The Great White North (this time, it's not Canada!)

Russsssssssshia (said in a pronunced Boratian accent). The land of surplus mullets, fur, and fringe bangs, where every step is monitored, be it from the Russian police officers who pompously stroll around town or by the hostel receptionist who demands to see hardcopy proof of every move you’ve made in the country.

Bev and I arrived in Moscow Thursday evening. We had our first language shock as we tried to get ourselves to the train station via the metro. With its different alphabet and peculiar sounds (shh, chhh, zhh), we were hopeless little lost bunnies. Throughout the course of the next few days, our strategies improved as we learned to take photos of metro maps, zoom in to our desired destinations, single out the one person who looked like s/he would be sympathetic, and with a big smile splashed over our faces, helplessly point to where we wanted to go. That usually did the trick, and Russians were surprisingly quick to direct us on the right course. We even often ended up with personal tour guides, who with strollers or beer cans in tow, would physically walk us to our end points. Lesson Number One: Russians may look a little fierce at first, but they are quick to lend a helping hand.

Waiting for our overnight train to depart, we hid from the bitter Russian cold in a diner-style restaurant next to the train station. Warming ourselves up on (insert name of really good Russian food, because I can’t pronounce anything for the life of me), we had many surprise encounters with Russians. I’m not sure if it was the anxious reviewing of Russian words we were doing or the stark double sight of an African and a brunette, but something seemed to scream to the world that we were foreigners. So, one by one or two by two, Russians would discretely sit themselves next to our table, eventually mustering up a reason to approach us and spew out all five English words they learned in elementary school. That was all fine and dandy until we got to the last random Russian who really insisted that I listen to some incomprehensible Russian love song on his MP3 player. That was cool… for the first ten seconds. Then it dawned on me how peculiar and unsanitary it was to have some stranger’s headphones wedged in my ears. Moreover, there was no way I was going to be able to understand the depth - if there even was any, that is! - of the lyrics when half of them sounded to me like a baby gurgling underwater. So there the man went storming off, muttering words in Russian, blatantly offended by my disinterest in the compositions de l’amour of his people.

One 8-hour overnight train later and we arrived in St. Petersburg, former capital of Russia until after 1918 when Lenin thought it better to move the country’s focal point as far as possible from the European border (> to Moscow). Settling into our hostel, we happened across a strapping police uniform hanging up in the closet. Being the mischief-makers that we are, we closed and double bolted our hostel dorm room, and within a flash, we were hastily trying on the police blazer that appeared to have stepped off of a KGB catwalk.

St. Petersburg was a bit on the chilly side, but freezing fingers did not detract from its beauty. We toured the sites, from the Winter Palace to the Church of Spilled Blood (the History major in me was jumping off the walls at this point as I stood on the very ground where revolutions were sparked), then we opted for a restaurant where all we could do was close our eyes, point to a dish on the menu, and hope to an Eastern Orthodox saint that it would be a good one! (They all were, in fact). Our huge surprise of the night came as we were standing on the metro escalator, and all of a sudden I saw from the corner of my eye that Bev was hugging someone. Turns out this mystery of a person squeezed between Bev’s arms was EB, the only Wellesley girl studying abroad in Russia for the year, and chance had it that we would cross (metro) paths! So off we went with her to grab a drink at a local jazz bar with her fellow study abroad friends. I know I’ve said this a million and one times, but the world is a small, small place.

After some more sightseeing, we left for the train station again. This time, we were running a bit late, and ended up having to make a mad dash across busy St. Petersburg thoroughfare to make it to the station. Sweating profusely, with only one minute to spare, we made it on to our train, celebrating our victory in the Flapper-style restaurant coach with caviar and vodka. (We earned it).

While in Moscow, we stayed at Galina’s Flat, a homestay-type hostel owned and operated by Ukrainian babushka Galina and her many cats. On a bright Sunday morning, we surfaced from the metro stop, only to find one of many enormously wide boulevards (the Canadian in me noted the inefficiency of this layout being used in a cold country, where people should be squished as close together as possible in order to maximize warm electron circulation) separating us from the Red Square. Our only choice was to J-walk (or, Ж-walk, according to the Cyrillic alphabet). Once the traffic had finally thinned down, we made The Mad Dash – that is to say, a mad dash into the arms of a burly Russian police officer , who suddenly emerged from a booth, blowing a whistle and demanding to see our passports. From the tone of his voice and his relentless scolding of us, I could discern that he was not very pleased. Apparently, we were supposed to have used the underground tunnels for crossing. It also became clear (especially once a police car pulled up to the curb seconds later) that he wanted to haul us to the police station to sort out the penalizations there. As much as Bev and I wanted to work within the borders of the law, time was a-tickin’. We only had two full days in Moscow and there were many things to do and many people to see; we certainly did not have any time to spare on filling out administrative protocol paperwork. So, pulling out my handy black book of useful Russian phrases, I quickly found the “sorry” and “we are students” lines, causing Mr. Police Man to let us go with a reluctant wave of his hand (after that, I couldn’t help but slip in the “you are really nice” line in extreme thanks). Lesson Number Two: Russian police officers may look a little fierce at first, but they are quick to give up their battle if you manage to push the right buttons.

Off we went, more ready than ever to see Red Square. After passing by Lenin’s embalmed body and Saint Basil’s Cathedral (which, with its minarets that resemble upside-down Christmas ornaments, looks like it stepped off the set of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory movie), we headed for a delicious meal at a Uzbekistani restaurant.

After a jam-packed day of museum hopping, we ended our final day in Russia by having dinner with a group of alumni (+ co.) from UWC-USA. We were three generations (classes of 1999, 2001, and 2006), never having overlapped, yet we shared stories and memories galore. Lots of ruckus later, Bev and I taxied back to our hostel to find Galina and her husband Sergei holding our taxi for us. Lesson Number Three: Galina may look a little fierce at first, but she is quick to ensure that we catch our taxi to the airport. With no time to spare, Bev and I rushed up five flights of stairs, grabbed our belongings without even bothering to throw them into our bags, and off we departed, back to la belle France. I woke up at the end of the flight (a little annoyed that I had slept through the airline breakfast) baffled by all that we had pulled off in the short period of five days.