russia: june in Moscow

June was a short month for me in Moscow, as I left before the month was out to go back to the States for the summer.

The first weekend of the month I met up with Claire and Caroline, we wanted to go see VDNKh. Since the World Cup was starting so soon, we figured all the construction and renovation would be finished. It turned out to be mostly finished, but not quite.

I finally got to see the main fountain, which looked quite nice. It was surrounded by statues of women, I think there are supposed to be enough that each one represents one of the countries of the former Soviet Union.

When we'd visited during winter the whole thing had been surrounded by fences. The water wasn't running in any of the fountains, I'm sure they would've looked better with moving water. The colour of this main fountain was that of rust, so I wasn't sure if that was intentional or not.

We walked around the whole complex and got to see more completed buildings than we'd seen previously. A few of them still weren't finished, they didn't look like they'd be ready any time soon. When they are finished, I wonder how they'll be used. It was fun to see traditional patterns of each country of the former Soviet Union.

The gardens in the middle of all the buildings were nicely landscaped. The fountain at the other end of the complex was decorated with mosaics, quite pretty. That being said, it looked as if it could use a good cleaning.

After leaving VDNKh we stopped at a grocery store because I realized I was dehydrated. It was really sunny and warm, and I had no water with me. You'd think I would be aware of such things by now. Sigh.

We took the metro to Sokolniki Park, in the northeast part of Moscow. It's a big park, and the last time any of us had been there it had been winter. It didn't turn out to be anything special, but we had fun watching people.

There were a LOT of people to watch, as the weather was good. There was an area with music playing and people dancing, so much fun to watch for a few minutes. We also found a statue of the mascot of the upcoming World Cup, of course we took a photo with him.

Later in the month I took an evening after school was finished to go out to see a church on the north side of Moscow. The church itself wasn't stunning or particularly memorable, but I liked the way it reflected in the water of the pond next door. The only downside of this outing was all the cotton stuff flying everywhere. I'm glad I don't have allergies!

The World Cup football tournament started mid June, the official fan zone of Moscow was in front of Moscow State University. This meant that each time games were played in Moscow or another city in the country, I could hear cheering when a team scored.

The first weekend I met up with some friends, we tried to go to a game in the fan zone. It turned out to be a really popular game to watch, the zone was already full by the time we got there. We went to dinner instead, then came back to watch a later game.

The fan zone experience was entertaining, and full of fan fanatics. Costumes, lots of drinking, dancing, etc... I'm glad we went, but I don't think I'll be traveling to any World Cup tournaments around the world just to be there in person.

That sums up my June in Moscow!

russia: kaliningrad

12 June is a national holiday in Russia, called Russia Day. This year it fell on a Tuesday, so I was able to have a four day weekend from school. Claire and I took the chance to book flights to Kaliningrad, the region of Russia that is separated from the mainland.

Kaliningrad is a state of Russia surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. Centuries ago (when it was called Konigsberg,) it was part of Prussia, first part of Poland, then part of Germany. During WW2 the area was heavily damaged, and many people left and went back to mainland Germany. 

Russia sent in soldiers and took over the area, (after a siege,) changing the name of the city to Kaliningrad in 1946.

Russia deported many of the remaining Germans, and brought in a bunch of Russians to settle the state. One would think there might still be a lot of German culture and architecture left, but that wasn't what we saw, not for the most part.

I've wanted to go to Kaliningrad for yonks, but since it is part of Russia, that made it hard to do. For most people, you have to get a visa for Russia, and most people have to enter Kaliningrad via mainland Russia. 

Even if there is a direct flight to Kaliningrad from whereva you are, you have to be Russian (or a few other nationalities, but not many,) to take it. Since I'm now living in Russia, it's an easy visit to make.

Our flight was only a couple hours, yay! We flew on a Friday afternoon, it was still light when we landed. For whateva reason, a security guy pulled us aside to ask why we were there. We answered his questions, he seemed surprised that foreigners would be coming before the World Cup started (Kaliningrad was another of the host cities,) and that we lived in Moscow.

We took a taxi to the flat we'd booked, it was the winner in the battle of cheap public transport vs. time involved. It was heaps cheaper than a taxi from the airport from Moscow, of course. Checking in to the flat was easy, it had been renovated fairly recently and came with fish.

After a bit of relaxing and figuring out where to go, we started walking. The first sight was a monument to cosmonauts, I loved the shape. It was big, but didn't otherwise look like a typical Soviet monument.

As we kept walking we realized we were seeing quite a few Spar grocery stores. We noticed a Spar Express, a Spar Euro, and Spar Gourmet as well. We couldn't see a difference between all of them, who knows the reason for the different names?

Close to one of the Spars we found a monument called Mother Russia. I've seen other monuments with that name, they've all been far bigger. This one was considerably smaller, and didn't seem to get much attention from anyone else on the street.

Our walking took us to a street with a series of buildings that looked 'German.' Since I lived in Germany years ago, this seemed somewhat familiar, I'm guessing the whole city had this type of architecture at some point during history. This ended up being the only place in Kaliningrad that had this architecture.

We came to a bridge, crossing Pregolya River. There was an easy pedestrian area to cross, I had no fear of traffic. We got off the bridge onto an island, a fairly small island. Visible from all over the island, is the Konigsberg Cathedral. 

The version everyone can see now is not the original version of the church, as it was burned down in 1944. Rebuilding only started in 1992.

We wanted to go in the church, but we arrived too late. Oh well. Around that point the sun was going down, so we watched the sky change over the river for a bit, then headed back to our flat.

The next morning we walked into the city center again, taking a different route. We found Victory Square easily enough, there is a tall column (dedicated to 750 years of city existence,) in the middle. 

It isn't a clearly defined square, it's more of an open area. On one side of the square is the Chapel of the Blessed Prince Peter and Fevronia. (I feel sorry for anyone named Fevronia, sorry.) It looked new to us, but who knows. There was a large set of stairs in the front of the church, the entire exterior was white, with gold domes.

The inside of the church was awesome. Bright frescoes and a whole lot of gold everywhere. It wasn't wide, but it was tall. I loved it.

Our next planned stop was the Amber Museum.

On the way there we found a 'waterfall' with mosaic decoration. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but it was pretty. The Museum sits on one side of a traffic circle, there was a statue of a military guy (I think) on another side.

The Amber Museum is in a former tower/fortress wall. There were two floors of exhibits, I had no idea so many things could be made of amber. Useful things and decorative things, and totally useless things. Amber is 'just' fossilized tree resin. Nearly 90% of the world's amber comes from the Kaliningrad region. 

You can find it in dark gold, yellow, and green colours. We wanted to see an amber mine during this trip, but that didn't work out.

By the time we walked out of the museum, we were ambered out, but were still glad we'd seen the museum. Not far from the museum was the church of Alexander Nevsky. It was small, and didn't look very exciting from the outside, but we really liked the interior. Everything was painted in bright colours, the iconostasis was shiny gold, and the cupola was awesome.

We had to walk quite a way to our next stop, the Bunker Museum. 

This is what remains of the bunkers used in all the fighting of the seige during WW2. It took us a while to find the entrance of the museum, since it is set behind the buildings on the street. Since it is in an old bunker, it is underground, so you can't see it from far away.

The rooms in the bunker were all off one hallway, each room was set up to show a different aspect of the seige. We saw photos, a diorama of German officers surrendering to the Soviets, propaganda posters, etc... It's a good museum.

We went looking for something listed as a world clock. We finally found it, but it was not at all impressive. More impressive than the clock was the outfit of the lady walking a dog nearby. Hee hee.

Near the clock was a pond, it looked like you could rent rowboats and float around for a while. We knew we didn't have time to do so during this trip, but thought it looked fun for a return visit. From there we walked back to the cathedral, determined to go in. When we got there we discovered there was an entry fee, and several tickets to choose from. 

It wasn't immediately obvious to us which one was the old church, so we walked out. It shouldn't be that confusing to visit a church.

Around the back side of the church was a tomb of world interest: that of Immanuel Kant. The German philosopher was from and lived in Kaliningrad.

We walked across another bridge near the back side of the bridge, heading toward a part of town known as the fishing village. Waaaaay back in the day, this part of town really was a fishing village. Now it's just a long row of 'German' looking buildings, filled with restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops. 

It's photogenic, but not much else.

More walking brought us to yet another bridge, this one called King's Bridge. As we crossed, we noticed a group taking wedding photos. I must admit, I'm not a fan of any of the bridesmaids' dresses I've seen in Russia. Ick.

We found a huge fountain not too far away, it was full of local citizens playing in the water. I guess you could call it a local splash pad? It looked fun, if we'd brought the right clothes, or at least dry clothes for later.

All that walking brought us back to the first bridge we'd walked, going over the river to the island. We followed it backward this time, all the way to a tram stop. The tram going home didn't take long, and was cheap. Have I mentioned how much I love public transportation?

After arriving back at the train station (from Svetlogorsk,) the next evening, we visited two statues. One was of Mikhail Kalinin, a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet Politician. This is the guy after whom the city and oblast is now named. 

The second statue was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a guy I've mentioned a few times previously.

We laughed as we walked past a pizza place on the way to the tram stop to get home. The place was called Obama Pizza, and had the slogan "yes, we eat."

After returning mid afternoon from Zelenogradsk the next day, we walked into the city center again. Claire was still looking for an amber piece of jewelry, so we stopped into every store we saw. Eventually she found something she liked. I got lucky and found a ring I liked in the first store we visited.

We found a big war memorial on one riverbank, it was Soviet big, which is what I typically expect in a war memorial in this country.

We went to bed early that night, since we had to be up early in the morning. Our landlord called a taxi for us at 0630, the ride back to the airport was quick and easy. We got back to Moscow around noon, into terrible weather, yuck.

I would love to return to the Kaliningrad region, to see more of the city and more of the entire area.

russia: svetlogorsk and zelenogradsk

Since both Claire and I figured this might be our only trip to Kaliningrad, and the oblast as a whole, we decided to see more than just the capital city. We originally wanted to go to a place called Yantarny, as we would've been able to see an amber mine there. 90% of the world's amber comes from this region, so it seemed like a perfect idea.

It seemed like a perfect idea until we couldn't figure out how to get there using public transport. Argh. This is one of very few times public transport hasn't worked out for me in Russia.

We changed plans, and decided to go to a city called Svetlogorsk. Like the capital city, this city also used to have a different name and belong to a different country. Svetlogorsk was known as Rauschen when it was part of Prussia. The country change happened in 1945, the name change happened in 1947. Svetlogorsk now has a population of a little over 10,000; it is a spa/resort/beach town on the Baltic Sea.

We ended up getting on a bus from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk. The drive was quite nice, but at times moved very slowly, if at all. 

We never figured out what was causing the traffic jam, but the bus ride ended up being about an hour longer than expected. Sigh.

Not only did the bus take longer than expected, everyone was told to get off at a random spot in Svetlogorsk. The place we got off the bus definitely was not a bus station of any kind.

We realized fairly quickly that we had decided to visit the city on it's birthday. As we walked, we saw more and more people out on the streets, more and more vendors along the sides of the roads, and more and more people in random costumes. 

At one point we realized all the people in fancy dress were gathering for the start of a parade.

We found an ice cream stall and decided to have dessert before lunch. Why not?

From the ice cream stall we decided to check out the beach. The path to get there wasn't at all direct, we followed the road through trees as it wound back and forth down the hill; it was quite steep in some places.

As we got to the beach we felt the wind pick up, it was quite chilly. The beach itself was packed with people, though almost no one was in the water. 

I was cold in my dress, I can't imagine wearing a swimsuit and hanging out on a beach.

The boardwalk along the beach was less than impressive, but we walked it anywho. At one point I decided to walk on the sand, and in the water. Claire took my photo, so I could prove I've been in the Baltic Sea.

After venturing for a little while in one direction we turned around and went back to where we started. Conveniently located at the bottom of the steps we'd taken down was a mosaic of a shell. 

Nothing more than art practically made for Instagram, of course I had my picture taken :)

We went back up the windy road, getting back to the main street in town. By this point the parade had gone by, or it had gone another direction, we didn't know or care. We walked toward a building we thought looked peculiar, and found out it was a water tower, or water building, something along those lines. It wasn't open for visiting, but seeing the outside was enough for us. There was ivy growing over the outside, so it was really photogenic.

According to Wikipedia this town has some of the best preserved Prussian architecture from before the war, it wasn't destroyed as much as Kaliningrad was. We enjoyed seeing the buildings in their original form, some of them had been taken care of quite well over the years.

We had one more sight we wanted to see, a miniature model of the city of Kaliningrad back in the day. After wandering some of the back roads of Svetlogorsk, we found it. Very cute, though it could definitely use a good cleaning. Or if someone just took a broom and swept away the dust.

At that point we felt as if we'd seen everything in Svetlogorsk, so we walked to the train station. After the sloooow bus of the morning, we didn't want to deal with that again. We bought tickets for the next train, which was scheduled to depart fairly soon, and boarded the train.

The train was packed. Lots and lots and lots of people, we had to stand for most of the ride.

The next day we decided to take an elektrichka in the morning, and by accident we arrived quite early. 45 minutes early, so we had fun taking photos on the otherwise empty train. 

I was surprised we were allowed to board that early, that the doors were already open. The security part of me wonders about that sort of thing. Oh well.

Our destination for the day was the city of Zelenogradsk (not to be confused with Zelenograd which is a suburb of Moscow.) Another beach/resort town on the Baltic coast, Zelenogradsk has around 13,000 inhabitants; it was known as Cranz when it was part of Prussia.

We arrived to crappy weather. Light rain, wind, rolling dark gray clouds, yuck. At least it wasn't pouring.

Straight from the train station we headed to our first planned sight, it was indoors, thank goodness. The cat museum was located in an old water tower, making it unique both in topic and architecture.

We bought tickets at entry level, then got in the queue for the ridiculously small lift, which took us to the 5^th floor. From there we took the stairs up to the 6^th floor, which gave us access to an observation deck all the way around. Zelenogradsk isn't stunning in any way, but it was nice to look out over the city.

We came back inside, and started looking at the exhibits. Cat everything. Lots of totally useless knick knacks, toys, wall decorations, coat hooks, etc... There were so many items displayed that there was actually very little room to move around. The stairs to go down were circular, along the outer wall of the tower. They were narrow, and lined with more cat items on display, it wasn't an easy walk down.

When we left the museum we walked to another cat sight: a monument to cats!! It spun around, which was fun for a minute or two. The weather was finally getting better, so we chose that spot to have a small picnic.

We walked through the city center, a pedestrian street I think. I'm not entirely sure, because we were the only ones around. I don't know if it was the weather, or the day or the week, or what, but everything was really empty. We found the Lenin statue, took a photo, and kept going.

We found the trail to the boardwalk and beach, it wasn't as obvious as I would've expected. The beach wasn't any great shakes, and the weather wasn't amazing, but there were still people out there. Like Svetlogorsk the day before, there were people on the sand, but not so much in the water. This beach was uglier, I don't think I'd ever want to hang out here, even when the water was a bit warmer.

After walking along the boardwalk for a bit, we decided we'd seen the whole town, there really wasn't much to it. We found an ice cream shop right next to the train station, so we splurged. After that we bought tickets back to Kaliningrad, thankfully the next train left within an hour.

I definitely want to see more of the region around Kaliningrad, but I think I'll skip Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk next time.

russia: moscow in may

May in Moscow is glorious. It has finally warmed up after a long winter, trees have leaves again, flowers are blooming, etc...

At the beginning of the month Bo was in town for a couple final days of his trip. One of those mornings we walked to the university campus, I wanted to see the most recent landscaping. I'd been seeing pictures of tulips on social media, and since they're my favourite flower I was even more keen.

The garden of flowers in front of the main university building was beautiful. We weren't the only ones who thought so, there were a couple tour buses of Chinese out taking photos too.

The next morning I made sure Bo got to the right train station to catch an express train to the airport, then I walked to school. I was up super early to do this, but the weather was lovely, so why not?

The second weekend of May I walked from my flat to Park Pobedy (Victory Park,) because I wanted to take a photo with the big victory arch. My walk took me past a couple landscaped areas with tulips, so I was in heaven. I wish tulips bloomed year round.

From the arch I continued walking, because I was on a tulip high and the weather was still amazing. I walked all the way to Kievskaya metro station, it wasn't a short walk.

My cousin Tyra arrived the next day, on an earlier flight than I expected. I was excited that she was able to get herself to my school by herself, it saved both of us a lot of time. We took her bags home, then went walking to the university campus, I wanted her to see the tulips too.

We also went to the end of the landscaped area, because it is an overlook, and you can see the entire city. As expected, there were plenty of people out there with us, but who could blame them? The weather was amazing, and the whole world felt beautiful.

A couple mornings later I woke up early and convinced Tyra to go for a walk, just because we could. We went in the direction of the university, and found that all the tulips had been ripped out and barriers were being put up. We didn't know why, I only found out a few days later when I tried again and realized it was being set up as a fan zone for the upcoming World Cup football tournament.

That was all the time I spent around the city in May. I wonder if it will be any different next year?