...we followed the Moskva down to Gorky Park...

After almost a week spent in Russia we finally have the time to update you with our experiences and impressions :)

Our first impression:

We arrived in St. Petersburg by boat from Tallinn and after being almost the only non-russian people on board, sharing cabins with very nice Russians who didnt speak any English (neither do we speak any Russian of course), ending up using sign language and it actually worked to some extent!!! :)

The terminal where we arrived was the typical sovjet-building that you have in mind when talking about the USSR: huge, grey, marble, stars and cold, full of security, police, military guys and and hour of waiting to get through passport control!! The waiting in the queue was rewarded with a magnificient view of the industrial harbour and three of the 560 chimneys ornamenting the skyline :). Taking the bus to downtown (about 6 km) was an kind of dangerous adventure... as on Tuesday at 1100 it was one big traffic jam all the way. So during the one hour!!  it took us, we have almost 5 times been killed as people do not seem to know rules except for who comes first goes first. So cars are driving over the footpath joining at the intersection through red lights traversing a 8 line streets by using the horn and causing more jams.... chaotic might be a way of describing this (Fiji was safer driving!! :). 

When we arrived in the city itself, feeling exhausted from all these impressions, we were amazed by all these huge, representitive, massive, golden, buildings and churches/cathedrals. Walking to our hostel the picture did not change, the whole city looks uniform, like made from scratch. (Which is by the way exactly what happened in 1703 as Peter the Great founded it and made it the capital of Russia (until 1918). )

It is a fantastic city in terms of sightseeing, a mixture of European and Russian culture and perfect starting point as Moscow is even busier and less ' European' as we know it.

There are many things that we observed and which we try to summarize here a bit

1. We have saw only one single black person at all
2. We felt like the only tourist (that was not organized in a bus group)
3. Upon a closer look: there were many tourists, but just Russians
4. Living (apart from rent) is actually cheap like: a) Metro costs 75 Euro Cent for one ride!! b) one bread loaf costs 50 Cents, one kg of potato 20 Cents, peppers 25 Cents for a kg, petrol costs half of Germany/Netherlands, One hour trainride costs 1 EUR!,........
5. It is even cheaper to buy on open markets than in the supermarket!! (and quality is the same!) most russians buy there as well!!
6. Nothing is in English!! not even the description in musea, restaurants, trains or objects made for tourists!! (as most tourists are Russian!)
7. There is no rubbish bin anywhere, not in the metro, museum, train,....
8. St. Petersburg and Moscow are blocked by cars and the smell is accordingly graceful...
9. Almost no one speaks english not even younger people
10. St. Petersburg has one, but there is no tourist office in Moscow!!!!!

What we also noticed there are a lot of Superlatives in this country. For example, it seems like the country with:

1. the biggest streets: 9 lane streets (one way!! ) inside Moscow centre
2. We've never seen so many people wearing military outfits for leisure!!
3. the most people with iPads running around
4. the cheapest, fastest and noisiest Metro in the world! Loud as an Airplane starting
5. Most chimneys
6. Biggest buildings
7. Most palaces and churches
8. Most surveillance cameras
9. Most uniforms and officials (police,...)
10. Most traffic jams
11. Least English speaking people
12. First country in the world without Tourist office in their capital
13. Widest trains (seating 6 in a row)
14. Parking, Gas and Water is for free!!!!!!!! 
15. Least Bicycles
16. Least Black People
17. Most Police at University
18. Biggest University
19. Only City we've seen so far where the main Entrance for University is not for students but for VIPS and Professors!! (of course students are not important :DD)
20. Country where staring is allowed.
    People are staring at you continously even if you stare back they keep looking at you, you can even take pictures of them starring at you and they will continue :D....
21. Grumpiest people ever..... (on the street)
22. Difference in salary can be 10 times as much in moscow than on the countryside!!!
23. Most high heels (HIGH!! heels) young girls wearing shoes which back home are just worn by women offering their services on the street... :)
24. Most main trainstations in one city (9 in Moscow!!!)
25. .................

Just a few , oh no there is another one and that is the most useful ;-)  jobs in the world!! This includes: 

1. Staircase observers 
2. Musea observer (one person per room!!!!!! the hermitage has got hundreds!!!!)
3. Railwaycrossing still manual!! (4 people per station!!)
4. Roadcrossings guides (waiting in a little box to regulate the traffic even though traffic lights are in place!)
5. 'Living' Rubbish bins in Trains (as there are none in the train)
6. Manual cashcounters for trains and metros
7. Metro Entrance observer.... we havent figured out what they are doing
8. Police is everywhere and according to our lovely hosts they will not always intervene when necessary

All these jobs appear a little unrealistic to us, but there are thousands of  them and the unemployment rate would probably jump up to 20% if these jobs would disappear!

To summarise until now (end of our urban experience) we have the impression that Russia the differences are really big. Some places are like other European Metropolitans, some are far from European standards. 20 Minutes away from the centre, you have the feeling of traveling back in time, like crossing the border to Eastern Germany in 1994. You can see progress at some points but the sovjet character is still present. You can feel that Stalin has been a very important character in the history of this country, not only in industrial and pompous monuments. At the same time both cities appear as capitalistic as New York. Everyone is just minding his own business, there is no politeness, nor helpfulness or openmindedness at first glance, The people don't seem interested in you at all, apart from staring like you as in a zoo. People are watching, controlling, observing you everywhere and you can imagine the times of terror and persecution.. 

BUT!! If you actually try to talk to people, get to know them like our lovely hosts here in Moscow, Nastya and Victor, you get a totally different picture!!! They are open, funny, warm, interested and faithful!! They share everything with you not even knowing you!!! And we have met people trying to help us, even in english. We think that a major issue might be a language barrier, with people being too scared to make mistakes.

So far it has been a true adventure/experience and we are curious about the train to Irkutsk (four days in the train!!) and about the country life....Leaving tonight, arriving on Sundaymorning. If the train is just as nice as the 'platzkarty' (3rd. class) experience on the way to Moscow, we have nothing to worry about!

Enjoy watching the photos!

All the best from Russia with love :))