Port O' Call -- Izhevsk & St Pete

[Sculler]

  I know this report is pretty late, and I have promised a few times to write it, so here it is. This is just a partial report of my trip to Russia from 23 May to 22 June. This report is about my time with the woman I met through Elena’s Models last November. To protect her privacy (since I haven’t cleared the publication of this through her) I will refer to her as my Cox’n. I know there have been a number of postings discussing where the RW privacy limits should be in this forum, so I will err on the side her privacy. By the same token, I won’t post any photos of her until she tells me she is OK with it. Izhevsk is not exactly a small town, but as a veterinarian in the town, she is fairly well known (as I found out when we kept running into some of her co-workers and acquaintances one weekend at a children’s park).

OK, enough caveats. I arrived in Izhevsk on the train from Ekaterinburg on a Thursday around 10AM. I had been in Russia for about 8 days by this point. I spent most of the waking part of the trip talking to a guy from Izhevsk returning from a business trip to Ekaterinburg. He was exited to have an opportunity to talk in English, as I was only his third person to speak to him in English in the 10 years since he learned it. His friend probably felt a little left out of the conversation and spent the trip drinking beer. Anyway, when I arrived at the station, I was looking for her and thought I recognized her, until another woman walked up to me and I realized she was the one I was looking for. She greeted me warmly, but not in an overly friendly way. I gave her a rose I had brought with me from Ekaterinburg and we set off to check into my hotel. At the hotel, they seemed troubled by the fact that I did not have a registration stamp and I had been in Russia for over a week. I tried to explain to them that I had not yet spent 3 full business days at any one place yet, which is when you are required to be registered (I arrived in Ekaterinburg on a Saturday night and left on Wednesday night – I would’ve been required to register in Ekaterinburg if I had remained until Thursday). So told me they couldn’t register me until I cleared up the issue with the police. So we spent our first day together sitting at the police station waiting to speak with someone. After waiting an hour, or so, we were finally told the person we need to see will not be in until 5:30PM. So we killed the afternoon by riding the ferry along the city pond to a little village and beach area nearby. The roundtrip took about an hour and the weather was perfect. For me it was a great way to spend a warm afternoon, though I couldn’t read her very well. When we returned to the police station, we waited another 45 minutes, or so, before getting in. The official looked at my passport, visa, and train tickets and told me there was no problem. The hotel should register me. So I wasted my entire first day because the hotel staff had no clue what the law was. That wouldn’t be the last irritating issue I would have with the hotel and the staff. The other couple of issues were the 9 AM wakeup calls with a jackhammer that was being used to chip the stone away from the elevator doors which I guess were going to be replaced. And, yes, the elevator was shut down. I didn’t mind the daily climb up to the fifth floor, except the first day when I had all of my luggage and the last day, going back down. The other issue was when I checked in, they asked me if I preferred to pay up front (as I guess is the usual way) or when I checked out. I said I preferred to pay when I checked out, that way I could pay everything all at once (if there were any other charges during the 10 days). (Remember, this is all being done via my Cox’n since no one at the hotel spoke any English). They agreed and I thought that would be the end of it. Not quite. Every day for the next few days (at least whenever there was a new ‘devushka’ at the desk) I would get asked when I was going to pay my bill. Fortunately, my Cox’n met me at the hotel each day and was there to explain my arrangement with the hotel. Except one day as I was walking out, the woman asked me a question (THE question, I was sure), but I couldn’t think of a response so I looked at her blankly and walked out. Later, when my Cox’n was there, she explained it once again. After about 4 days, they stopped asking. I guess I worked my way through the entire staff by then. The only reason I didn’t check out early was that it was walking distance to my Cox’ns home and the only other good option was much further away in the Central Square area.

So back to the story. The next day, Friday, my Cox’n had a client to meet in the morning, so she would meet me at noon that day. For the next few days, showed me around her city and all the sights. On Saturday, her mother called and asked that she bring me home for dinner (she lived with her mother and grandmother – ‘babushka’). When I left the hotel, I didn’t know that this would happen, so I said I needed to stop at a shop and get some wine or flowers since I was aware of the Russian custom of gift giving. I had brought a number of "gifts" from home for such occasions. We ran into her mother at the store near their apartment, so it seemed strange that she was helping me buy flowers for her and her mother. I think she thought they were for her daughter because she was trying to tell me what her daughter liked. The evening went well and they all seemed to like me. I even passed the cat test as one of their cats warmed up to me during the evening. No man, not even her brother, gets attention from that cat. She joked with me that I am the first man to “stroke” her cat (I know what some of you are thinking and that is not what she meant! This is a clean post.) That evening, she walked back to my hotel and took the trolley back to her apartment. I was uncomfortable with letting her go back late at night, but I knew from her letters that this was a common thing for her (catch a late evening trolley) since that is when she usually went to the internet café to exchange email with me.

The next couple of days went pretty much the same. We would walk around the city, eat at a few cafes, and she would drop me off at the hotel late in the evening. By Monday O was getting a little concerned since she hadn’t shown any of the outward affection I expected as a sign that she was happy I traveled all that way to spend time with her. On Monday I asked her how she felt about me and whether I had measured up to her expectations. Her answer was pretty noncommittal, so I started to worry and thought that this was going to be a bust. We visited the large city monument and for the first time she seemed open to having her picture taken (she was reluctant a couple of days earlier when we were at an amusement park. Later that afternoon we went to a large park on the opposite side of the pond from the city. It was nice, but like most of the parks I had seen in Ekaterinburg and Izhevsk, it was not well maintained and overgrown. We walked through the park and when we got the the children’s amusement area, she was suddenly very playful and hamming it up for my camera. She wanted to go jump in the trampoline enclosure, but decided not to after talking to someone. (The amusements were closed, but not locked. I was ready to take a few quick pictures if she decided to jump in.) Then we walked through the forested area and finally stopped to sit at a place overlooking the pond. We talked a while and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoy the scenery and sun. For the first time since I meet her, I started to feel that she was warming up to me. I confirmed it a while later as we lost track of time. Before we knew it, the sun was getting ready to set (for those not familiar with Russia in late May, this is around 9 – 930 PM). We had been in that spot for at least 4 hours. We rushed to a nearby restaurant to get some food. Fortunately we made just before they closed the kitchen. That day make a significant change in her outward personality. She was now starting to look like the person she described in her many emails while I was in the desert, and I liked it! The next few days got better as we spent the afternoons exploring the city (she took time of work for my visit), trying different cafes and spending indescribable evenings walking around the stadium next to the hotel saying goodnight to each other. That week she introduced me to the concept of the Russian cinema experience. It is not so much the movies (we saw “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Ocean’s 13”) since they were dubbed and I had no idea what was going on. But rather it was that Russian movie theaters, or at least the two in Izhevsk, have love seats in the back of the theater for two people. They also sell the tickets as reserved seating, so you choose your seats when you buy the movie tickets. So we sat in the special seats and enjoyed each others company. Now I understood why she wanted to go to a movie knowing I would not understand the dialog (she had been asking for a couple of days). I highly recommend going to movies in Russia with a date, even if you don’t understand Russian. This is probably a function of the fact that many young Russians do not have their own homes where they can close out successful dates since many (if not most) live with their parents until (or even after) marriage. It was the most enjoyable movie experience I’ve had. One of these days I’ll see those two movies in English so I can understand what the movies were about. By the end of the week, it felt like we knew each other for far longer than the week we spent together. I was introduced to the process of cleaning a cat’s teeth (not for the squeamish). That weekend we packed up and headed to the train station for our trip to St. Petersburg. I had invited her to go with me many months ago, but was unsure of how the trip would go since we had never met. But by now, I was very much looking forward to it. We had our own compartment in the “Spalny Vagon” and 16 hours until we arrived in Moscow with a 2 hour layover until our afternoon train ride to St. Pete. Things were looking good for our 8 days in St. Pete.

I had planned for our time in St. Petersburg (SP) to be special. I had hoped that things would go well in Izhevsk and that this would an opportunity for me to spoil her a little and give her an experience she would cherish. She had told me before that SP was her favorite city. She had little interest in joining me in Moscow, but preferred to spend her time with me in Izhevsk and SP. I didn’t tell her the full plan, but I had reserved an apartment on Nevsky Prospekt that looked promising. It exceeded all my expectations. It was a big, one-room apartment on Nevsky right behind the Catherine’s Winter Palace. It could not have been better (except for a convenient grocery store). She was in awe when she saw the place. I think her comment was that 3 Russian families could live in the apartment. It was nice, but certainly not large by US standards. I told her it was a single person’s apartment, or maybe a newlywed couple. It was in the corner of the building and looked down Nevsky towards the canals. (If anyone is planning a special trip to SP, PM me and I’ll give you the contact info for it. But it isn’t cheap. I knew SP wouldn’t be inexpensive and I planned to spend a lot of money on this part of my trip.) The nice thing was that it was large enough that it would’ve worked if we weren’t completely comfortable with each other. The living room had a sofa bed and there was a nook where another bed could be set up if needed. Three couples could, theoretically, share the place. But that wasn’t an issue now. The next day we walked all over the city. I was concerned that I might wear her out, but she kept up with me and even tolerated my desire to take a midnight river boat excursion to view the raising of the bridges over the Neva. She asked around and finally found an excursion that was given in English. I was surprised it was so difficult to find one. I failed to account for the fact that it does actually cool down at night when the sun sets even though the days were in the 80’s (35 C). Fortunately, the boat had some extra blankets and I wrapped my Cox’n like a mummy for the trip to keep her warm. This was now June 11, the day before Russia Day. We expected there would be a good fireworks celebration the next night, so we took the boat ride this night. After viewing the raising of the bridges and heading back, I was wondering why there were so many people (and boats) out on the river and along the shore. About 5 minutes after we turned down the Fontanka towards the dock, were heard fireworks going off. Preparation for Russia Day in the morning, I figured (it is now about 01:30 AM). The next day, after sleeping in, we again walked around the city, though, by now my feet were killing me from all the walking in Izhevsk and SP. Eleven months wearing boots in the desert do not do good things to your feet. I was diagnosed with slightly fallen arches before my trip to Russia and given some arch supports to wear. But it would take a few months for my feet to fully heal, and it had only been about a month. So we took it easy that day so we could stay out late for the expected fireworks that evening. Since it doesn’t get dark until after 11:00 PM, we had lots of time. By 10:00, people were lining up along the Neva. We walked along the river and saw a few of the sights. By 11:00 we positioned ourselves in what we hoped would be a nice position. It turned out that the fireworks were the previous night (or rather that morning at 01:30 that we missed while on the boat) and this evenings festivity was a music and laser show featuring the fountain in the Neva harbor. The music was playing across the river from us, so we could barely hear it, but we were in a good position to watch the light and laser show in the fountain. I set up my camera and ended up taking over 200 pictures of the fountain in various shades of colors using different exposures (a digital camera is so nice since you don’t have to worry about wasting film). We stayed out there for a couple of hours until it ended and then walked back to the apartment through the plaza between the Hermitage and Catherine’s Winter Palace. It started to rain that night after the show and we diverted through a nearby park to use the trees as shelter until the rain eased. Thankfully she loves the outdoors as much as I do and she was not put off by the rain (that would be a serious red flag for anyone from the Great Northwest). The next day, I think I soaked my feet! My feet were worn out. We just rested up for the next day. The rest of the week continued well until it came time to stop by the train station to get our tickets to Moscow and then on to Izhevsk for her. This was the one part of the trip I did not have planned out in detail because of the variables involved. It turned out we could not get a ticket on any train to Moscow on the day we were to check out of our apartment. The best we could do was a ticket at 05:00 AM the next morning leaving us with no place to stay for one night. She was suggesting we spent the night hanging out at a café (or cafés) through the night and we would catch a nap on the train. I reluctantly agreed, but decided to look into other options (I forgot to mention the apartment had an internet connection, so I could check email and keep busy in case I needed something to do during the evenings in SP). I managed to find a nearby hostel and made a reservation for a 2 person room for our last night in SP. For anyone who has traveled in Europe staying in hostels, or pensions, you know it is not luxurious. I was worried she wouldn’t like it. This was my preferred method of traveling when I am alone, so I was curious as to how she would take it. Very few AW I have dated would have found the accommodations acceptable. My adorable Cox’n had no problem with it. After we checked in, we stayed in until later that evening when we went out to get some dinner then came back and enjoyed what we expected to be our last night together. The next day we were on the train to Moscow.

In Moscow, my next challenge was to find my apartment for my final week in Russia. That was a challenge, especially since I was not given the proper address. The address was actually on the cross street, not the main street I was given So while I was looking for the building on the opposite side of the street and cursing because the address didn’t exist, the landlady was trying to describe the building to me. Eventually I found it and realized the erroneous instructions I was given. Fortunately (or unfortunately) she wasn’t at the apartment and had a ‘devushka’ there waiting for me (she was probably the cleaning woman). She asked for the payment, but wasn’t sure of the amount. Based upon the last email I got from the landlady, I laid out the amount in both rubles and dollars (I was nervous about using dollars based upon some things I had read). She had a different amount in her mind ( payment was for both rent and visa registration fee). She ended up giving me back $50 than what I had agreed to pay. The next morning, the landlady showed up, laid out the money and said I was $100 short. She was right, but it was $50 less than what I gave the ‘devuska’ the day before. So actually, I was only stiffed $50. My mistake was not is getting a signed statement as to what I gave to girl the day before. So let this be a lesson to all of those thinking about arranging an apartment in Moscow. If you end up dealing with someone other than the landlord/lady, GET RECEIPTS FOR ALL PAYMENTS IN WRITING! I’m not sure if this advice is necessary outside of Moscow, but it would be prudent. Normally I’d be pissed all day about being so stupid to allow this to happen, but my Cox’n was still with me to ease my frustration. She was supposed to get on a train the previous day after I checked into my apartment. On the way to the train station that day, she made a comment that she didn’t need to be back at work for a couple more days. Since it was only a one day trip back, I asked her why she bought (or rather I bought on her suggestion) tickets for that day. She had no real reason. I suspect it was because she didn’t want to be presumptuous about staying with me in Moscow. So I talked her into getting her tickets changed. We spent about 45 minutes in line to get it done (she strongly insisted to pay the change fee) and we giddily left to spend what we finally knew to be our last night together (on this trip!).

The next day, after the rent fiasco, we went and walked through central Moscow. Her train was scheduled to leave around 5:00 PM. It was another lovely day in Russia (OK, not all the days were great. After the early heat wave subsided, there were numerous cool and damp days, much to my relief since that is the kind of weather I was prepared for – being from the NW.)  and we spent  the afternoon around Red Square dreading the time we would have to go to the train station. That afternoon something happened that sealed my destiny in my Cox’ns heart. As we were sitting outside Red Square enjoying the afternoon sitting in the shade of a tree, a homeless black dog walked by. My Cox’n, being a vet and me having had to put my own dog down a year earlier, and I called to the dog and he walked up to us. We offered him a jelly filled cookie we had, but he turned it down. But he decided we were good enough for him to lie down next to and take a nap. We stayed there for another hour, or so, and it was time to go. We said ‘poka’ to “chornachka’ and headed towards the Metro. About halfway across the square, we noticed the dog got up and was wandering in our direction. We didn’t thing too much about it and walked into the Metro station, but stopped to see what the dog would do. He wandered  over to the entrance, paused, and then followed a group of people in through the doors (they were blocked open). He then followed the crowed towards the gates (walking past us) and then through. He wasn’t tall enough to trigger the sensor that will close the gate if no ticket is inserted (Moscow turnstiles work opposite all other turnstiles I have seen. They stay open until the sensor is tripped without an accompanying payment ticket inserted into the turnstile. Then they stay open, otherwise they close very quickly, as I learned the first time I went through and learned you have to use your right hand to insert the ticket and walk to the left -- I was trying to use my left hand because my right was pulling my luggage on my way to the train station). He continued to the escalator and then sat down as he rode it on the long journey down. I thought maybe the woman at the bottom of the escalator would say something when he walked by, by she showed no expression as he got off the escalator and continued to follow the crowd. At this point, I decided to let him know we were behind him. He was excited to finally find us and followed us onto the subway and proceeded to lie down in the middle of the crowded car. There were a number of chuckles at the dog seemingly riding the subway by himself. I guess it wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but the dog treated it like it was a daily habit. Two stops before ours was a major transfer point and a large crowd got off. The dog, seeing all the people getting off must’ve assumed we were in the group and got up and exited. I almost went after the dog but held back. Then the doors closed and the moment (and the dog) was gone. All the way to the train station I was disappointed that I didn’t let the dog know we were still on the train. But the dog’s desire to follow us, as far as my Cox’n was concerned, was due to my personality. And that coupled with her cat’s acceptance of me at her home (her cat came up to lie on my stomach while I was relaxing one day at her apartment, which is not normal for her), pretty much sealed my qualifications with her. We said our goodbye’s through the train window as it pulled away from the station. The next couple of days were pretty much superfluous for me. I tracked down an English language tour of the Kremlin and the city for the next day, but after that, I couldn’t muster the effort to go stand in line for Lenin’s Tomb, one thing I wanted to do. I was so entirely spent and satisfied from my trip I could only think about planning my return.

Well, there it is, half (the better half, I must add) of my trip to Russia earlier this summer. Take the lessons from it that you need. I will try to get around to posting lessons from my trip to Ekaterinburg and Moscow another time as well as the planning pains I went through to make this trip a reality. I think there are plenty of lessons here for anyone planning there first trip to Russia (or Ukraine, possibly). Here are a couple of photos. Fist is from my entirely to brief meeting with Lilly on my first day in Moscow. Lily, I'm sorr I didn;t get in touch with you on my pass back through Moscow, but after reading this, maybe now you understand why. The second is the Izhevsk Crocodile. The term comes from the name used for new employees at one of the factories where they are required to wear green smocks during their first year. (It ain't a Gator, but it's close!)

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[Lily]

It's never late for a TR Sculler!

What a nice crocodile 

[Gator]

Sculler,

Good report.  You should post more.  I assume that you are in the military.

I do not know what you mean by “there it is, half (the better half, I must add) of my trip to Russia”.  You and Ms. C seemed to have developed a real relationship.  Hope all goes the way you want.

Moscow turnstiles work opposite all other turnstiles I have seen. They stay open until the sensor is tripped without an accompanying payment ticket inserted into the turnstile. Then they stay open, otherwise they close very quickly.

So quickly as to make sure you do not pass your criminal genes to another generation.

A lesson about crocs vs. gators.  Your specimen seems to be a ‘gator based on teeth.  A gator’s upper jaw is wider than its lower, almost completely hiding the lower teeth.  In a ‘croc, a large bottom tooth is very visible, and necessitates a constriction in the upper jaw behind the nostrils.  A gator’s snout is thus more rounded than a croc’s.  See photos (A and C are gators).

My Moscow woman called all my neighbors “crocodiles”,  so that is the more recognized term.

[Sculler]

Gator,

Thanks for the zoology lesson. I'll take that back with me to Izhevsk  . I'm not sure my vet friend was aware of that (she never mentioned it). Actually, when I saw the statue I thought of you (even though it is called a crocodile    ). If you ever find yourself in Izhevsk, now you know to look for it. I couldn't tell you off hand where it is, but it is near the central part of the city.

The "half" I was referring to was the part of my trip before I got to Izhevsk (Moscow arrival and train trip to Ekaterinburg). I had made some notes and lessons learned that I felt might be useful for someone planning a trip to Russia for the first time. Things I wish I was a little more aware about. Of all the countries I have traveled in the world, this was, by far, the most complex. Russia (outside Moscow and St Pete's) is not a country conducive to foreign tourists.

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