiting.  I did have an idea of taking some vodka with me to either leave there or pour at its base, but wasn’t sure how it’s be viewed.  The grave is a sculpture of a Russian flag waving in the wind, his name on the piece is faint at first, but certainly visible.  I did always like his style in the early years when he faced down the military coup in 1991 by standing on a tank and making speeches before staging a one man breaking of the siege.  That he then oversaw the final demise of the Soviet Union was just as amazing, becoming the first president of the Russian Federation.  Somebody had to be there to make the changes happen, but his decision on an economic pathway certainly seemed to destroy Russian finances for many years.  I also loved the video of him trying to conduct a band at some official occasion whilst being monstrously drunk.  The real conductor was standing behind him and conducted only while Yeltsin had his back turned and his arms waving in a crazed frenzy trying to conduct.  Every time Yeltsin turned to check on him, the poor conductor froze and acted like he was doing nothing.  Such a lovely moment, it must be something Australian to love seeing political leaders heavily refreshed in public and enjoying themselves.

Boris' final resting place

After some more time enjoying the variety and styles of the graves here I decide I’m hungry and have to go and check out the crazy Georgian restaurant, Genatsvale, on Old Arbat St.  Entering it seems like a strange ritual as you leave Moscow and enter some small, ancient town in the middle of Georgia.  The uneven cobble stones outside lead you through an enormous broken clay pot to heavy wooden doors. I open them and step inside to find a waitress who shows me to a table.  Even inside, the restaurant has different levels; like the uneven streets of the old town.  On the left is a waterwheel turning lazily in a small stream with tables above, below and around it.  Fish swim in the carefully lit stream and there are different sections around the huge room; raised verandahs and an open cobbled square in front of the bar.  She gives me a menu, with English translations thankfully, and I set about ordering up a storm.  Lavash bread, Bozbashi soup and a kind of open kebab with grilled meat and vegetables served on a wooden board.  My first taste of Georgian food starts a lasting love affair, it is easily the best food I have from any of the old Soviet republics.  Spicy, but simple, filled with flavour and always made me want more.  The Bozbashi soup is mutton meatballs in a spicy, red, cloudy broth of paprika, onion, tomato and dill.  It becomes a staple of mine across Russia.  Everyone prepares it slightly differently, but the core was the same and delicious with lavash bread.  This is baked in discs about twenty centimetres in diameter and rises in the centre to about two centimetres.  It is always sliced up, is quite soft and absorbs juice from your plate or soup perfectly.  The main course had deliciously grilled lamb and the salad, tomato and cucumber that came with it balanced it perfectly.  It also came with freshly made Adzhika sauce.  This ‘sharp’ chilli sauce is another instant favourite and I find a bottle of it later to have ready at hand for the rest of the trip.

After a fantastic lunch like that, I can do nothing but waddle the fifty metres down the road and slide into my favourite internet café again.  I’m particularly happy to find another Couchsurfing meetup began about fifteen minutes ago.  Ayuna, a Moscow local who was at the last meetup, has arranged a meeting right next to the beach volleyball competition that’s going on at the moment.  I bless her genius and wonder how such an incredibly Australian style of sport had caught on here.  I decide to leave and join the group to see what it’s like. 

The Beach Volleyball Outdoor Stadium

There is indeed a temporary stadium setup at the foot of the hill of Victory Park that I stumble into almost immediately after walking out of the Metro station.  It also seems there really is a beach volleyball competition going on inside it.  As I drift around the edges of it finding the meeting spot, I love the sheer randomness of finding such an event in Moscow while I happen to be passing through.  More importantly, I would never have known it was on without the Couchsurfing connection.  Ayuna finds me quickly and says they had decided not to pay any money and sit on top of the hill instead.  I figure I might choose to go in later and follow her to meet the group.  This time we have four nationalities represented and we sit on newspaper on the grassy hill watching the sun get lower in the sky.  We talk about what has brought us together in Moscow this fine day.  I suddenly think to ask about the problem with changing the thousand rouble note that morning.  Ayuna bursts out laughing and explains,
“Oh that’s everywhere; the small shops often can’t do it at all, which is bad because the Bankomats like to give out the big notes.  Some of them only give out thousand rouble notes that you can’t use anywhere.”
“I try to get smaller amounts out, but the machines don’t always let you”, adds another local girl.
“Sometimes you can get it in hundred rouble notes, but I’m not sure which one that was.”
As she finishes, she drifts off into silent thought for a while, before seeming to decide she really doesn’t know.
“So, what’s the best way to change a big note?” I ask in blank curiosity.
“Ummm…supermarkets normally can, Metro ticket windows…the bigger the shop, the more likely they can do it”, Ayuna explains.
“But you can’t change money, you have to buy something, nobody will just change money for you”, advises her friend. 
I nod slowly, trying to remember to always carry smaller change in the future.  Ayuna takes the moment to launch a barrage of questions,
“So what are you doing in Russia? Where are you going and how long are you here?”
  I tell them of my planned Trans-Siberian adventure and then my eclipse chasing history.
“That’s what has really brought me here.  To Russia.”
I stare into the distance for a moment, enjoying the city view.
“You’ve come all the way to Russia to look at the sun?”, Ayuna asks with a bewildered expression.
“Well, really it’s not to look at the sun, so much as much as the moon sitting perfectly in front of it.  The black sun.  Have you seen one?”
The group looks puzzled in thought for a minute, before one of the German girls remembers,
“I saw one about 2000 I think, we had to use special glasses and a pinhole camera so we didn’t look at the sun directly.”
“But did the sun turn black? Could you look straight at it without the glasses and see the corona around the edge for a few minutes?”
“I…don’t know…I think so….”
“I think if you had seen it you would know….maybe it was only partial where you were, the Totality follows a narrow path only one hundred kilometres wide.”
This explanation has become almost a mantra to me,
“It is not eclipses that I chase; it is Total Solar Eclipses.  It's not the same, when I say the word 'Eclipse', I mean Totality.  The partials and hybrids are something else, something lesser”, I pause, trying to find the right words.
“It’s like trying to describe a six foot high ice-cream, multi-flavoured, decorated wedding cake to someone who has only ever seen a mars bar.”
The idea makes them laugh and then consider.
“The black sun lives for a few short minutes and your brain is pushed out of its comfort zone.  The sun never looks like this, for your entire life it has always done the same thing every day.  Sunrises and sunsets change, the length of the day changes and even the colour of the sun can change.  But it doesn’t turn black in the middle of the day”.  I’m lost in my passion again. 
“Totality taunts you with the failure of your expectation of consistency.  Nothing is permanent, everything changes.  Even the sun is an exception to its own rules”. 
I stop talking and let the view absorb me for a while as the girls chat.

Ayuna suddenly says its time to go and the group follows wordlessly down the hill.

The peak in Victory Park