Helsinki July 31, 2006

Today we explored more of the historic areas of Helsinki. We spent most of our time at the Suomenlinna Fortress. The fortress is located on several islands that make up a natural protective barrier at the outside edge of Helsinki Harbor and takes a fifteen minute ferry ride to get there.

Construction on the fort was started in 1748 by order of Sweden’s King Fredrik I to protect against invasion from Russia and it took over forty years to complete the principal work. When completed, 8 km (5 miles) of walls had been built with room for over 1,300 cannons and 12,000 troops. This was the largest construction project to date undertaken by Sweden. (The area now known as Finland was part of Sweden at this time and remained so until it became a Russian Grand Duchy in 1808. It remained under Russian control until independence was gained in 1918 and Finland was declared a sovereign state.)

The fort saw military action during the Crimean War when an Anglo-French fleet shelled the fort for three days and in 1905, saw a mutiny staged by reds in the Russian Army stationed in the fort that was subsequently put down by loyal troops. The leaders were executed.

Today the fort, (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is a picturesque area for 900 Helsinki residents to live as well as being the area’s top tourist attraction. There are seven museums on the island and six restaurants so it’s easy to spend the day there.
We had time and energy to tour 2 of the museums, 1 a general history of the fort and the 2nd a museum regarding the historical coastal defense of Finland.

We enjoyed lunch at one of the many outdoor terrace cafes on the islands. The weather was picture perfect; sunny, blue skies and about 75 degrees.

We took the ferry back to the mainland mid-afternoon and strolled once more through the market. Impulsively, we ended up with one of the reindeer hides that I mentioned in yesterday’s log. This is going to be a rug for some room of some house that we will have someday in the future.

Hide in hand, we then headed to the Tallink ship line office to purchase ferry tickets for Tallinn, Estonia (3 hour ride) on the 2nd of Aug. and additional tickets from Tallinn to Stockholm, Sweden (overnight cruise from 6pm – 10am) for the 3rd of Aug. The ticket office was nearby and the clerk was extremely friendly and helpful, making this an altogether painless, yet expensive venture.

There is a huge multi-level shopping mall near our hotel where there is a large supermarket. We stopped in and bought ribs (pre-cooked at the deli counter), potato salad, green salad and fruit - we had a veritable feast in our room!

From Russia with Love? July 30, 2006

We were picked up at 6AM and dropped at the train station at 6:10. Our train left at 7:30. I now really suspect that the travel agency could not wait to get rid of us. Luckily the station had a café open and we were able to get a cup of coffee while we waited.

We found the train, got settled in and were glad to pull out of the station on time. We didn’t have any problems at either the Russian or Finnish borders with Immigration / Customs and the train pulled into Helsinki on time at around 12:30PM.

Now the work begins. We start a new chapter in our odyssey today. From now on we will not use travel agents and guides. The immediate meaning of this was we had to find our own way to the hotel. You may think to just take a taxi but when your traveling for six months it becomes necessary to economize every chance you can. (You may remember me writing about sink laundry. We’re still doing it and it becomes less fun each time.) We walked the 15 minutes to the hotel carrying our 50 pound packs and constantly making sure we weren’t headed the wrong way. The last thing we wanted was to walk an extra meter. A nice gentleman stopped and gave us directions after asking our destination and we were there and checked in before we knew it. The Sokos Presidinti is in downtown Helsinki and only minutes from the harbor, museums and other points of interest.

After dropping the bags we headed for lunch and some exploring. Lunch was at a local fast food place because even though we knew Finland and Scandinavia in general are expensive, we had sticker shock when we looked at menus in some of the restaurants that we passed. Luckily the fast food was good but at 13.20 Euros (approx US$16) not too cheap by the fast food standards we are use to. I think tomorrow we will start eating out of the grocery store.

Our next stop was the local travel info office to get information about some of the things we want to do here and also find out about the ferries to Estonia and then on to Stockholm. That done we moved on to the public market on the quay. (The quay is the solid ground immediately adjacent to the harbor and can usually be used for docking boats or ships.) The market made us think of a focused flea market. There were the usual souvenirs for sale, although these were actually pretty good, and then there were furs. Reindeer hides with hair still on and artic fox furs. We are not fur experts but these looked to be nice quality hides. It certainly gives the market here a distinct look to see tables of hides stacked next to tables of refrigerator magnets and t-shirts.

We checked into the ferry office and found out we were going to have to look further which I will do on the net when I finish this log. We then took a scenic harbor cruise which is why we do our own laundry and don’t take taxis so we have money to do the fun things. The cruise was great. It’s a sunny day here probably 70 F (20 C) but with the wind coming of the water it can feel like 55 or so.

Helsinki is a beautiful city and seems to be a good blend of old and new. The city has a youthful energetic feel with people in the parks and sidewalk cafes and street musicians and performers scattered here and there. We are told they live for these kinds of days here as the summer is short and the winter can be brutal. Although, even in the winter they are an outdoor people with ice skating, X-country skiing and ice fishing being favorite activities. Helsinki is on the Bay of Finland and the water has a low salinity level which helps it to freeze solid early in the winter. They have a large fleet of ice breakers here, the largest of which can break through ice up to 16 feet thick (5 meters). We passed closely by these moored vessels during our cruise and they are most impressive to see.

It’s a little after 9PM; the laundry is done and now so is the log. As soon as I research the ferries I’m going to bed, Holly is already asleep. The alarm that went off at 5AM this morning seems like a long time ago.

Catherine had One Too July 29, 2006

Today was our last day in Russia and we spent it visiting the other “official” Summer Palace located in the town that is now called Pushkin. This was a palace started by Catherine I (Peter the Great’s wife) on land that Peter gave her, I assume because she was tired of Peter having all the fun planning and developing cities, palaces, navies etc. The palace was finished by Catherine’s daughter Elizabeth Petrovona and “redecorated” by Catherine the Great.

The palace is considerably larger than the one we visited in Peterhof yesterday but is not as richly decorated and the grounds are not as elaborate although this is not to say that anyone reading this has a house that is furnished as lavishly as this one. The royal family would spend approximately two months a year in this palace, rotating between the Winter Palace in St. Pete, for nine months, Peterhof, for one month, and here in Pushkin for two months. Another interesting tidbit is that most of the furniture was moved every time they moved. This may seem a bit excessive, but there is a logical reason for the action. The summer palaces were not heated during the winter and furniture left there would be in jeopardy as the temperature and humidity changed dramatically within the palaces.

You may, as I was, be asking yourself about now; “why did they need two summer palaces”. I blurted this out to the Julia, who looked at me with that “you poor uneducated American” look that I am starting to get used to and said “the other summer palace is for special occasions”. I felt a little foolish at not having thought of this simple and straight forward answer myself. By the time we have made our way through Europe I hope to know enough about this monarchy stuff to apply for a job as a stable boy. Does anyone know if you have to be born into these jobs?

After the palace tour we stopped for lunch at a countryside restaurant that served very good food. Julia told us that this was the first privately owned restaurant to open after the 1917 revolution. We had one bowl of borscht, one salad and Holly and I split a stroganoff and although it was great at US$37 this lunch was a little rich for my taste. By the way no alcohol was served at the meal.

We made a quick stop at the post office when we returned to St. Pete and then were dropped off by Julia and George on a street corner when we asked if we could stop at a pharmacy. Maybe we have overstayed our welcome. We did recognize the neighborhood and after making our purchases (this included hand gestures, grunts and much pointing) we walked the fifteen minutes back to the hotel.

We have a 7:30 train in the morning so we are getting packed and organized for our small two person caravan to move on around 6AM.


A few thoughts about Russia:
A huge diverse and beautiful country Russia is like a lot of countries. Rural people tend to be friendlier and more laid back than people in the cities, but having said that we met few openly friendly people here. They seem to be guarded or so busy surviving, that visitors just may not be on their agenda. The economy is doing better than it was ten years ago but most of the people here live a Spartan existence. Overall in the faces of the majority of people we saw on the street day to day, there was a sadness that seemed to come from deep inside. The look was not of desperation it was more one of no hope.

(I would recommend a visit to Russia by anyone interested in the history of the nation, the culture or the architecture. It contains a wealth of these. You can expect to spend a lot of money, a lot of time in long queues and a lot of time around flamboyant and gregarious Italians, who at tourist attractions easily outnumber all other nationalities combined. You must leave your expectations behind and experience what Russia has to offer on its terms, you will not be disappointed. – Holly)

Peter's Little Summer Place July 28, 2006

I believe I may have mentioned in yesterday’s log that the Russian royalty knew how to spend money. I have now verified this as fact. Today we visited the Summer Palace which is located in the town of Peterhof which is a short 40 minute drive from downtown St. Petersburg.

If you are in the market for a get-a-way place, something nice and cozy that’s on the water, I wish I could tell you that I found it for you. The problem is this is a UNESCO site and unfortunately is not for sale. But, if you happen to have 50 acres or so, on the water you may consider copying this layout.

Peter the Great built his Summer Palace at the same time he was starting construction on St. Petersburg and his townhouse (Winter Palace) there. The Summer Palace was modeled after the Palace of Versailles, not an exact copy mind you, but with a large main palace (read this as huge), an almost equally sized guest cottage, numerous support buildings, elaborate gardens and you can’t throw a rock without hitting a fountain on these grounds. All of this for one month a year. The man also had a sense of humor. Julia told us today that PtG had “joke fountains” installed in the gardens. He would invite visiting ladies to walk in the gardens before dinner and minutes before the meal was to start a servant would turn on hidden fountains that would spray benches and pathways where the ladies were residing. Dinner would then be served on time and you did not want to be late. There were many a meal served with ladies in wet dresses, droopy and dripping powdered wigs and runny make-up. You gotta love a monarch that would do that. Now a days these fountains are turned on every hour and whoever is in the way gets a small taste of what it was like to be visiting Peter the Great.

The Summer Palace like all of the imperial Palaces was taken over by each succeeding sovereign and changed to suit their taste. From what we learned Catherine the Great had the largest influence after Peter, but during the restoration after WWII it may have been that PtG and CtG were highlighted as they are seen as the best of the Russian aristocracy.

The Siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) raged through this part of the countryside and the palace was severely damaged. Restorations were made using the building techniques of the early 18th century when the palace was built including weaving wall coverings on period machines. They have done a great job and it was inspiring to walk through the grounds. As a note the fountains were operative in the 18th century. This was done with out any mechanical pumps by building ponds at a higher level (some of these are a mile or more away) and using wooden pipes to move gravity forced water to the fountains. We were also told they used small children to clean out the wooden pipes. The wood was replaced with metal sometime in the 19th century.

We left the palace and on a whim took the ferry to Kronshtadt which is a naval base and was started by, you know who I’m going to say, Peter the Great during the same period when he was building everything else in this part of Russia. You have to hand it to PtG, the man had a very detailed vision. The ferry also looked like it was built by PtG and must have made the three nautical mile trip back and forth from Peterhof and Kronstadt a million times or so. George, our driver for the day, bravely drove the car unto the dented, rusted ramp and we bravely rode with him. The car secured we climbed to the upper deck as this would be a much better place if we needed to get off the boat quickly. The old ferry made the crossing without incident though and with the sun shining and the Gulf of Finland barely rippled by the cool breeze that was blowing we enjoyed it immensely.

We drove off the ferry and into an all but deserted and forgotten town that at one time must have been a bustling ship building yard and naval port. There are about 15,000 people that live here today and it looks like the town could have hosted five times that many in its heyday. The navy is still here but it is less than inspiring as the few ships that were docked are older and look the worse for wear. The navy personnel stay in barracks that blend in with the civilian housing and appear to have been built in the 19th century. The highlight of this side trip was when George obtained a map of the town, and as I had mentioned that I would like to see the old dry docks, he led us right to them. This was no little feat because we maneuvered through dilapidated apartment blocks and down a weed choked path to find them. The dry docks are still impressive when one considers when they were built. Now the massive iron flood gates have rusted away and weeds grow where the keels of many a ship were laid. The other site worth mentioning is the Cathedral of the Sea. This is a massive cathedral that is a copy of one of the main cathedrals that was in Constantinople. It serviced all of the navy personnel and is adorned with nautical paraphernalia on its exterior.

Our brief tour of Kronshtadt completed we piled back into the car and made our way back to St. Pete across a damn that has been under construction for over 40 years. The work stops periodically because of a lack of funding.

Back is St. Pete we relaxed with a much deserved pizza in a place called Mr. Potito. A small basement café that is dark enough to make you want to turn around and leave but I’m glad we didn’t because the pizza was the best I have had in a while.

The Hermitage July 27, 2006

Julia met us at the hotel and we retraced yesterday’s steps to the center of town and Dvortsovaya Square which is bordered by the Hermitage Museum on one side and the old General Staff building on the other. The Hermitage Museum occupies five palaces as well as a wing of the General Staff building and has over three million exhibits including 16,000 paintings and 12,000 pieces of sculpture. The museum was founded in 1764 with the acquisition of its first group of paintings and amazingly survived the revolution in 1917 as well as the siege of Leningrad during WWII. During the Soviet years the museum actually grew except for a period in the 1930s when a number of its masterpieces were sold abroad. The late twentieth century brought better times and renovation to the museum and it now hosts thousands of visitors from all over the world every year.

The first thing that impressed us about the museum was the museum house itself. They are palaces for goodness sakes, and these palaces were the homes of the Russian Tsars and Tsarinas. I will let you in on a little secret; these people knew how to spend money. The buildings contain marble from Italy, gold and silver like there was an unending supply, semi precious stone to either build or encase columns, intricate parquet floors using exotic woods from around the world and enough chandeliers to light Chicago. They have managed also to hold onto or reacquire some of the furnishings which, as you would expect, follow the same grandiose if not sometime garish style exhibited in the buildings themselves.

The thought of trying to even get an overview of this collection in one day is overwhelming so Julia gave us the condensed “highlights of the highlights tour”. I have to say here that although Julia is a language major she is extremely knowledgeable about art and confessed one of her grandparents was an artist and another was an art critic. She said that she spent a lot of time looking at and hearing about art while she was growing up. It shows.

We started our visit touring the galleries that exhibit portraits of the royal families as well as highlights of the Winter Palace. We then moved through different rooms containing works by impressionist such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne, Van Gough, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso and these were just the names that I recognized. If that wasn’t enough we moved to another section that displayed works from the Italian Renaissance. The works of Michelangelo, Raphael and of course Da Vinci were displayed as well as other artists of the period. As tired and overwhelmed as we were we moved on to the collections of the Dutch Masters which is highlighted by numerous works of Rembrandt. This is the largest collection of Rembrandt work outside of Amsterdam.

As amazing as the Hermitage is we decided that it was time to leave. Julia left us at the Museum and headed for home and her two kids. We started back to the hotel looking for a cafe and a late lunch. Our stomachs and heads full we made our way to the hotel and a relaxing evening.

Old St. Pete July 26, 2006

Julia is our guide here in St. Pete and she seems to be a pretty normal person. She speaks at a normal speed and stops to breathe after every couple of sentences. After introductions we walk toward the center of the town about 15 minutes away.

The atmosphere here is much more laid back than Moscow. This is not to say it’s a lazy little town because it certainly has energy and with 5 million people it’s not small. This is a port city with a much more international feel than Moscow. It was planned to be an international city by its founder Peter the Great. That Peter chose a port city for his new capital was indicative that he wanted to open Russia to the world and the new ideas of a new century. That he chose to build a new capital is indicative that he wanted serious reform for Russia.

Architects and city planners from Europe were brought in to help plan the city and its buildings. People from different parts of the world were also invited to live here. Peter had traveled extensively in Europe, disguised as a commoner, for ten years prior to taking control of his country. He worked as a common laborer during this time in occupations such as carpentry and ship building. These experiences helped mold his vision of what St. Petersburg and Russia was to be.

St. Pete was built in the Neva River delta, the original center of town being built on an island where the river enters the bay in the early 18th century. Ship building is still a major industry here and this is also one of the busiest ports in Europe.

We walked and watched as the morning rush hour traffic crawled by. We strolled by the Summer Garden made famous in Tolstoy novels in route to St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Fortress. This is on a small island and is the home of a cathedral of the same name. Julia promised me that this was not just another Moscow type cathedral and she was right. The interior of the cathedral is decorated with bright colors and with fewer murals and icons. It was a pleasant change. The big man, Peter the Great and several of his descendants are buried here. In the late 1990s the remains Nicholas II and family were found and positively identified and then laid to rest here at which time Nicholas was elevated to sainthood.

We moved on through the city center admiring the river front vistas of palaces, museums, monuments and cathedrals. St. Pete is sometime called the Venice of the north because of the network of canals and rivers that run through town and you will not walk far without crossing another bridge. This breaks up the town a little at the expense of smooth traffic flow, but it adds a lot of charm to old St. Pete.

Julia led us to a quaint little café which specializes in pies. Holly came up with the phrase “meat and sweet” after we had a chicken pie followed by a small slab of blueberry pie. A great lunch and a much needed break as we had been walking for 5 hours when we stopped.

We continued our tour on the way to the Russian State Museum. The museum is dedicated to Russian artist and is intended as an appetizer to our trip to the Hermitage that is planned for tomorrow. That was the end of our tour today so we walked back to the hotel and settled in for the evening.

Moving Day and a Painful Parcel July 25, 2006

Today we move to St. Petersburg on a 4:30PM train. With no tours planned we have a few hours to kill which will include mailing a package to the US. We had the Hong Kong travel agent send a box containing fresh clothes, travel books and consumables to the hotel here in Moscow. After six weeks on the road we needed a change of clothing and to restock some essentials that we were not sure we would be able to get in Russia. (We were still under the impression that Russians wait in queues for hours just to pay exorbitant prices for a roll of toilet paper.) The box we wanted to mail to the states contains clothes that we no longer will use on this trip.

Nikita, the manager from the travel agent here in Moscow, picked us up at 12:45PM, 45 minutes late, from the hotel. The itinerary was mail the box, have lunch and catch the train. Holly had told Nikita the day before we would need to mail a box. Once in the car we found out that he had no idea where to go to send a package. After calling his office he was told that UPS could do it but it would cost about US$300. We asked him to take us to the Post Office which, he had never been to. After spending 20 minutes to find a parking place we walked into the main Moscow Post Office just to be told that they only handle letters here and that parcels were processed in another location. Another 20 minutes and we were walking through an alley to get to the parcel office. Poorly lit with wood framed service windows the office could have been a movie set from the 1930s. Holly immediately took charge of the task at hand.

By the time Gary finds his glasses and an ink pen and asks me all the questions, I find it entirely more expedient just to fill the forms myself, (I believe this is Gary’s evil plan) which I did with the help of Nikita. The forms (3 of them) were bilingual – Russian/French – of which I read neither.

I follow Nikita to one of the crowded counter windows and discover that the lady behind the counter wants everything in the box itemized. I had listed “Clothes” “10 pieces”. This was not sufficient. Everything got taken out of the box and listed as “Trousers” “2 pieces” and so on until the entire contents were accounted for.

Step 2: the lady then instructed us to go to the last counter and see another lady. Obligingly, Nikita and I took the box and handed it over to another lady. She picked up some thin linen-like material, measured it against the box and before my eyes and to my amazement, ripped off a section, went to a pedal-type sewing machine and made a custom-fitting pouch for the box. When the pouch was sewn and the box snuggly fitted inside, she used a thick stick and dipped some brown goop from a pot sitting on a warming element and plopped it in about 6 spots on the top of the material.

After stamping the brown goop with a seal of some kind, (and requesting a fee of 75 rubles) she returned the box to Nikita with instructions to write the address on the material. Have you ever tried to write on material with an ink pen? If so, then you can understand that this took several minutes.

Step 3: back to lady #1 who now shockingly had a white tissue rolled up and stuck up one of her nostrils. In this place – you dare not laugh at the risk of being dismissed along with your un-mailed parcel. I couldn’t make this stuff up… She took the package and the forms and made a 2nd career out of processing this box. Finally she finished and handed me a scribbled piece of paper that said 1,321.09. In total, the shipped of this 10 lb parcel costs us about 1,400 rubles or about US$35. If it ever arrives, it will be a miracle and I no longer care.

After a quick, and by some miracle cheap, lunch Nikita drove us to the train station where we boarded the express headed for St. Petersburg. I used the first couple of hours on the train to catch up on the blog and then read a little or watched the scenery go by. By this time we were a little antsy and starting to get a little hungry so we decided to look for the dining car.

If you’ve ever ridden a train long distance you know how it is to go from car to car; not an impossible task but also not just a walk across the room. Each car we entered was another world. Our car was filled with what seemed to be local people with little luggage and overall it was quite with people remaining in their seats, all but one of the cars that we went through were day cars with seats only. One car we walked through was filled with mixed groups of tourist that were animated and noisy. The next was Italians that were holding a religious meeting. The next was another group of Italians that were singing, laughing and half were standing in the aisle. The diner car was the sixth car we came to. Quite a haul for bad overpriced food.
We arrived at St. Petersburg around 10PM with still about an hour of light left. We were picked up by a very quite yet helpful driver and taken to the Arbat Hotel, a small hotel near the center of town. We took a quick walk to a 24 hour market to get bottled water as we were told to NOT drink the water here. This includes brushing your teeth. Well after midnight when we went to bed it would be a long day tomorrow since we were meeting the guide at 9AM for an all day walking tour of old St. Petersburg

More Moscow and a MOVIE July 24, 2006

It seems the Tsars had a convenient way of removing unwanted wives from their lives. They would have them committed to a convent. I use the word committed because it is the word that best describes the action. The Tsarina would be confined in one of the many (maybe millions from what I can see) of convents for the remainder of her life while having few privileges or pleasures. Sergey told us one story about a Tsar that after having confined his wife, found out that the Patriarch of the church was visiting her on a regular basis. The odd thing was that the man would dress as a peasant and come to visit her at night while not leaving until the next morning. The Tsar, being the typical territorial male, promptly had her visitation privileges revoked. Now so you wives don’t feel like you’re being targeted for special treatment, sisters were also committed sometimes if the Tsar felt they were a threat or just a general embarrassment. If this sounds harsh, consider for a moment that unwanted males were routinely assassinated by fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles or the odd unrelated extremist. It was risky being in the Russian royal family. The Bolsheviks may have done them a favor in 1917 except for the fact that Nicholas II and his whole immediate family were assassinated during that little turnover.

I learned all of this while visiting the Novodevichy (New Maiden) convent this morning in Moscow. After the Kremlin, it is believed that this convent was the second most important religious structure. A great walled structure with several cathedrals, another bell tower (these are normally separate from the church itself) and of course the nunnery. I made Sergey promise that this would be the last. He said he did not think we would want to miss the “juicy” part of royal Russian life. He was right, but I think he just likes digging in the dirt.

Next we moved on to a driving tour of town, a whistle stop tour that allowed us to see numerous buildings, monuments, parks and squares. We ended up back at Red Square to take more pictures and a quick lunch at a place called Roschick’s KFC. Sergey had no idea what KFC meant so I think they have a little more work to do here. To him it was just fast food and I’m not sure that he thought of it as a chicken place.

After lunch we walked down to the Moscow River where we boarded a boat for a short cruise. The river afforded us a different view of the Kremlin as well as views Gorky Park and the once flown Russian Space Shuttle.
Having studied our Russian history and architecture Sergey granted us some free time in the form of a movie. We went to see The Pirates of the Caribbean, English version. Movie; 400 Rubles (about US$6.50 per ticket), popcorn and cokes; 280 Rubles, sitting down for two and a half hours; priceless. One other point of interest; they had a Siberian tiger cub in the lobby of the movie that you could have your picture taken with

And We Thought the Soviets Had Knocked Down All the Churches July 23, 2006

Early to rise, Sergey and Igor picked us up at 8 this Sunday morning. We are going to Vladimir and Suzdal, two towns about 180 kilometers from Moscow. Suzdal is the big attraction and is said to be the spiritual center of Russia. Because of this it also has some of the most historic buildings in Russia.

After a two hour drive we reached Vladimir where we picked up another guide, Natalia who specializes in this area. Our vehicle was a VW Passat and with three of the five people being of the large variety things were rather close. We drove the 30 minutes to Suzdal all the while listening to Natalia’s own brand of high speed data transfer. We are under the opinion that at RGU (Russian Guide University) speed talking and breath control are not electives. On top of this, Natalia is employed taking small children to the museums and teaching them how to enjoy learning. This must be all consuming as Natalia was using phrases like “we will go this way, walking straight, walking straight, walking straight” and “we are at the toilet please use it”. I told Sergey she reminded me of a teacher that I once had. Sergey replied “she scares me”.

Our first stop in Suzdal was at the Open Air Wooden Architecture Museum. An outdoor facility with wooden structures that ranged from houses to windmills. Please don’t be worried, of course there were two churches, one for both winter and summer. I declined another cathedral visit and when the lady in front of the windmill motioned that I should pay another entry fee for that privilege I declined and headed toward the exit. This was followed by a flurry of cathedrals, convents and monasteries. All very impressive and most built before the 15th century but I have to restate an earlier observation when you’ve seen a few of these cathedrals they all begin to look alike. It seems for about five centuries their interior designers had not heard of the Renaissance. They have been stuck with the “same murals on these three walls and Icons over there” theme for a while. There was an exception when in one cathedral, and I won’t even pretend to remember the name, a tomb was glass topped and held a mummy even if you could only see a hand it was more exciting than another mural. We were also treated to a “small concert” as Sergey calls them when a group of the local monks tuned up and wailed out the top five Gregorian Chants of all time. I may poke a little fun but it was actually a beautiful sound in the arched masonry acoustic chamber.

Back in Vladimir we stopped at yet another monastery and cathedral. This made me begin to wonder about what I had been taught when I was young, that the communist were a godless lot, and had no respect for anything except their own dark agenda. How did all these cathedrals survive? I asked Sergey who didn’t think it seemed unusual although religion was banned during the Soviet regime. He said sometime the buildings were used for other things such as warehouses and sometimes it was just too much trouble. The only time it seemed they were knocked down is when they were in the way of building a monument to Lenin or Stalin. It’s even more complicated than that because in the 17th century whoever was Tsar at the time decided that a church reform was needed and the best way to do this was to start blessing people with three fingers instead of two, two being the way they used to do it in Constantinople. From that time on, the two-finger way was outlawed and anyone who believed it was called Old Believers. That was three hundred years ago and I in 2006, went into two cathedrals and a convent that practiced the ways of Old Believers. My point is that the Russians seem to have a soft spot for religion because even though they may outlaw it, they don’t do much to prevent it from happening. There are hundreds of churches standing today in the city of Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, that were built prior to the revolution in 1917. My belief is that they left them standing so they could torture some poor capitalistic slob like me by making him tour 20 or 30 of them.
The next surprise was that everyone in Moscow has a “dutch” (unsure of spelling) which is a weekend house outside of the city. Holly and I were told that a large number of Muscovites go to these cottages every weekend of the summer and if the cottage is heated they will go in the winter also. These visits aren’t the normal run of the mill I need to get away weekends. The weekenders are growing vegetables to supplement their diet. Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in and wages in Russia are not high so whatever it takes to make ends meet. The surprise for us was the traffic coming back to town. The two hour drive out this morning took almost three and a half coming back in early evening. We arrived at the hotel around 8:30 thankful to be out of the car and out of class.

We Infiltrate the Kremlin July 22, 2006

Holly must have been excited as she was up early this morning. Our itinerary calls for us to visit the Kremlin this morning. Being children of the Cold War we feel somewhat nervous stepping into the stronghold of the ex-Soviet Union, but having traveled this far we will continue on.

We are picked up by our guide Sergey and our driver / could be bodyguard, Igor. A Hollywood casting director could not have picked better guys. Sergey speaks English with a heavy Russian accent and Igor, and yes this is his real name, looks like an ex-boxer. His head is shaved with several prominent scars and a tattoo that looks like it was installed with a ten penny nail after three or four too many vodkas. He speaks no English but has a way of making himself understood. We are glad he is on our side!

Igor drops the three of us in front of the Kremlin main gate and we find out that we will be on foot or using the Metro (subway) the rest of the day. For the first of many times today Sergey will somehow get us around the queue at the main gate and in just a few minutes we are on the Kremlin grounds and getting what will be three days of rapid fire history lectures from him.

For those of you who are as uninformed as I was Kremlin translates as Pine Fortress and was founded in1156 AD as a defensive camp by Yuri Dolgorukiy and it grew from there. Because of this Yuri is credited with the founding of Moscow. The Kremlin became the seat of government in the late 15th century under Ivan the III but was moved to St. Petersburg in 1713 under Peter the Great. The government returned in 1918 when it became the center of Soviet power after the revolution. The fortifications and grounds were enlarged and built up over the centuries and the Kremlin now is home to several palaces, cathedrals, government office buildings, monuments and museums. The wall around the Kremlin is almost 1.5 miles long and range in height between 20 and 25 feet. This encompasses an area of 70 acres.

We visited the Cathedral of the Assumption after a brief orientation from Sergey. We now know that all Russian Orthodox Cathedrals are covered in murals and Icons and that the religion itself wears a fairly stern face. For example; worshippers stand for three hours during services as there are no seats of any kind in the sanctuary. (One exception is the Cathedral of the Assumption has three seats one each for the Tsar and Tsarina as well as one for the Patriarch of the church. The present cathedral was completed in 1479. The interior is beautiful to look at but is a little busy to the eye. The exterior of course has the iconic Russian helmet dome spires covered in gold.

We moved onto the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael. I won’t bore you with the details after a few Russian Orthodox Cathedrals they all look alike. To summarize; murals, murals, icons, icons, gold domes, gold domes and so on.

Our next stop was to the Tsar’s cannon which is 40 ton bronze giant that fires a 35” diameter ball that weighs one ton, except that it never was fired. After this we saw the Tsar’s bell a whopping 210 ton bronze casting that cracked while being made and was never rung. Is it just me or is there a pattern here?

After walking around the grounds and listening to Sergey’s machine gun delivery we came to the State Armory. This my friends is why we came. This is a collection of the remnants of treasures collected by the Russian royalty and is said to be the richest museum in the world. I have never seen more gold and gems in any one place. This includes serving pieces for food and beverage as well as clothing, weapons, accessories (a Tsarina is just not a Tsarina without accessories) and 20 or so carriages. A popular item seemed to be bible covers overlaid in gold and studded with almost any precious gem that you can think of, and some of them would choke a horse. One hall way had thrones, each new monarch had to have their own you know, that were, you guessed it covered in anything that was costly and precious. We were treated by seeing a collection of 57 Faberge’ Eggs. A collection of Easter Eggs that after Her Faberge’ (he was German) presented the first one to Tsar Nicholas became popular with all the royal swells around Europe and a few wealthy people in America. I’ll have to admit the detail work in these orbs was outstanding. The first egg although no more than 6 inches tall contained a tiny platinum train that could be wound up to run for a meter or so. After the egg craze Faberge’ started making crystal flowers and other items. All are creative and would seem to have taken endless hours to produce. In summary after seeing the Armory collection it is easier to appreciate why the people revolted. What is amazing is that the collection survived the Soviet years. Sergey told us that an entire floor of the armory was kept locked and no one was permitted to enter from the time of the revolution until the late 70s.

We left the Kremlin and walked around the outside of the walls past the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Eternal Flame. It was very reminiscent of Arlington National Cemetery and again just highlighted how similar peoples can be. I should mention that during this tour the crowds were huge and large tour groups seemed to cover the grounds. This made Sergey very nervous and he reminded us countless times to watch our packs as pickpockets and thieves were everywhere. Not just in Moscow but they roam the earth praying on innocents and idiots alike. They use knives to cut into packs before extracting their ill gotten gains. But that’s not all they also use knives to cut your pockets open releasing all your valuables and you being no wiser for it. Our initial reaction was a nod and a wink between Holly and I, but after numerous warnings we also became paranoid and would constantly look over our shoulders to foil any would be picker of pockets.

We then came to Red Square (the color and word red are synonymous with beautiful in the Russian language, but also stands for communism, this got confusing at times) where the massed Soviet armed forces paraded across our TV screens in the 60s and 70s. It originally was a market place but with some post revolution rearranging, a building here a building there, it was turned into a parade ground to showcase Soviet power. We walked across one corner of the huge area and came to soldiers that told us we had to leave. To Sergey’s credit he argued with them and in what has become the way of the “New Russians” when that didn’t work we went to another entrance and came back into the Square. Close to the end where we reentered sat St. Basil’s Cathedral looking slightly less Fantasy Land than the Disney Castle. With its multi colored swirled, checked and striped domes it is really something to see and is another of Moscow’s icons. We were also able to also catch a quick glimpse of Lenin’s Tomb although they were not allowing the walk through today. We also discovered that while Stalin was originally laid to rest in the same mausoleum as Lenin after cat was out of the bag on Stalin’s deeds that had him removed and reburied at the base of the Kremlin wall. The place for only the most honored Soviet and Russian people. When I asked Sergey why the Russian people would allow someone who murdered maybe 20 million of their countrymen to be buried in such hallowed ground he replied “because no-one asked us”.

After lunch we started our Metro tour. This was a tour of the Moscow subway system and consisted of riding the trains to various stops for viewing and rapid fire information Sergey style. The stations that we viewed were done in different styles but mostly with a Soviet political message. The message didn’t take but the architecture and art work left behind were impressive.
We decided we were going to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Sergey’s office had found the one theater in a city of 10 million that was showing it in English. After the last Metro tour stop we rode another twenty minutes and two train changes to only find that the 8PM show was sold out. Being the resourceful lot we are we stopped on the way back to the Metro for pizza, the first western restaurant food we have had in a week. We treated Sergey as he had stayed with us because in his words “I have never lost a client and now is not a good time to start”. He was good to his word as he rode another 30 minutes on the metro and then walked us back to the hotel before turning around and finding his own way home. (He told me the next day he was lucky and was able to catch a tram that ran close to his house.) We got back to the hotel around 11PM. We had been walking or standing since 9AM and were ready for bed.

a Long Way To Go July 19-21, 2006

To avoid boring the reader more than I already have I will condense the 3 day train journey between Irkutsk and Moscow into one entry. I hope that this will curb my natural tendency to be wordy but if not, please pardon me.

July 19, 2006
The cabin we are occupying while comfortable is much nosier than the previous train. Holly and I have decided this is probably due to it’s location above the forward wheels of the car. As a result I did not sleep well last night, but with nothing to do but the three Rs (ride, read and replenish (eat), this should not be a big deal as I can rest, what do you know a fourth R, anytime I like.

According to the train schedule we will make 19 stops between Irkutsk and Moscow. These stops can be as short as one minute or as long as twenty five.

At 10:43am, local time, this morning we stopped at Krasnoyarsk. We have traveled about 1100 km (682 miles) in about 18 hours. We were able to get off the train here and stretch our legs for twenty minutes or so. We walked around, found a food kiosk and bought a loaf of local bread, so much for the morning’s excitement. We re-boarded the train which slugged its way out of the station and through the countryside. This part of Siberia is similar to parts of the US with a mixture of tracts of forests, still mainly birch, and huge fields which look to be mainly wheat. We pass a small town or village periodically, but we see mostly the countryside.

We have decided to set our watches to Moscow time which is five hours behind current local time. All railway schedules are set to Moscow time and this will make it easier to keep up with the schedule of stops. We are wondering if we may experience train lag in the next three days with this change in time. I’m going to try and stay up a couple of hours later tonight and get up the same tomorrow morning to make a smooth transition.

We make a 25 minute stop at Marinsk. There is a lady selling raw potatoes as we get off the train, but she doesn’t have many takers. I’m not sure what one would do with a raw potato on the train. We see several interesting people at the station and take some good pictures as we walk around the platforms. On the train and off we go again.

(Holly here: In the past day and a half, we have passed untold small villages and a few unsightly larger towns, but mostly the scenery out the window is of lakes, streams, rivers, forests and huge fields of yellow and purple wildflowers. Unfortunately, none of the train windows open and the windows are not clean enough on the outside to take photos through them so we are only taking photos when we are at the train stations where there is little pretty scenery to take pictures of.

Russian villages are idyllic, small farms set in the lush countryside, while the towns along the railway can be over-industrialized, polluted and full of crumbling bits of the old unattractive Soviet structure. There seems to be a waste management problem evidenced by trash that is strewn about haphazardly. Management of the ecology and preservation of resources are ideas not yet developed.

My tush is tired as can be expected, from sitting on the berth while reading, working crosswords, playing solitaire or studying the Russian alphabet. There are only 3 choices, stand at the windows and view the scenery, sit on your bunk or lay on your bunk. I am so grateful for our occasional stops so that we can walk for 15 min or so.)

We have one more long stop at Novosibirsk. This is scheduled for 6:13PM Moscow time, 9:13 local time or 11:13 according to the time that we woke up this morning. I didn’t know train travel would be this complicated. Unless something exciting happens in Novosibirsk I will close for the day.

July 20, 2006

Onward we roll. It’s about 1:30PM local time as I write this and we have made stops at Ishim and Tyumen this morning. Nothing happening in either place. We got off the train and stretched our legs. It seems the farther west we go the busier the train stations are. It may just be my imagination. We will stop at Yekaterinburg around 2pm this afternoon. The city was founded in 1723 as part of Peter the Great’s program of exploiting the mineral wealth of the Ural Mountain region. The town is named after his wife, later to be Empress Catherine I. The story goes that about a year after the founding of the town, Peter found out about Catherine’s infidelity. He had her lover’s head cut off and put it in a jar of surgical spirits and had that placed in Catherine’s bedroom. The city is probably (and tragically) most famous for the place that Tsar Nicholas, his wife and children were murdered by the Bolsheviks. During Soviet times the town as called Sverdlovsk after Yakov Sverdlov a leading Bolshevik that is said to have given the order to have the family murdered. The city reclaimed its original name in 1991, and now Nicholas is held close to sainthood by the Russian people. Last but not least Yekaterinburg is the birth place of Boris Yelsin.

We are crossing from Siberia into Russia proper about now. I have enjoyed our brief visit to Siberia and would like to come back in the winter sometime. Siberia’s history is somewhat kin to the old west of the US except some Russian newspaper man probably said “Go east young man”. The story is of settlers and farming, of finding wealth in the earth in the form of minerals. They even had a gold rush at Krasnoyarsk in the 19th century. We have not been able to find out much about the indigenous people, but it appears that these relatives of the Mongols have been absorbed into modern society here. Of course one difference was that Siberia was a place of exile during the reign of the Tsars when their enemies or malcontents were sent here to get them out of the way. The Gulag rose to a frighteningly efficient level during Stalin’s regime when it is estimated that 20 million people were killed for religious, political or other reasons.

On to more pleasant matters; the big excitement for the day is we will have lunch in the dining car. I’ll write the review after lunch. My expectations are not high, but it will be a change from instant oatmeal, noodles and potatoes.

Dinning Car Review:
The ambience of the dining car is subtle and pleasant, but does not excite one’s senses as a fine dinning establishment should.
The service while on the slow side was pleasant with the young lady smiling as she approached the table and even with no English she was helpful.
The food was better than expected. We had both ordered a vegetable salad that arrived with the ever present glob of mayonnaise on top. The Russians have an obsession with this condiment and helps explain the American sized rear ends that you see here. (We see a lot of similarities between Russians and Americans. Average size being XL is just one of these.) Holly ordered goulash and I had stroganoff. We then proceeded to divide and share the somewhat skimpy portions. (This was the first time since we arrived in Russia that a plate of food had weighed less than two pounds. This is actually OK with us.) The sides were mashed potatoes and a small portion of straight from the can vegetables both quite tasty.
If you ever find yourself on the Trans-Siberian Railway feeling hungry make the effort and find the dinning car. You won’t be sorry.

July 21, 2006

The provodnistas and provodniks are the female and male train attendants, but are usually provodnistas or female. On the long distance trains there are two in every car and they rotate to cover all 24 hours of the day. It appears to me that they are six hours on / six hours off. The provodnistas control what happens on each car and I mean that literally. They understand the power that they hold and exploit that power to some degree. The provodnistas that were on the train from Mongolia were quiet and borderline unfriendly. They were quick to shake their heads no or jerk a thumb toward your cabin if they wanted you out of their way. One of the first things that the traveler needs to recognize is when the situation calls to go with the flow, you flow. You will win no battles on this train. You immediately are at a disadvantage because of language and the mere fact that you are a foreigner. The travel books and other experienced travelers can site numerous examples of what happens to passengers that buck this system. Having said that while the provs on the Mongolian train were not friendly, they did their job and made sure that the rules were followed. The two provs on the Russian train were not only helpful but exceedingly friendly. One of the ladies speaks a little English and uses it as much as she can. They both smile when approached and do all that they can to make the long trip comfortable. This is even more amazing to me when I consider that they make less than US$50 per month. Tipping is not a regular practice here, but I will leave a token of my appreciation for the care they have shown the last three days.

It has been raining on and off since yesterday afternoon. It makes the scenery drab but the train feels more comfortable when you consider the alternative. We are supposed to reach Moscow at 4:42 this afternoon, but we are presently one and a half to two hours behind schedule. From what we have heard this is common. We are moving at about 70 mph now but have numerous interruptions in the form of small towns and meeting other trains. This is a bit like being on a sailboat. Your world is in constant motion, sometimes with a rhythm, sometimes very hectic and noisy. To get somewhere all you can do is point your vessel in that direction and deal with whatever gets in your way at the time. Not such a bad way to spend a few days.

We arrived at the Moscow train station just before 5 PM and struggle to get the packs and extra baggage off the train and onto the platform. We are met by Nicholi who is part of the management team of the agency here in Moscow. He speaks remarkably good American English and leads us to his car which is about a ten minute walk from the train. He tells us the hotel is not far but it takes about an hour to get there as the traffic is very heavy.
The Hotel Cosmos is a mass of humanity on this Friday evening with most people being in tour groups. The Cosmos has slot machines in the lobby but not many are being played as everyone seems to be checking in or waiting for tour guides to take them to dinner. We finally get checked in and go to our room which seems enormous after three days on the train. We settle in take our first shower since we left Lake Baikal. After three days of bathing in the train sink the shower equals winning the lottery! The fly in the ointment is the bed is so soft we sink half way to the floor but are soon fast asleep in a world that is motionless and quite.

I'm afraid that I have not accomplished my original intent of not boring the reader in this segment of our log, but with three days on the train and power for the laptop available in our cabin the log was a welcome distraction. I appologize for the length of this narrative.

And Away We Go July 18, 2006

Tatiana, Svetta (the lead guide for the Irkutsk agency) and Andrew our driver picked Holly and I up at the guest house around 10AM and we headed for the open air museum that include both original and reproduction buildings. (I didn’t get the name of the museum and we are trying not to pick up brochures for obvious reasons.) The museum had exhibits dating back to the original settlements founded in the 17th century. Svetta has been guiding for 7 years and was very knowledgeable not only about the village but also about Irkutsk. She explained how in the late 18th and early 19th centuries tax was per house so, people being people, a family would just keep adding on to the original family home as the sons got older and married. You might have a house that had six or eight rooms added, usually in a line off one side of the house. The typical house was actually a walled compound made up of a house with a planked front yard with a work shop and storage areas on the far side. The back yard was for holding livestock at night; they turned them out to graze during the day, with a barn and a banya (dry sauna) on the far side. Svetta tells us that the banya was very common on the Siberian frontier, evidently considered a necessity to get through the winters here. The back sides of the perimeter buildings were connected by log walls to enclose the compound with the house being at the center. Multiple bed partners were common - which usually meant very young children would sleep with grandma / pa and older siblings would also sleep together in the name of space and keeping warm during the long cold Siberian winter nights. All buildings are constructed from thick logs preferably of larch or cedar, some of which have lasted for 200 years. The museum with Svetta’s Russian explanation and Tatiana’s translation, was very interesting and we spent a couple of hours there. (Just a note there is very little bilingual signage in Russia or at least in Siberia. This has spurred Holly to start studying the language using a small Russia / English dictionary that we bought in Hong Kong. I will depend on her to get us through the next four days until we meet our next guides.)

Our next stop was the grocery store. From our excursion there I would say that Russia is well on the road to economic recovery as the shelves of this store had all kinds of products including sweets and fresh fruits as well as the infamous toilet paper that we were told to make sure we carried because “you can’t get it in Russia”. We were provisioning for the three and a half day train trip to Moscow and bought apples, pears, bananas, instant noodles and oatmeal, bottles of water and a bar of Russian chocolate for each day on the train. (Another note, each train car has a samovar which is a hot water urn that is available 24 hours a day. The interesting thing about the samovar is that when the train is stopped for extended periods the water is kept hot by burning wood in a small firebox at the base of the urn. When the train is moving it is heated electrically. All electricity is provided by a generator that is belt drive from the train wheels.)

We had lunch at a Ukrainian restaurant where the common theme of portions-way-too-large continued. All the food we have had here has been delicious and we end up eating too much. We are back to two meals a day which as been our norm for the last couple of years but even with all of the walking we have been doing I’m afraid we will exit Russia larger than when we entered.

After a quick driving tour to see some of the surviving magnificent churches and traditional wooden houses in town we made our way to the railway station where Tatiana and Svetta helped us find our train. We said goodbye to our new friends and boarded the train which pulled out of the station at 4:30PM.

We have a first class cabin on this train, which means that the cabin is the same size as on the train from Ulaanbaatar but there is only two berths. We wanted space (a relative term) and privacy since we will be on the train for so long. We will eat three small meals a day on the train for no other reason than to help keep ourselves busy. We have novels, travel books and Ipods to help us pass the time and we expect the scenery to be fascinating at times but three and a half days mostly cooped up in a room 7’ X 6’ (and that is the measurements of the walls) will be taxing. The actual open floor space is 60” X 18” when you take into consideration the berths and a small fold down table.

The train carries us into the long shadows of the waning Siberian day and across a vast amount of country. During the next three days we will cross 60 degrees of longitude, 5185 kilometers (3211 miles) of Russia and move our clocks back 5 hours while averaging 45 mph. If you started your train trip in Moscow to reach the Pacific Ocean and the eastern border of Russia you would travel to Vladivostok. From Moscow you would ride 9289 kilometers or 5759 miles of rail to reach your destination. This is a big country!

Listvyanka July 17, 2006

The Siberian forests are the largest continuous forest on earth. They stretch from just north of the southern Siberian border grasslands to the tundra in the north. Birch, the national tree of Russia, are the predominate trees but there are also pine, fir, cedar, and as well as other hard and soft woods. This is the wet season here and water is abundant in the form of lakes, streams and rivers. There are over three hundred major rivers and streams that flow into Lake Baikal alone. Wildflowers are seen everywhere this time of year which add color to the predominately green background. This was the world into which I walked as I left the guest house this morning around 6:45AM.

I followed a four wheel drive road into the woods that runs past the guest house and soon lost sight of the buildings that make up our compound. The path was marshy with small rivulets running at every climb and pools at the flat sections. I met two horses feeding along the path soon after I had entered the woods and they eyed me with some trepidation, but allowed me to pass within feet of them as the brush was too thick for either them or myself to detour off the path. As I was passing I stole some of their entourage of mosquitoes and flies that stayed with me during the remainder of my walk. Out came the head net and bug spray which afforded me some relief, but didn’t help the feeling of serenity I hoped to enjoy this morning. I wanted to catch a glimpse of some of the wildlife but after walking for an hour or so had seen only birds flitting through the trees around my walkway.

I returned to the guest house to find Holly still asleep, but a few of the caretakers stirring about. Tatiana was supposed to meet us at 10 for breakfast but after a quick shower, we got dressed and our host knocked lightly on our door to tell us breakfast was on the table at 9:45. This was done with gestures as she does not speak English. TatiAnna arrived about 10:20am and informed us it was starting to rain. We jumped up and ran outside to gather in our laundry that had been hanging since the prior evening and was mostly dry.

We sat and talked while Tatiana had breakfast and we waited for the rain to stop before starting out tour for the day. We had planned on walking to the village, but because of our late start she called a taxi which took us to Chirtsky Peak. This is a ski area in the winter and we rode the chairlift to the top for good views of the lake and the Angara River. We made our way back down to the highway that runs alongside the lake and walked to the main village, an area called Krestovka, where we were going to visit St. Nicholas Church. Built in the 1860s it is very picturesque with paintings of the saints and Christ hung from floor to ceiling on all the walls. In route we happened on our friend from the train, Andrea. He was busy rummaging through his pack and we surprised him. After greetings we found out he was going to the boat landing to catch a boat to Bolshie Koty a small village about 10 miles up the coast that is only accessible by water. Tomorrow he will catch a train west with a plan to meet his girl friend in Moscow who is flying from Milan to spend the last few days of his trip with him. Andrea had some time to spare so he walked with us to the church and then to the fish market at the end of the highway.

Being a Monday, the fish market was somewhat slow with only a few vendors displaying their dried and smoked fish along with several kinds of homemade bread. Andrea bought a round loaf of bread for his boat trip but managed to eat it as we walked back to the dock. Around the dock there were several locals selling souvenirs from tables set up beside the road and we browsed as we past but didn’t find any treasures that we felt were worth the extra weight in our packs.

After another good-bye to Andrea we hiked back to the guest house and another wonderful meal of chicken soup, salad, white fish croquettes, and rice, all topped off with fresh pears, apples and tangerines. Even at two meals a day and all the walking we are doing I think we will gain weight here.
In talking to Tatiana we found out that she taught English as a profession, has two brothers and is admittedly spoiled because of growing up as the only girl. She headed home about 7:30pm but not before telling us she would pick us up at 9:30am tomorrow morning for a tour of Irkutsk after which we will board the Siberian Express for the three and a half day train ride to Moscow.

Lake Baikal July 16, 2006

We get up around 6am as we are scheduled to arrive in Irkutsk at 8am and we want to be able to clean up a little before we get off the train. We are met by our guide at the station. There are actually two ladies that met us, Tatiana and Svetta. One speaks English the other doesn’t. They are both very helpful and lead us to a mini-van where we load the luggage and head for the town. We give Lilly, our Finnish friend from the train, a ride to a bridge and then our paths part. She has been a nice traveling companion and we wish her well.

We drive through Irkutsk and then head for Lake Baikal where we will stay at a guest house in the village of Listvyanka, called the Nataly Guest House. It’s a nice place that has a shared bathroom and shower. It looks to be new and is located at the edge of the village with a view of the forest that surrounds the lake.

Lake Baikal is a natural wonder (UNESCO site) and one that we didn’t really know about before making this trip. It is the largest lake on earth and contains 20% of the world’s fresh water. It is close to 400 miles long and as wide as 30 miles in places. It can reach depths of almost a mile, also making it the world’s deepest lake. The only population of fresh water seals in the world lives in the lake as well as fresh water shrimp, sturgeon, grayling and numerous other species of fish. It is a beautiful area surrounded by dense forest in which roam bear, several species of deer, moose, wild cats, and other animals. When you get outside of the villages it is a wild and little-explored area.

Tatiana, our English speaking guide, takes us to the Lake Baikal Museum. They have several statistical displays that tell about the lake plus lots of stuffed animals. We move into another room where there are aquariums with the different fishes found in the lake and one large tank with two of the Baikal seals. Like all seals they are hard to resist and we spend several minutes watching them.

We leave the museum and walk down the lake shore where we decide to take a tour boat ride that crosses the mouth of the Angara River. There is an English speaking guide on the boat, but she often looks to Tatiana for help with words, although she is very entertaining. We enjoyed the hour long ride on the lake which is as smooth as glass today. The guide tells us we are very lucky because the lake can be quite rough.

The 45 minute walk back to the guest house takes us through part of the village which is made up of a mixture of older wooden houses surrounded by flowering trees and wild flowers. People barbecuing, working on cars, and relaxing on this sunny Sunday afternoon gave us a feeling that we were a part of the everyday life here.

Back at the guest house we have the much hated chore of laundry waiting for us. It’s been five days since we have been able to do any laundry and we have a rather large pile. The lady running the guest house is helpful after some interruptive help from Tatianna and she lets us use a tub upstairs and then a clothes line by their house.

Dinner was a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and mayo, a great big bowl of soup with meat balls/potatoes/carrots topped with a huge dollop of sour cream plus a platter of cabbage stuffed with ground meat. My last adventure for the day was trying to order a beer. Tatiana had left by this time and our hosts do not speak any English. My first attempt got me two hard boiled eggs in a bowl. Time to get the Lonely Planet Guide and try again. This time she understood which netted me a beer and a lesson in Russian from our very helpful host. Holly, in the mean time, went to the sauna; yes, this little guest house in this little village on the edge of Lake Baikal has a sauna and a little tee-tiny indoor pool. Bake in sauna, dunk in freezing-cold pool, sauna, pool, etc. She came out a little pinker but happy.
Tomorrow we plan to continue our exploration of this area with Tatiana.

The Train July 15, 2006

I woke up around 6AM and noticed a lack of movement. For most of the night the train had swayed rhythmically as it moved along the tracks with an occasional stop to accent how peaceful the motion was.

Time for the morning toilet. I quietly left the cabin made my way to the end of the car where the toilet is located to find it locked. I had forgotten that they lock the toilets when the train is not in motion. This is done because the toilets flush straight to the outside and you can imagine what a mess that would be.

I walked to the other end of the car where the doorway to get on and off the car is located. The door is locked and no one else is up. From the back window I see the rest of the train is gone. I walked forward to an open window, leaned out and saw that there were no cars forward of us either. We are sitting at a station and at this time of the morning there is no activity. Why have we been abandoned!?! My early morning foggy brain wrestles with the question, but other more urgent problems take precedence. I unlock and open the door of the train and look out at the station, nothing stirs except for an old dog that walks a few feet before circling and then laying down. About this time Holly appears in the hallway of the car and asks what is going on. I tell her and never one to be timid she jumps down from the car and starts to look around. She turns around and states the obvious “There is no train”. We find a toilet at the train station and human life in the form of the toilet fee collector. Pay toilets are common in a lot of Asia and Holly has brought money. I owe her one.

As we return to the train my Russian Mongolian friends makes me understand that our car has been set aside on purpose and will be picked up by a Russian train at 10:45am and we will continue on. That is the second relief in the last 10 minutes.

Mongolian Immigration boards the train and after we fill out the required departure card (in Mongolia) a uniformed officer comes to each cabin, collects our passports and then disappears. A short while later he returns looks at out passport pictures and after stamping the book hands them to us with a smile.

The train is finally reassembled and began to move precisely at 10:45. I like a railroad that runs on time. Our car is pulled about a mile and then stops again in front of another station.

After sitting for a while, Russian Immigration boards and the process starts again, but these guys are more serious. To start there are four of them and they aren’t smiling. The first two are women and look like characters from a James Bond movie; a short solid woman with close cropped hair wearing a skirt and a shirt with military type insignias. The other is a tall athletic blond in a tight blue jumpsuit. They move down the car handing out detailed forms that are written in Russian and must be filled out in duplicate. This presents a problem as no one in our compartment understands Russian. The jump suit tries to help but quickly sees how hopeless this situation is. She disappears and returns with a young lady from another compartment that has just graduated from university in St. Petersburg and speaks American English. She helps us with the forms, the officers take them and our passports and continue down the car. Next four Customs Officers board. This is where it gets tense. All our baggage must be pulled down and more forms are handed out. This form is in English and we fill them out and hand them to one of the officers. It is suggested that we step out of the compartment while an officer searches the overhead compartment and under the seats. We have read about this in the Lonely Planet Guide and are prepared for a lengthy ordeal. They are looking for black-market goods that are routinely smuggled across the boarder. They find nothing in our car and after about thirty minutes our passports are returned and we are allowed to get off the train for our first experience in the Mother-Land.

The toilet is the first stop for everyone. Not the worst we have seen, but not one you want to linger in. We then make our way to a small shop where two ladies behind a counter fill people’s orders from shelves that are sparsely stocked with soda, water, chips, cigarettes and ICE CREAM! I try one of the Russian ice cream bars while Holly buys water and a package of cookies. As we walk away we discover the water is carbonated. We return and are told they have no distilled or “still” water. We walk away a second time and start the search for plain bottled water. No luck with this search and we sit on a bench thankful to be off the train for a while.

After a couple of hours our car is hooked into a Russian train and we begin the journey again. The rest of the day is spent stopping and starting at numerous stations. We get one more long stop just before dark where we find plain water and my first Russian beer. Not bad and reasonably priced at about 50 Roubles (about US$2).

The bed time routine begins again with a queue at the one available toilet in our car. Ready for bed we read, Holly plays solitaire with a deck of Mongolian cards she bought in Ulaanbaatar. The faces feature pictures of Mongolian characters and take a little getting used to, but she manages. Then it’s lights out as we rumble through the night heading for Irkurtsk..

Last Day in Mongolia July 14, 2006

We awoke in the Chinggis Ger Camp to another beautiful morning and after a quick breakfast; we decided to climb a nearby hill. (We had moved from the Steppe Nomads Camp the day before). Muugii hesitantly opted to go on the walk with us and I believe his motivation was that he did not want to be the first guide to lose tourists this year.

The climb to the top was up a four wheel drive road through fields covered in purple and yellow wildflowers. When we reached the top, the view of the valley and rolling hills beyond seemed to go on forever. With so few trees and so much open space on the steppes, I get the feeling of standing on top of the world and not being enclosed or encumbered by buildings or trees.

We made our way across a ridge and then down to camp after a couple of hours so that we could shower and pack as we have a train to catch at 7:30 tonight. TomA drove us back to Ulaanbaatar and after lunch, Holly pulled out her “to do list”. With 4 hours before train time a visit to the post office to mail cards, grocery shopping to add to our food cache for the Russia leg of the trip, stopping at the square to take a picture of the new Chinggis Kahn statue, and finding a cashmere sweater for me were all on the list. We checked off all the items only missing an optional stopper for the train sink which we were advised to get if possible. We could not find one. I had better luck with my sweater at the Cashmere House. A place that Muuggii said had the best prices in town. Mongolia is the second largest exporter of cashmere and the shops here have a good selection of cashmere goods for very reasonable prices. I settled on a 100% cashmere crew neck sweater for US$50. It should help keep me warm when we get to Scandinavia.

A new adventure began when TomA and Muugii dropped us at the rail station. We boarded the train, found our second class cabin and met our roommates for the next 36 hours. Lilly is from Finland, but has lived in Australia for the past 20 years. Andreya is from Milan, has just graduated from university and wanted a little experience away from his mother and girl friend. They both seem to be very nice people and are quite talkative, sharing with us their history and plans for the future.

We are on the local train which makes many stops and is slow. The car we are on is full and no one gets on or off our car as the train rolls to a stop at yet another platform in another small Mongolian village. As the train moves through the countryside we see many local ger camps both large and small surrounded by horses, sheep and cattle. The grasslands here look as if they could feed the world’s animal population.

Our car is a beehive of activity. One cabin has several musicians that are playing local instruments and one man is a throat singer and the whole car reverberates with their music as we roll along through the Mongolian darkness. As I stand next to an open window in the hall way of the car an Asian looking gentlemen starts explaining to me that he is Russian Mongolian in very broken English with a heavy Russian accent. I think, he is telling me that the trip is very long and that he has made it many times. A very friendly man, it seems he just wants someone to talk to.

We end the day in cabin 5,6,7,8, (the berth numbers) taking turns rummaging through luggage and setting up the berths for the night as there is very little room in the cabin. I’m glad this is for a short time only as it is quite cramped. The big question is will one of my traveling companions take offense to my snoring and commit some violent act upon me as I sleep. If this is my last posting you know that is what has happened.

Holly here, just want to add a couple of comments to this blog. Just so you can get a more complete picture of what traveling on this train is like – we have 2 Mongolian women who basically are like tsarinas, they run this joint. As soon everyone boarded, they came around and distributed sheets, pillow cases and a small hand towel for each person. The do not speak any English.

A few minutes later, they came around with clear plastic bags that contained our dinner: a bottle of water, a bun, a sealed bag of a variety of meats, a bag of cylindrical shaped snack chips and a huge sugar cookie with a smear of strawberry spread that was barely discernable.

There is a female toilet at one end and a male toilet at the other. The tsarinas keep the female toilet looked for their own personal use, so everyone in this car have to share the male toilet. They lock the male toilet 30 minutes before and after every train stop, so you really have to pay attention to your bladder and not delay.

There is supposed to be a pot of boiling water available at all times, however, when the urn runs out, it runs out. There are only a few windows that open and they are locked so can only be opened by the tsarinas.

I haven’t been able to change clothes since yesterday and to be honest, my feet are slightly less than rose-y.
This is all part of the adventure, but as Gary said, I’m glad this part of it only lasts 36 hours

Steppin Out on the Steppes July 12, 2006

We moved from the Tamir Ger Camp to Steppe Nomad Ger Camp this morning. We drove about two and a half hours out of the national park and across the endless Steppes.

The Steppes are rolling grassy hills accented with rocky outcrops and the occasional waterhole or river. They stretch for miles into Siberia to the north and the Gobi Desert to the south. These were the mainstay of the Mongul Nomads providing them with grazing land for their herds of horses, sheep and cattle.

The Steepes Nomad Ger camp is located 17 km down a dirt track off the paved road. We feel like we are a long way from anywhere. The camp is adjacent to the Gun Galuut Nature Reserve and on the banks of the River Kherlen gol. We are surrounded by hills but the river stretches before the camp for several miles.

After lunch at Steppe Nomad TomA, Muugii, Holly and I took a walk. We left the camp headed for Mt. Baits Uul. We were in search of wildlife. The wetlands along the river are a stopping area for both the Siberian White Crain and the White-Naped Crain. In the mountains that border the river valley live wild mountain sheep and the grey wolf. There are also smaller mammals such as the Mongolian marmot, and many different species of birds.

We reached the base of the mountain after about a two hour hike. We saw several White-Naped Cranes feeding in the wetlands along our path as well as one Siberian White Crain. Both of these birds are listed as critically endangered so we felt privileged with these sightings. They are beautiful graceful birds and although we never were closer than several hundred yards we were able to see them clearly through the ten power binoculars we had rented from the camp. A nature reserve ranger on horseback that was to guide us through the mountains met us here and led the way. The ranger was carrying a boom box that was playing Mongolian music which added a little local atmosphere to our adventure.

This was the end of the easy stroll as we started to climb around the flanks of Mt. Baits Uul. We startled several marmots that were sunny themselves and which quickly scrambled to their dens upon seeing us. We then came upon a partridge looking bird that had chicks. She scurried about gathering them together and hiding them in some brush before decoying us away by running down the ridge while the chicks stayed safely hidden.

When we crested the first ridge we stopped to glass the surrounding bowl of mountains for sheep but did not see any. We rested for a short while and then started down the far side. After walking another fifteen minutes or so we came to a valley that was off to our right. We followed it when suddenly the ranger pointed and started talking very fast. Muugii told he saw a sheep on the hill side in the direction we were walking. After several anxious seconds we all saw the sheep which ran down the hill, changed his mind and then ran up the facing hill to the crest where he stopped long enough for us to enjoy the sighting and get a couple of pictures. He then disappeared over the crest. Holly sat down with the binoculars for several minutes while the rest of our party was looking at the pictures. All of a sudden she stated theirs another sheep, but as quickly as she said that it too went over the ridge.

We continued up the valley which started to climb toward the ridge the sheep had disappeared behind. On the way the ranger pointed out an active wolf den, but no wolves were to be seen. We crested the ridge as a large black cloud came overhead and a few cold raindrops started to fall. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

From the ridge top we could see our camp and it seemed to be miles away and it fact it was. We were about half way down the ridge with Muugi and Holly in the lead by a hundred yards or so when the ranger spotted more sheep in front and to the right. TomA’s cry of Muugii, Muugii, Muggii brought our party to a halt and we were able to see and photograph two more sheep before they ran behind and outcrop.

We made it to the base of the mountain and started the long hike back to camp. Two more cranes and several herds of horses made the walk seem shorter. We also had a moment of excitement when a dirt bike appeared heading for the river. The ranger spurred his horse to a gallop and was intent on cutting them off at the pass. The Muugii told us that the ranger though these were poachers and needed to investigate. After a minute or so the guys on the motorcycle turned around and headed back the way they came. I got a picture of them and when zoomed in they appear to be carrying a rifle. With no hope of catching them on a horse the ranger let them go and we continued on.

After another hour or so of walking into a headwind we finally reached camp where we had our first warm shower in several days followed by another great meal. The sunset, which was about 9:30, was beautiful with the black cloud from earlier being replaced by a few white clouds and a sky that is just too blue to be believed.

Festival Anyone? July 11, 2006

Today’s the big day. We’re all getting up and going to the NADAAM Festival. In our ger camp there is a bus load of German Tourist that left the same time we did. They are moving on and won’t be coming back to this camp. I envy them; we’ve already spent one night here. We should be moving on too. Nomad fever, wanderlust it’s all the same.

The drive to town went quickly that is until we reached town. Traffic rivaled some of the worst grid locked traffic I have ever seen. It took us about 45 minutes to move 1-2 miles. There were traffic cops at the major intersections, but they seemed to randomly select who could go and not go or in some cases who could turn and who must go straight. Traffic laws and signs, painted lanes and directions seem to be more along the line of suggestions as opposed to laws that must be followed. The result is a free for all that brings traffic to all but a halt when the two – three thousand cars that are here are all on the road at once. For example; there is a four lane bridge right before we got to the left turn off for the stadium where the opening ceremonies were held. Two lanes each way, but by mass vote all of us heading to the stadium decided that all four lanes would go that way. Our car was in one of the opposing lanes when we reached the stadium side of the bridge. The traffic policeman, who had been letting all other traffic in our lane turn, decided that we were not worthy and told us to keep going straight even though this meant cutting across the two right lanes that were turning left into the stadium. When TomA objected the policeman reached inside the car and turned the wheel. When TomA objected again and showed our parking pass the policeman grabbed it and continued to wave us on straight. We capitulated and guess what happened to the cars behind us….They were told to turn left. We never found out what that was all about, but the fun was just beginning.

TomA let us out and we walked the 300 yards to the stadium. It was an absolute madhouse. The ceremony started at 11 and it was about 10 after when we got there. We fought our way to the entrance and through the gate but then came to a screeching halt on the stairs that led to the section that was designated by our tickets. Through sheer force, this not an exaggeration!, we made it to the top of the stairs and after a few minutes down toward the front row of seats. At this time I was thinking “alright, they got us seats on the front row”. It’s sad to see our innocent naïve dreams come crashing down around us, but that’s exactly what happened. We made it to the front row and Muugii motioned for us to sit down on the floor in front of the front row. I did so because I didn’t want to stand in front of the people that were already sitting, but I did it under protest. I looked around and not only were there not any empty seats, read this as open spaces on the concrete benches, there were people sitting in other people’s laps! I asked about our seats and Muugii said there weren’t any. I then looked at the ticket, he had given them to Holly and I just as we were walking to the stadium, and noticed that there were no seat numbers just a section. A quick conference with Holly confirmed this. We kneeled there for about 45 minutes. Holly was able to see some of what was happening through an opening. I studied the closer backsides of the costumed participants that were lining the field.

During the ceremony we heard speeches, in Mongolian of course, but there were also acrobats, martial arts performers (maybe a hundred) horse and foot soldiers charging all over the field (maybe 500) and Chinggis Kahn himself ( or a reasonable facsimile) riding around the arena accompanied by 40-50 soldiers all dressed in period costume. From what I could see it was quite a spectacle.

We left the stadium and went to the archery competition that was being held on the grounds. Archery is a time honored tradition here and is still a big sport. Muugii told us that wrestling, archery and horse racing are the big three sports here. We sat for about an hour watching the archers, both men and women warm up. The contestants are all in costume of the time of the Great Kahn and still worn today and the bows they shoot could have been carried by the Kahn’s men.

After the President’s arrival, the competition got under way. Two different types of competition were held; standing, with women shooting from 75 meters and men shooting from 85, and horseback shooting at a ball hung in front of a sheep skin. The horsemen rode by at full gallop and let fly as they passed. Some of these guys were quite good. Just as the actual competition was starting it started to rain and we went to find TomA and the car.

Lunch was a production with flaming shish kabob, fueled by vodka, as the main dish. Like most of the food here it was quite good and very filling.

Since the rain had not let up when we had finished lunch the decision was made to had back to the ger camp and take it easy the rest of the day. So for one of the few days on this trip I am finishing this before 6PM and will have the night free. One more bonus for the day was that Muugii arranged for a lady at the camp to do our laundry. A tall kitchen garbage bag full for 3000 tugrics (Mongolian unit of currency) and worth about US$2.70. That’s what I call a bargain.

The Life of a Nomad July 10, 2006

Muugii and Toma picked us up at the hotel after Holly and I had breakfast and checked out. We drove to a temple in Ulaanbaatar where we discovered that Mongolian and Tibetan Buddhism are closely linked. There were several pictures of the Dali Lama in the temple and the monks chanting sounded very much like what we had heard when we were in Tibet a couple of years ago. When we asked Muugii about this he confirmed that the two sects were closely related.

The first recorded history of the Monguls was about 800 years ago when the Chinese introduced writing. Before that their history was remembered in their oral epics sung by bards. Much of the early written history told of the “greedy Monguls” and reflected the sentiments of their neighbors, mainly the Chinese. Today a lot of the history has been rewritten with a more objective perspective. Archeologists have discovered human remains dating back as far as 500,000 years. Their history is of being conquered by and conquering the neighboring states. The one constant is that until the last half of the Twentieth Century they have been mainly a nomadic people moving with the change of seasons in order to maintain their livestock. After the Revolution of 1921 they came under Soviet control when Communism dominated the political arena. They followed the Soviet lead and religious repression, including executions and expulsions were practiced until the 1970s. With the wane of Soviet power reform began in 1984 and a more democratic government began to emerge. With the fall of Soviet Communism in 1990 Mongolia was thrown into an economic depression and pro-democratic protest hastened reform. Mongolia still struggles today with politics and economics.

This being festival week, the temple was crowded with tourists and the devout. A wedding was being held on the grounds while we were there which seemed a little strange to us as it was 10:30 in the morning, but the wedding party seemed to be having a good time. The bride and groom were dressed in western wedding apparel and we were told that that was the norm especially during the summer as the traditional Mongolian dress was too heavy and hot.

We left the temple and headed for Terejl National Park. It’s located about 70 miles from town which was about a two hour drive over the rough roads. Winter must be tough on the roads here as they have numerous pot holes and frost heaves, but our faithful Hyundai Sonata got us here. We stopped along side of the road once we were in the park at a large pile of rocks (called an ovoo) which had a pole in the middle that was pointing skyward. Muugii told us that it was Mongolian tradition to walk around the cairn three times, each time picking up a stone and tossing it higher on the pile. This is to bring good luck on your journey. Not wanting to tempt fate we did as instructed and moved on our way.

We arrived at our ger camp a short time later and were shown to our ger. There are about twenty five gers in this camp and most are occupied. We saw thirty or forty other ger camps in the park and we were told that ger camping is popular with both locals and visitors.

A ger is a conical shaped tent that is the traditional Mongolian nomad shelter. It has an internal frame work and is covered in wool felt. I’m told that there is usually a hole at the top although ours is covered with a plastic sheet. There are five beds, a stove, a small knee high table and three small stools for seating. As I write this I am sitting on one of the stools with my lap top resting on my bed. The bed is slightly taller than the table which makes it more accommodating for my limited key boarding skills.

We were served a lunch of carrot salad, coarse bread and beef. The meal was tasty and very filling. The service was great and the people here could not be friendlier.

After lunch we drove to turtle rock where it was easy to see how they came up with the name. We were able to climb about 2/3 of the way up which gave us a magnificent view of the valley that lay beyond. At the end of the valley, perched on the side of a mountain was the Meditation Center, our next destination.

We hiked from Turtle Rock to the MC along a dirt road. You can actually drive there but we wanted to walk as the day was beautiful. The sky was as blue as I can ever remember. The mountainsides are green in some places with trees but mostly open grasslands covered with colorful wildflowers. We passed a local family’s ger and Muugii told us we would stop and visit on the way back. The walk took about an hour and after a short climb up a trail and then steps we were at the Meditation Center.

The view back down the valley was breathtaking from the landing and it was difficult to go inside but even on extended trips the clock keeps ticking. An accommodating lady caretaker escorted us around the interior of the elaborately decorated center and explained, with Muugii interpreting, how and why the center was built. As the name states it is a retreat for both monks and the public. It was easy to see why they chose this spot. She then treated us to a tour of their museum which consisted of a hall with illustrated plaques that included wise sayings. An example is “The four seasons; spring, summer, autumn and winter remind us that this life is not forever”. A little sobering to say the least. There were about a hundred of these gems in the hall. The best ones described the different kinds of hell that one may be sent to, and the message was clear. You’d better get your act together. Not so different from western religions.

On the way back to Turtle Rock Muugii asks us if we want to stop at a local ger and talk to the family. We immediately say yes and Muugii walks off the road to a couple of gers that are standing a hundred yards or so from the road. He waves us over after a moment and we are invited in. This turns out to be a disappointment as the ger is et up specifically to show tourist and the lady does not seem particularly interested in talking to us. She does serve us a cup of fermented mare’s milk which is a staple drink here. They milk a mare that is nursing a foal and put it up in earthen ware jars to ferment. YUM! It would not replace beer in the US. We stay for about five minutes and then leave.

When we arrive back to Turtle Rock we find TomA sleeping peacefully on a sunny hillside. I wish I could say that we let him sleep, but after the warning at the MC I don’t think I’ll lie about it. He cheerfully got up and drove us back to our camp.

We arrived just in time for dinner. This time a variation of cole slaw, pot roast, mash potatoes and rice with a Kit Kat for dessert. You gotta love people that will give you a Kit Kat for dessert!

A QUICK ice-cold shower, a few minutes admiring the scenery outside our wooly house and we’re calling it a day. We have a fire going in the stove and clean sheets to sleep on. I think I could get used to this nomad life.

The Vagabonds Meet the Nomads July 9, 2006

We left the Novetel in Beijing at 6AM this morning and drove through the rain to the airport. After checking in, clearing Customs then Immigration we boarded the plane for the two hour flight to Ulaanbaatar, Outer Mongolia.

We stepped out of the airport into the bright Mongolian sun. The sky was blue and there was no pollution or humidity. We quickly decided this is a place we can enjoy. We have a guide, Moogie and driver, Toomai, and while we are here we plan to drive out into the countryside to do some exploring. Holly was here about four years and says that the hill country to the north is beautiful.

Moogie tells us he is a lawyer that works in the Public Defenders office. He’s 24 years old so I assume that requirements here are different. He also tells us that he guides for fun and to meet foreigners. He was working for the tour company before he became a lawyer and now considers guiding a hobby. I have a feeling that an active mind would look for outside stimulation here. He seems to be a very bright young man. He speaks English with a Russian accent which seems strange because he doesn’t speak Russia and he learned English from an American. My guess is he communicates to Russians here in English and picks up their pronunciation.

By accident we are here during the Naddam Festival. This is an annual festival that we hope to attend and learn more about while here, but it’s basically a celebration of the Mongol culture. The festivities include period costumes, live performances of Mongol music, traditional foods and the highlight horsemanship exhibitions.

This also happens to be the 800 anniversary of the founding of the Mongol State with other celebrations commemorating the occasion. They have a show planned with 1500 horseman dressed as Chinggis’ Kahn’s army that will stage a recreation of a battle, all very exciting and unexpected.

After checking into the hotel we went for lunch at “The Modern Nomad”. We had some traditional Mongolian dishes which although the food was good the service was a little slow. Traditional Mongolian food consists mainly of meat with a FEW vegetables served here and there. A T shirt at the Modern Nomad seemed to state their outlook on food; “Men eat meat, Animals eat grass”.

We visited Zaisan Hill, a monument to co-operation between Russia and Mongolia during WWII, which afforded us a great view of the city. We then drove the short distance to the Sukhbaatar Square in the heart of Ulaanbaatar, a large open area in front of The Government Building where the seat of the Mongolian government resides. From there we walked to the National Museum where we were escorted by a museum guide through the somewhat antiquated yet interesting exhibits.

We watched a cultural music show that featured musicians, singers, dancers, throat singers and of all things contortionists. The music was great and the contortionists amazing.

After a very nice dinner we are back at the hotel and looking forward to an early night after such an early start to the day. Other than the open spaces and clean, fresh, cool air what struck me about Mongolia are the close ties they have with Russia. Our guide speaks very highly of the Russians and the language is everywhere. I look forward to understanding more about the people and history during our stay here.

I don’t believe that we have internet connection for the next week but we will loog back on as soon as possible.