A City Reborn

I left Moscow early on the morning of November 7th, boarding an Aeroflot flight for Warsaw.  Two hours later we touched down in the Polish capital, quickly made our way to the hostel, and set off to explore the city.

There has been a city of Warsaw for approximately 800 years, but the current Warsaw is by every definition a new city.  Perhaps no country suffered as badly as Poland did during World War II, as it was abused by both the Nazis and the Soviets, and Warsaw is a perfect microcosm of this destruction.  Warsaw was destroyed by the Germans four separate times: once at the outset of the war during the infamous invasion in 1939, once during the Jewish Ghetto Uprising in 1943, once during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, and was leveled purely out of spite as the Red Army drew closer and closer to the city.  Following the war Poland was firmly behind the Iron Curtain, its citizens subjected to 45 years of communist rule.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, Poland was finally free, and Warsaw was able to be rebuilt the way her citizens wanted.  The entrance of Poland to the European Union in 2004 has only accelerated the growth of this new, young city as money comes pouring into the nation.  The EU has established two schools, two colleges of leadership to educate future leaders of the continent.  One is in Brussels, just around the corner from the EU headquarters, and the other is in Warsaw.  This gives a sense of where this city is heading.

Walking through Warsaw one gets the feeling of place that is slowly but steadily peeling off layers of communist grime.  There are many of the same housing blocks that are found in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, but the ones in Poland look better maintained, cleaner, and in many cases, renovated.  The streets don't have potholes, and gourmet coffee shops can be found on every corner.  New, sleek skyscrapers are rising with remarkable rapidity, and the city has a new metro system that is being rapidly expanded.  Comfortable buses and trams are everywhere, making transportation quick and easy, and the city has a general feeling of friendliness.  The biggest reminder of communist rule is the city's tallest building, the massive Palace of Culture and Science.  The building houses museums of natural history (the science) and movie theaters (the culture) as well as an observation deck.  Built in the Stalinist-Gothic style, it was Stalin's "gift" to the residents of Warsaw, and in gratitude, the people now refer to it as "Stalin's penis."  Apparently the Soviet secret police is no longer as fearsome as it used to be.

There are two distinct halves to Warsaw.  There is the ultramodern business district, described above, and the painstakingly reconstructed Old Town.  In the 1930s, the Old Town was one of the most happening places in Europe, but, as with the rest of the city, the Nazis reduced it to rubble.  It has now been meticulously reconstructed, brick by brick, and is now a charming place, filled with people, its winding cobblestone streets lined with stores and restaurants.  Everywhere are signs commemorating Frederic Chopin, the great Polish composer, who seems to be regarded as nothing less than a saint in his native country.  Tourists amble about, but the area is mostly occupied by Poles, simply enjoying their lives for the first time in what must seem an eternity.

A visit to Warsaw is not complete without paying one's respects to the millions who died there at the hands of the Nazis (Jewish and others alike).  The remarkable story of the tragic Warsaw Uprising is documented extensively at a brand new museum on the west side of the city, and is doubtlessly worth the price of admission.  Nearby is the enormous Jewish Cemetery, which contains countless graves as well as some touching reminders of the Holocaust.  To the northeast of the cemetery is what is left of the old Jewish Ghetto.  Nothing, really is left, but a massive memorial next to the construction site of a new Jewish Museum which promises to be open in 2011.  Leaving the monument, one can follow the half-meter high black stones, each inscribed in Hebrew, several blocks north and a block over to the simple monument at the Umschlagplatz, where the Nazis used to load the Jews onto cattle cars for the one way trip to Auschwitz.  It's a staggering and humbling site, one that nearly reduced me to tears upon reading the inscriptions.  Perhaps not the best material for a vacation, but sites that everybody, everybody in the world, needs to see regardless.

In my mind, Warsaw invites inevitable comparisons to Saint Petersburg.  Although Warsaw suffered worse, both cities suffered a devastation during the war that is difficult for Americans to imagine.  Yet today, they are cities headed in seemingly opposite directions.  Warsaw is a vibrant city of the future, a capital of the new Europe and a focal point of the European Union.  Saint Petersburg has also progressed beyond the war and its communist days, but that progress seems far more deliberate, as the city (and indeed, all of Russia) seems somewhat trapped in its own past.  Warsaw celebrates its past and honors its tragedy, but it nevertheless continues to stride forwards, embracing the future.

Heart of Russia

Myself and my fellow CIEE students were granted a much needed week off this past week, and our vacation started with a group trip to Moscow, the historic Russian capital.  We left Saint Petersburg on the midnight train to Moscow (there has to be a blues song in there somewhere) on Thursday night, arriving in Moscow early Wednesday morning.  After a quick breakfast, it was off on a bus tour to explore the city.

I have come to know Saint Petersburg quite well in the past few months, and it is a fairly user-friendly city (user-friendly for Russia, anyways).  Most of the action is concentrated in a fairly narrow strip of the city, and one can walk to and from most of the major landmarks in a reasonable amount of time.  It does sprawl somewhat, but nevertheless remains a manageable city, one quickly learned and mastered.

Moscow is no Saint Petersburg.  Moscow is defined by its sprawl.  I am a New York native, yet Moscow felt far larger than any city I have ever been to before.  Everything in Moscow is BIG.  The metro system is enormous (and lavishly decorated), the roads are all about 8 lanes wide, and the population is north of 10 million.  It is officially the largest city in continental Europe, and it certainly looks and feels the part.

Despite the vast scale of the city, it feels somewhat empty.  To be sure, it covers an enormous area, but much of that seems to be empty space.  Pedestrian friendly areas (aside from Red Square) are difficult-to-impossible to find, and after 48 hours in the city - admittedly a very short time - I still have no real sense of the place.  To be sure it has its fair share of cultural attractions: the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum, Moscow State Historical Museum, Lenin's Tomb, St. Basil's, the Kremlin...the list goes on.  But everything is spread out over such a huge distance that Moscow feels less like a city and more like a series of connected neighborhoods, somewhat like Los Angeles.  Indeed Hollywood kept coming back into my mind as I toured the city.  Everything in Moscow is a facade, meant to impress.  Moscow is home to the largest cannon in the world (but it was too big to actually be fired) and the largest bell in the world (too big to mount and be rung).  Glitzy cars and billboards are everywhere - there is a Ferrari and Maserati dealership just across the street from the Douma (Parliament) building.

To be sure, Red Square is an awesome sight.  As with everything else in Moscow, it is enormous and thoroughly intimidating, especially when one considers the history of the place.  Touring the Kremlin was also a special experience, but due to time constraints the weekend felt more like a blur than anything else.  Getting to know Moscow, getting to really know Moscow, is something that would take considerable amounts of time.  Unlike other cities, I'm not sure I would be willing to devote such time to it.

If you are going to Russia, go to Saint Petersburg.

  

Amusing Encounter

Recently, when walking on Bolshoi Prospekt, the main avenue on Petrogradskaya (my home island), I was stopped by a middle-aged British tourist asking for directions.  He didn't know any Russian, but he didn't know that I am an American - he merely assumed that I was any other Russian walking down the street.  Proud that I had been mistaken as a Russian, I played along.  Our conversation went something like this.

Him: "Hello there, can I ask you a question?"

Me (speaking in Russian): "Yes."

Him: "Wonderful!  I'm looking for the nearest metro stop, do you know where it is?"

Me (continuing to speak in Russian and increasingly amused): "Yes."

Him: "Can you speak English?"

Me (replying first in Russian, then in English): "Of course (Russian)......of course (English)."

I went on to inform the gentleman as to how to get to Sportivnaya metro station, deliberately using simple words in an attempt not to show my true colors.  Didn't work.

Him: "You speak very well...your accent..."

Me: "Thank you very much..." (and at this point trying my best not to crack up)

Him: "Are you from New York?"

He had me.  I acknowledged that I was indeed from New York, and we spoke briefly about why we were respectively in Saint Petersburg.  I wish now that I had asked for his name and email address so that I might send him the link for this blog.  20/20 hindsight is a bliss, but in lieu of having neglected to obtain his contact information, I'll have to settle for hoping he somehow stumbles across this website.  Impressed as I might have been with myself for being mistaken for a Russian, I was even more impressed with him so quickly identifying me as from New York.  For while I am from a New York suburb, I don't believe I speak with a truly distinct New York accent, but rather with a fairly stereotypical northeastern accent.  Do I?

At any rate, Sir, whoever you are, I hope you enjoy your time in Saint Petersburg!

48 Hours in Estonia

This past weekend was one of the three big trips that CIEE has planned for this semester, and may in fact be the most interesting of the three.  The plan: leave Saint Petersburg on a bus early Friday morning and make for the Russian - Estonian border, and from there on to Tallinn, capital of Estonia, where we would spend two nights before returning to Saint Petersburg late on Sunday night.

Estonia has been under Russian/Soviet control for much of the past several hundred years.  The country was one of the primary battlegrounds between Sweden and Russia during the Great Northern War for Baltic supremacy (Peter the Great's time), and was swallowed up by the Soviet Union leading up to World War II.  As such, Estonia has only been independent for a short time.  It is now a member of the European Union and is a progressive, rapidly modernizing nation that is a delightful mix of the old and the new.

Tallinn is not a big city.  It covers an area that feels to be roughly the same size as White Plains, New York - though with a larger population (400,000).  The skyline is nothing if not eclectic, with an intriguing mix of ancient church spires and modern skyscrapers.  While Tallinn does possess a modest public transportation system, it's necessity - at least for tourists - seems lacking at best.  The heart of the city can be crossed by foot in under fifteen minutes, and wide sidewalks, bright street lights, and friendly drivers make walking in Tallinn an attractive proposition.

Indeed, everything about Tallinn is friendly, which is especially jarring after several months in Russia.  The Estonians, or at least the ones we interacted with, were all smiling and cheerful, happy to help in any way possible.  Virtually everybody spoke English, and nearly every sign had English, Russian, Estonian, and often other languages as well.  Not to imply the Russians are not a happy people, because that's just not true.  The Russians are a wonderful people, but they can often seem aloof or cold in the initial encounter.  Estonians are openly friendly, and this was like a breath of fresh air.

Tallinn's Old Town is the historical, cultural, and social heart of the city.  It's a charming collection of cobblestone streets situated around a large central square.  Closed to motorized vehicles, the Old Town has a storybook charm common in many European towns and cities.  Although there's not a huge amount to do in Tallinn from a traditional tourist standpoint, it is the perfect place to turn a large number of 20-something year olds loose for a weekend.  Bars and restaurants line the streets, many offering discounts.  Hundreds of like-minded people can be found roaming the streets even at 2am, and the city - or at least Old Town - never feels unsafe.  Although the weekend in Tallinn included tours of the historical heart and some of the points of interest outside the city center, the highlight of the weekend was undoubtedly simply enjoying the city's social life with a group of friends.  At the end of our second and final night in Tallinn, we bought cups of hot, spiced wine from a street vendor and toasted the city and its people from an excellent vantage point overlooking Old Town.

Despite the marvelous time on the town, perhaps the most sticking part of the weekend was a line delivered by one of our Estonian tour guides.  When asked what the average income was for an Estonian, she answered it was approximately $1,000 per month.  She paused briefly, then continued: "No, it's not much money.  Life can be tough sometimes, but that's okay, we are just happy to be independent, to be free."

Amen.  

Half-Mile Marker

It has been some time since my last post, and for this I apologize.  My family visited me in Saint Petersburg last week, and the experience was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the semester so far - even if they monopolized my time and kept me from writing.  Tut tut tut.  But if you're reading - and I know you are - it was truly a pleasure to see you, and it's always wonderful to experience things through new eyes.  I regret to say that having walked past the Winter Palace countless times it has started to blend in to the landscape a little bit.  That all changes when with a first-time visitor to the city.

Today marks exactly two months before I board the plane to New York by way of Helsinki, and while I am actually slightly more than halfway through the program, this seemed like an appropriate time to reflect on the last two months.

Where to start?  Any discussion of my time here has to begin and end with my host family, and they have simply been wonderful.  Welcoming since Day 1, they have done nothing but make me feel like a member of the family. Elena, Andrei, and Nastia are simply some of the kindest people I have ever met - in any country.  And to them I am truly grateful.

Russia itself remains something of a mystery to me.  This should not be surprising, given how Russia herself doesn't really know how to define itself, and it has a 1,200 year head start on me.  But I'll catch up.  Maybe.  As I've written before, Russians are cold and aloof on the street, yet warm, cheerful, and welcoming in their homes.  The very same little old lady who berates you for the color of your shoes (yes, this has happened to me) can be seen just a few minutes later offering some candy to a child (I stuck around to watch - the candy was not poison, at least not the fast acting kind).  Russians love their country, yet they know and understand its flaws.  They want change, change for the better, but many are unwilling to sacrifice to achieve that change. It is a country, that I fear, could face significant upheaval in the years to come.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the middle class shrinks everyday.  Something will have to give sooner or later, especially as the generation born since the end of the Cold War matures and begins to take its place among the leaders of the nation.  In 30 years, I would be shocked if Russia looks anything like it does today.

Saint Petersburg is as much a mystery as the country.  Stunning vistas come naturally to the city, it's uniquely colored buildings giving the impression of a festive atmosphere.  Saint Petersburg parties as hard as any city in the world, but the city largely shuts down after midnight, driving most of the parties indoors and out of sight.  It's a city that wants very much to be like Paris or any number of other great European capitals, but as my brother stated, it feels closer to New York with it's long wide boulevards and spread out landmarks.  The one-time playground of the Tsars is now home to fabulously expensive shopping and luxurious restaurants, but just a few minutes away beggars sit on the street holding their hands out for change.  Of course this can be found in many cities, but in Saint Petersburg the difference seems even more jarring, perhaps due to the high standard of fashion many Russians adhere to.

This is not to make Saint Petersburg or Russia seem like bad places; on the contrary I have loved my time here (though not unequivocally).  Saint Petersburg is a wonderful city to study in, full of culture, music, and places to have fun.  It's a very student-friendly city, with a plethora of cheap restaurants, bars, and attractions.  But, as with every other place in the world, it is not flawless.

Now, with two months left to go, I have made two lists: highlights of the first half, and things to look forward to in the second half.

First-half highlights:

1. Family visiting from New York
2. Пышка - these are small donuts sold in eponymous bars for 10 roubles a pop.  Simply delectable.
3. Free/reduced admission to countless museums and attractions
4. Meeting many, many interesting people from across the United States - not to mention many Russians as well
5. Host family.  See above.
6. Peterhof and the fountains
7. My father mentioning something about "a few DaVinci's hanging around this room somewhere" in the Hermitage, right after we passed through a room full of Rembrandts (preceded by a rooms full of Rubens' and Van Dycks)
8. Black bread
9. Borscht
10. Blini

Things to look forward to:

1. Upcoming trips to Tallinn (Estonia), Moscow, Warsaw, and Vienna
2. Russian hipster party (there will be future entries on this, I promise)
3. Snow
4. Plenty of live music
5. Possibility of seeing "The Nutcracker" in Russia
6. Wearing my new flat cap everyday
7. KHL games
8. More time with the host family
9. Seeing that guy in the bear suit on Nevsky everyday
10. More time with friends there is a very real chance I will never see again
11. Coming home to New York  

An Abundance of Green

Russia's environmental track record is anything but exemplary - indeed the horrific forest fires that threatened Moscow this summer and destroyed much of the buckwheat harvest (causing kasha prices to skyrocket) can be traced back to poor deforestation and environmental policies.  Perhaps it is unavoidable for a country where the economy is built around energy, as Russia is unquestionably the largest producer and exporter of natural gas in the world, and ranks among the world's top three oil producers.  Fossil fuels are not clean (clean coal is a myth), and preserving the environment and exploiting those valuable resources is a delicate act - as we in the United States well know.  But this is not a political post (cue sigh of relief).  

No, this is about the green spaces of Saint Petersburg.  For when I arrived in this city, I was immediately struck by how green it was.  Parks litter the landscape of the city, and many are quite sizable.  Though the green is already starting to fade into a beautiful array of autumn colors and will soon give way to just the gray of the trees, the parks, the spaces themselves, will remain, and will remain as remarkable as ever.  

Saint Petersburg boasts a large number of lovely parks and gardens, most of them beautifully landscaped and maintained.  They are pleasant places to amble about, admiring the fall colors and enjoying the crisp autumnal air.  Unfortunately, what my guidebook describes as Saint Petersburg's "loveliest" park, the Summer Gardens, is closed until at least 2012 for major reconstruction, denying myself and my fellow students to enjoy it while are here.  

But no matter.  To the north of Petrogradskaya, the island on which I live, is a delta of smaller islands which are still within city limits.  The smallest of these is Yellagin Island, which in the absence of an accessible Summer Gardens, I will crown as the city's loveliest park.  The park is accessible only by foot, bike, or in-like skates: it is off limits for motorized vehicles.  It has an almost surreal quality to it, being an oasis of calm in the bustling metropolis.  In New York's Central Park you can enjoy the lush green fields, the zoo, and the tennis courts but can still see the towers of midtown Manhattan towering over.  Yellagin Island is much the same.  Though Saint Petersburg lacks New York's high rise buildings, while wandering along the shady paths watching the ducklings paddle to and fro on the island's network of ponds and streams you can still hear the sirens, the wails, and the general soundtrack of the city.

One of the most striking parts of Saint Petersburg is the abundance of palaces.  Seemingly every block has at least one palace, and while these run the gamut from the incomparable Winter Palace to relatively pedestrian looking buildings, a palace is still a palace, such buildings are inevitably impressive.  Yellagin Island is indeed home to one of the cities' many palaces, a handsome, understated building admirable for its elegant simplicity that fits the island's relaxed atmosphere perfectly.  It is not as flashy as many of it's counterparts in the city, but it's austere white exterior seems an ideal match for the lush fields and forests of the park.  

The day which I visited Yellagin Island was a chilly one, with a fairly steady breeze pushing temperatures into the lower 40s.  No matter.  I was content to find a secluded park bench and finish my book (see below), sipping a glass of hot apple cider and listening to a group of musicians play a haunting version of "Yesterday."  

Life is good. 

(As for the book - Don DeLillo's White Noise - it is strongly recommended.  DeLillo's prose manages the rarest of feats, being terrifying and hysterical at the same time.  Not to mention the book has perhaps my favorite line in recent memory: "It's the rainbow hologram that gives this credit card a marketing intrigue."  Don't ask me why I love this line, I can't explain it.  I think it's an electric bit of writing in a book full of electric moments.  An outstanding example of postmodern literature, it manages to be readable while retaining it's complexity.  If you haven't read it, then do so.  If you have read it, then...I don't know, try Gravity's Rainbow or something.)

  

Только СКА, только пробедa!

For the uninitiated, the title of this post translates to "only SKA, only victory" (phonetically spelled "toy-ko SKA, toy-ko pro-bieda).  This is the cheer chanted with great gusto by fans of Saint Petersburg's professional hockey team, СКА.  СКА plays in the KHL, the Eastern European equivalent to the NHL.

Last week I went a СКА game with a number of friends.  In full disclosure, this was my first professional hockey game.  I have watched my fair share of college games, but I am not really a hockey fan, so if you want to know about the quality of Russian hockey versus North American hockey, I cannot help you.  Suffice to say I was impressed with the athleticism of the players, and while I am a good skater myself, I cannot come close to what these guys do on the ice.

But enough about the hockey.  I was more interested in the crowd.  The game was played in the Ice Palace, a relatively young arena (finished in 1999) that comfortably seats about 13,000 fans, with nary a bad seat in the house.  The stadium has all the amenities one would expect of a modern arena, including instant replay screens, ear-splitting surround sound, and reasonably comfortable seating.  As with any stadium, what really gives this place its character is the fans.

I think it can be generally accepted that European fans, or perhaps sports fans across the world, are a bit more fanatical than American fans.  We Americans love our sports, a fact backed up by the space age arenas opening across the country, by the eye-popping revenues of the NFL, by the completely absurd salaries earned by our athletes, and by the national obsession that is March Madness (while we are on the subject of American sports, could the NCAA please please please put in a tournament system for college football?  Either that or dissolve Division I altogether.  I'd be okay with either.  See USC's current issues for why).  But despite the violence inherent with America's most popular sport, football, American fans do not approach the level of rowdiness inherent in European sports matches.  Sure, Fireman Ed may have shoved a drunk Giants fan out of the way during a pre-season game at the Meadowlands, but most fans just tailgate, cheer, boo, occasionally get tased for running on the field at a Phillies game, and go home without anything truly eventful happening.

Nothing truly eventful happened at this hockey game either, but it was a grudge match between Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and the Moscow fan section was surrounded by troops in riot gear.  These troops were not needed; the fans were loud and energetic, but not unruly.  I was impressed by the vigor with which they cheered; both the Saint Petersburg and Moscow fans had drums, cowbells, and other noisemakers, were waving flags, had coordinated chants and arm movements, and often looked more coordinated and better coached than the teams for which they were cheering.  Nevertheless, the presence of so many armed troops probably helped to deter the Moscow fans from doing anything truly disruptive.

The soldiers themselves proved to be more of an annoyance than the Moscow fans, as they were sitting in some of the seats that my friends and I had purchased.  Needless to say, asking a 200 pound soldier in body armor to get out of my seat didn't seem like the wisest course of action, and we engaged in a game of musical chairs in our section.  We'd sit down, wait for the proper owners to come back and ask us to leave, then look for other empty seats.  More of a nuisance than anything else, but still slightly aggravating.

But the game was still great fun, made all the more amusing by the fact most of the music played during the lulls in the game were American and British fight songs, music that is a staple at virtually every American sporting event.  "We Will Rock You," "Welcome to the Jungle," "Walk this Way," and "Get Ready for This" were all heard throughout the game, and I think my friends and I impressed the Russians around us by singing in perfect English.  If nothing else, hearing 12,000 fans screaming "we will, we will, ROCK YOU!!" in broken English with Russian accents was an experience in and of itself.

At the end of the day those dastardly Muscovites were sent home with a loss (final score: 3-2 Saint Petersburg), and we began to push our way out of the arena.  The Moscow fans were not allowed to leave their seats until the rest of the stadium had emptied, confined to their section and surrounded by riot police, presumably to prevent any fights from breaking out in the atrium.  I have no idea how long it took them to leave, but as a friend said, the last sight we had of them was in a circle of heavily armed and armored soldiers, and we never actually saw any of the Moscow fans actually leave the building...

You can draw your own conclusions.