Tag: Russia

Russians love…

SDSpivey

Some of the things I noticed repeatedly that it seems the Russian people must love are:

Red:

They have red on the flag, but also white and blue. Why don’t they care about those colors?

There are red store signs, red outfits, red trains, red everything.

The primary color of Aeroflot and Rossiya airlines both is red, the stewardesses have red uniforms. Although, I did notice the last flight I had, they had more of an orange-red shoes, but maybe the light was messing with my eyes.

This may seem to be a simple leftover from the Soviet days, after all the Soviet flag was primarily red, but I think it could have gone back all the way to the beginning. Rus may have originally meant “red.”

War memorials:

Just about everywhere I went, there would be an included WWII memorial to the soldiers. Nearly every park, no matter how small, would have at least a statue or plaque somewhere.

Parks:

Okay, everyone likes them, but they have so many. One park will abut another park.

They might just have the median of a road with grass, trees, and benches. Barely wider than having another lane.

Cobblestones:

Many streets and some sidewalks were made of cobblestones. Considering that they are just bricks that are made to be rounded on top, and could just as easily be flat, this seems ridiculous. Flat bricks would be so much easier to walk or drive on.

Big lips:

I saw hundreds of women everyday that have had lip injections. I thought this was just an American problem.

Not just to have some definition or get a bit plumper, but full on fish lips.

So gross.

Western styles:

I heard American pop and country music being played on radios and in stores. Not once did I hear any Russian singing, although I did hear some Arabic.

The restaurants are mostly American and European foods (if you exclude the kebab and schwarma stands). KFC and Burger King are rampant, as well as Coke and Fanta.

Shoes, clothing, and handbags are American and European brands. Interestingly, almost every brand is using the original Latin characters, not the Cyrillic that they are able to read. I’m not certain I saw any shirts with Cyrillic, other than work shirts. All “tourist”shirts were English, primarily American city names, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, or they were Disney merchandise. You know darn well they never went to any of those places, possibly don’t even know where the city is.

Bus to Russia

SDSpivey

As the bus arrived, the bus had windows all the way to the back, no sign of onboard toilet.

We all gather around shoving our bags at the driver to put underneath.

There was an old lady (a babushka) in front of me and the steps were high, so I tried to offer a hand up, but I think she thought I wanted to cut in front of her. I was trying to be a good Samaritan, but I should act like a normal Russian.

I was in the second row, but I was in seat #1. WTF were the seats in front of me called?

I had the pillow and blanket, still in the bag, from the flight. So I placed them against the window and tried to sleep. Mostly successfully, I didn’t see much of the Estonian country side.

About midnight, as we neared Narva, on the border, we made a few quick stops and some people got off.

Then we entered a heavily fenced area, with multiple swing gates, and parked. The driver got off, spoke to the border police and opened the luggage compartments. An officer came on board, took our passports, examining each against our photos.

After about 45 minutes, the officer returned and handed back our documentation.

The bus departed, and stopped again about 1000ft later, another swing gate. The driver got out and showed some paper, the guard made a phone call, then let us proceed.

I thought we were through, but that was just the Estonian side.

After crossing the river, we went through another swing gate. OK, now we’re good.

Nope.

We drove a bit further and then stopped at a building. We all exited the bus and took everything inside. Oh, I see metal detectors and baggage x-rays. Great, more dis-robing.

Once I reached the window where the guard was checking documents, she did not know English, but scanned my passport and visa, then directed me to go back and wait a few minutes. I guessed she need to get an English speaker to come out.

Another guard comes over and takes me to a back room. Oh, great, secondary screening. The bus is going to leave me, I just know it.

He didn’t know English, either, but used Google translate on his phone. Super sophisticated. I presume that there would be someone in the daytime or weekends that knew English, just not now.

He asked me “Do you have metal in your pockets?” Then had me pass through a metal detector and back again.

He asked for my phone which I provided and he wanted my password. I indicated I had none and just swiped up to open it to show him. I asked if he also wanted my iPad, but nyet, he didn’t. I was then told to go back through the metal detector and sit down, and I waited a while.

I had to remove my watch for the security check in the frantic run to catch my plane. I had not replaced it yet, so no idea how long it was, much I’m sure it was shorter than it felt. The only consolation was there was another man there sitting before I went in.

Finnally, he called me back in (before the other guy) and gave me back my phone and escorted me back out. Phew, no rejection. I presume he swabbed the phones for explosive or drug residue.

The scanners were simple, just place everything on the belt. Nothing to remove, not even my jacket. But I had all empty pockets already.

I rejoined the rest of the passengers and a few minutes latter we all re-boarded the bus and departed.

After one last swing gate, we really were in Russia. Time, just under two hours.

We stopped a mile further up, at a gas station. Where some of the passengers got off and departed.

Many more were getting off and going into the store. So I decided to follow.

The restroom was bright and clean, but good bye to comfortable toilet paper, we’re in Russia now.

Yes, this is the first chance I had to go since I was on the plane to Warsaw, about 10 hours ago. It felt so good. I know, TMI, but true never-the-less.

Still a long way to go still, I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. So I finished a TV episode on my iPad before trying again.

At about 3:30, I notice the light is starting to show on the horizon. It also did not get dark until 10pm in St Petersburg, which I think has something to do with the latitude and upcoming solstice.

The bus has a clock and a temperature display. It gets down to 5C (27F), but rises again as the sun comes up.

New (old) Trip

SDSpivey3 Comments

I will shortly be heading off to Russia, visiting the cities of Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad or Petrograd) and Moscow, the capital city.

Yes, it was 3 years ago when Mom and I went to Houston to get visas to go. That was before lock-downs and border closings and sanctions.

My itinerary will take me from Atlanta through Chicago and Warsaw, Poland, before landing in Tallinn, Estonia. I will then need to take a seven and a half hour bus ride to Saint Petersburg. I know, you are so jealous of me getting a long bus ride.

As Estonia is in the Schengen Area, I don’t need a separate visa to enter. So I will have a few hours to walk around their capital before getting on the bus. I don’t have any Euros, but I can use my credit card if I find anything worth buying (or rather worth carrying around for over 2 weeks). But because of the sanctions imposed by the US, no American credit, bank, or debit cards will work in Russia. Fortunately, I have Russian rubbles, that I got back before the lock-down screwed everything up.

A idea I had when I went to Italy, take bank envelopes and divide up the money I need for each hostel. This allows me to spend without worrying about not being able to have my room. Russia is too cold to sleep outside <brrr>.

After Moscow, I fly through Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey, and Frankfurt, Germany, before returning to Atlanta. In total, I will spend over 72 hours in transit.

Interestingly, I will go through Atlanta, Warsaw, Tallinn, Moscow, and Istanbul. Each is the capital of their country or state. Not planned, just worked out that way.

Houston, Texas

SDSpivey

Mom and I are meeting in the largest city of Texas, today. We are here to apply for travel visas for an upcoming trip in June, to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Originally, we were going to fly and meet up at the airport, then go to our AirBNB before hitting the consulate to apply for the visa.

A slight snag was found, we would arrive around 9am, but couldn’t check in until 3pm. Also, I found that an Uber from the airport into town was about $30, each way. Ah, a solution, I can rent a car. Then we have somewhere to stow our stuff while we’re at the consulate and give us a bit more freedom traveling around the city. So, I placed an order for a rental car, $140 for the three days we’d be here.

A few days ago, I was thinking (a dangerous thing, I know). I was going to be paying $30 to park my car at Orlando airport, plus the rental. It would only cost me about $100 in gas to drive to Houston and back. I really didn’t want to put that many miles on the car nor drive that many hours, but I just spent more than a week laying in bed sick. So I needed to reduce my spending a bit, plus I had over 30 hours of podcasts accumulated since I wasn’t in the car listening.

I canceled the rental car, but my flight was non-refundable, so I just had to eat that.

I left out from home on Sunday evening and turned on the Uber app with a destination of Pensacola. That served multiple points; I would only get requests going in the right direction, any trips were extra money, and I had plenty of time and distance so pickups would help break up the trip. I am only able to Uber in Florida, so Pensacola is the furthest destination I could do anyway.

Driving up US19, I saw an orange light up ahead. My thought was “that’s weird, it looks like fire.” As I got nearer, I could tell it was a fire, a decent sized one too, but why would someone have a fire that close to the road? As I approached, I could see that it was a truck on fire. The back end was almost on the ground, either the axle melted or it was lost somehow, causing the fire. Passing, I could feel the heat all the way across 4 lanes and a wide median.

There were already plenty of people there, so I didn’t bother reporting it. I’m sure someone already had. Still, I didn’t see any police officers until I was past Tallahassee, then I saw a lot. They are rampant on that part of I-10.

I had a plan to jump up and travel through Alabama a little, capturing a few counties I haven’t visited before, I did have plenty of time after all. But just as I was contemplating that, I did get an Uber request. I saw that it was a 78-minute trip south west. What? That would put us into the Gulf.

Nevertheless, I proceeded to the exit, and pulled into the parking lot of a small combo Burger King and convenience store. Strangely, I had been to this store before. I had previously picked up a man in Panama City Beach and taken him to the Merritt Island area and he had wanted to stop to get a drink or snack, I just picked that exit because it was the next one after he asked to stop somewhere. Out of all the exits on I-10, that just happened to be the one I picked.

The passengers, a truck driver and wife, got in and I saw the route was going south west down some back roads, but not into the Gulf, thankfully.

I took about an hour and 20 minutes to drop them off. I headed back towards the interstate, that took a while to go through the small roads back the the highway. I did a quick google map and saw that I was about 10 hours until I would arrive at Houston airport, where I needed to pick up Mom at 9am.

But my diversion cost me a bit of time and now I had to haul ass to get there.

I was pulling into Houston just as the sky was getting light, meaning I left in the daylight and now it was daylight again. I literally drove all night.

My plan was to get to the airport then crash out for an hour or so, but I had not accounted for morning traffic. I arrived at the airport at 7:40. I checked my flight tracking app, her flight was early, now scheduled for 8:30. Oh well, no nap for me. I went ahead and parked and went in to wait for her.

I found her and we went to find food. It was still early so many places were not open yet, but we found a Whataburger and ate in. Pretty good food, but also I was hungry.

We then headed to the Russian consulate. It was in an office building. The security guard took our information and printed out passes for us and instructed us on the elevator. We had to select the floor we wanted from the panel that then told us which elevator to use, there was no control inside, it would only got to the floor already selected.

The consulate office had a few people in it, but not too many. The agent informed us that we since didn’t have an appointment, we had to go to a different branch, but he went over our applications first, Mom needed another previous job to be listed, already had 20 years, but that wasn’t enough. I had my computer so I could have made the changes he wanted, but I had no internet yet and certainly had no printer, so we would have to pay extra for the visa agent to make the changes.

The other office was only down the street a bit, so no big deal. We went in and were able to see the agent right away. She took our applications and re-entered them into her system, asking a few questions along the way.

Total was $608, for both of us. That’s as much as 3 weeks of AirBNB in Moscow and St. Petersburg. There was a $28.83 charge for photocopy. We didn’t need a photocopy and she only copied my passport, not Mom’s.

Unfortunately, the approval process would take about a week, so we opted for the return by mail. I was not going to drive all the way back just to pick them up.

Since we were not getting them while we are here, we really don’t need to stay 2 more days, but Mom’s flight home can’t be changed and I’m too tired to drive home anyway, so we are going to stay.

The visa application took a while, so it was almost time for us to check into the AirBNB, but the app was giving me problems, I couldn’t load the check-in instructions. I was able to send a text to our hostess, and we got in and we both crashed out for a couple hours.

Originally, I had hoped the approval would only take a day or two, then we could book our flights to Russia, but we don’t want to buy a ticket if we can’t go, we have to wait.

It is a bit strange, we are having to do things in the wrong order. We have our rooms booked and now our visas applied for, but still have no flights. Normally, you’d book the flight and then rooms and then any visa you might need. Most country’s visas are not this difficult to get.