Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Voyage on the Volga

So, it has come to this again.  Another blog post.  About the myriad goings on in the Mother Land.  If perhaps a bit delayed.   

 More than a month ago, we filter in to the metro stop each on our lonesome, dragging behind us our baggage in preparation for a week on the small water-bound craft that would glide us from Nizhnij Novgorod all the way to Volgograd.  But before all of that, there is another plotskart  adventure.  After our gathering at the surprisingly mobile amount of luggage, we made our way up in to the train station, and ambled our way on to a train.  And I prepared myself for another Russian Train plotskart experience:  strange stains, unfathomable smells, and the possibility of there being instead of a toilet, just an open hole in the bathroom compartment.

And then something amazing happened.  This was bar-none the best Russian train I have every been on (well except for the beautiful high-speed Sapsan (but those are far more expensive)).   The bunks were almost entirely clean.  It didn't smell like the inside of the corpse of a mammoth found in Siberia under the ice.  And most of all it wasn't as hot as Satan's footbath.  And almost immediately after boarding the train, I pass gently into a deep dreamless sleep.

Some 12 hours later, we arrive in our city of departure: Nizhnij Novgorod, which previously had been known during the soviet period as "Gorky".  Gorky was a closed city to all foreigners during the USSR as it held within its borders numerous "tractor factories", which as we all know really means "tank and missile factories".  Gorky was named also for the, in my opinion, mediocre writer who became the archetype on which much of the soviet socialist realism style (re: mandate) of writing was based.

We spend a few hours in the N. Novgorod train station under and enormous 50 foot mosaic of the eponymous character from Gorky's "Mother" while we wait for the other groups from Saint Petersburg and Vladimir to join us.

Nizhnij Novgorod is a fine city, I mean, it's to Velikij Novgorod (amirite), but it is fine.  Reasonably large.  And it has a very nice kremlin.  To those of you who do not know Russian, kremlins are fortresses in almost every Russian city, not just synecdoche for the Russian government that is adjacent to Red Square.

Of course, in traditional Russian style, as we are looking around the Novgorodian Kremlin, it starts to pour.  And we briskly return to our bus.  And after an hour of sitting on a bus and desperately driving up and down the river port side of the city, we finally find our boat: The Anton Chekhov.    

As it is still raining at this point, we run from the bus, luggage in tow, climb the series of gangplanks, and pile in to the lobby of our home for the next week.

The Department of Transportation of Russia has the right to commandeer any spaces on any form of transit within Russia if they need to transport officials, troops, and so forth to any location that transport was already headed.  And of course, many (but not all) of our rooms on the boat were so requisitioned for the part of the cruise from N. Novgorod to Kazan.  The director of the Petersburg, bless him, decided to take the hit, and the Peter kids were volunteered to take a bus and meet us in Kazan the next day.

After no little amount of schadenfreude directed to those poor Petersburg people, my two roommates and I deposit our belongings in our cabin, and return out in to the city for the 3 hours of free time we have before the boat will leave us behind.  Because, really, we are going to be on that boat a lot, and there is much more city to discover.

First order of business: I, of course, forgot something: a toothbrush.  So I set off in search of an Apteka where I can find one wayward mouth-cleaning device.

While walking, I and the 5 others who decided to accompany me found an enormous set of stairs which lead from the banks of the Volga up to the crest of the river valley, where sits the kremlin, as where else would you put your fortress but the top an easily defensible giant hill (and I am not being ironic, (for once) it is a spectacular place to put the kremlin).  Anyway, I see a statue at the top of this staircase, and assume it is actual size.  "That statue isn't that far away", I say, "we should race up the stairs and the first one to hit the Statue on the butt wins."

So, in what is possibly my largest mistake (that day), I and three others race up the hill.  This was a bad, bad plan.  It turns out the statue is some 7 times human size.  And on top of a pedestal.  By the time we reach the top I feel like my chest is about to explode.  And I didn't win.  Not even close.

After catching our breath for a half an hour, I finally find an Apteka and retrieve my beloved new molar scrubber.  And then get some 7 ruble ice cream.  The best ice cream in Russia is almost always the cheapest.  Also, it is perfectly normal to in ice cream any time.  90 degrees?  Sure.  40 degrees?  yeah pretty much.  -15?  Hell yeah.  Ice cream is awesome and unlike Americans, Russians are willing to partake anytime.

Eventually it is time to return to the boat, and depart on the first leg of our trip.

Time on the boat is mostly spent in transit.  We also have 3 lectures a day, as this is not a vacation, but is actually still a part of the academic program.  Evenings are spent either sitting in the boat's bar.  Or sitting on the frigid deck.  Or sitting in your tiny cabin. Or sitting in the boat's bar.

The first stop is Kazan. And I loved this city.  Unfortunately, I got up an hour earlier than I needed to.  But the advantage of this was to be able to watch the sun rise on the Volga as the ship traversed a lock.

Kazan is the center of Tatarstan, which is a republic within the Russian Federation.  The Kazan Kremlin has both churches and a mosque within its walls, which is honestly something I'd never think I would see in Russia.  Also, a tower from which a princess betrothed to Ivan the terrible jumped to her death.  The legend goes that the princess was being pursued by Ivan, so she made a deal.  If Ivan could built the tallest building in Russia in one week, then she would marry him.  So, using that beloved autocratic Russian power, Ivan Groznij built a tower out of bricks in the allotted time.  The princess subsequently climbed said tower and went split-splat on the ground below.  Well... the actual legend is that she turned in to a bird and flew away... And that is absolutely what happened.

After perhaps 4 hours in Kazan, we are reunited with a Petersburgian Brethren, and we have to return to the boat in order to make it to the next city on time...

The next city being the spectacular city of Ulyanovsk, or as it should be called, LeninTown.

Ulyanovsk is a giant, creepy, city-sized shrine do our dear Uncle Vladimir Lenin.  Hey look, it is Lenin's birth house.  Hey look, it is Lenin's Dad's school.  Hey look, it is a museum to Lenin.  Hey look, look is is Lenin's first apartment.  Hey look, it is another museum to Lenin.  Hey Look, there is a statue of Lenin.  No, not that one.  The other one, over there.

Though, while there, in one of the Lenin Museums, I saw "the hat".  If you've ever seen a photo of Lenin, you've probably seen him wearing a hat.  The Hat.  I'm sure you know what I mean.

I could not leave Ulyanovsk too soon.

The fourth city of the week was Samara.  I found this city rather unremarkable.  We went to go see and wander around a bunker that Stalin never went to.  It was supposed to be his command center if Moscow had been taken during World War Two.  But as we all know, that never happened.  So the bunker just sat idle until someone decided it would be a great tourist trap.

Saratov is the next city we drifted through.  Again... I really don't have anything to say about this city.  It was... a Russian provincial city.  Lots of statues of sturgeon though.

The final city on the cruise was Volgograd, but you all might better know it as Stalingrad, the quagmire that stopped up the German Army and halted Hitler's advance on the Soviet Union.

The water of the Volga is too shallow for the Anton Chekhov to actually get near the shore of the city.  So we have to take all of our luggage, and pile in to a transport boat's steerage and scuttle our way to landside.

Volgograd is for a large part, a memorial to the war and more specifically the Siege of Stalingrad.  It is absolutely fascinating.  The world's largest statue of a female figure entitled "The Motherland Calls" stands at the center Mamayev Kurgan, a massive war memorial.  

After a few hours wandering around the city, we get on to a bus, and then a train that is slightly worse than the one we took from Moscow to Nizhnij Novgorod.  And then we begin the 20 hour (excuse me, 19 hour 55 minute) train ride back to the Capital.

The Anton Chekhov was filled to the brim with old people.  Germans, some Russians, Brits, and a few Australians.  Oh and 50 American college kids.  As you can imagine, these groups tended to clash.

For instance, my roommates and I had a lovely woman who complained preemptively about us listening to music too loud the very first day... at 5:30 in the evening... in anticipation that we were going to have a rager in our 10 x 7 cabin that evening.  She bashed on our wall regularly.  I am actually surprised she didn't break any osteoporosied hand bones as she did so.  But really, there were no insurmountable issues.    

Many times, I would just go on to the deck in the middle of the night and watch the tiny lights of the towns drift by us in the darkness.  Or make up new constellations from the very visible milky way that I soaked in while laying on my back.

The trip was exhausting.  And the fact we only spend a few hours in each city was frustrating.  But, I did see more of Russia in one week  than most Russians see in their entire lives.

Also, I will post photos when I get a more reliable internet connection.   

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