Tag: WWII

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.

Sunday Morning

SDSpivey

I have visited all of the specific places that I had intended, or at least tried.

This is Sunday, so many things are probably not going to be open anyway. I’m going to take a light day, just find a nice park and watch the people.

But first, I made a count of my money, uh oh, I’ve spent faster that I should have. I have $557 in my wallet and head out to a currency exchange.

There is but a single teller, but no one else in line. I hand her my cash and specify I need rubles. She starts by going through and looking at the backs of each, removing a couple of twenties. Then inspects the fronts, discarding a few more and my hundred.

She then runs the rest under a UV light, nothing bad this time. She hands me the $180 and then the whole remainder goes into a mechanical counter. Twice. Pointing at the displayed total, I guess she said something about “is it right?” I just nod.

She then punches into a calculator, then turns it to me, I had done a quick exchange on my iPad app, it looks close enough, so I nod again. Apps do not give exchange rates, they only give average rates. If I were a huge bank making a transaction with another bank, I’d get better than what the app says.

My app said the 29,000 rubles is worth $334.92, so I lost about $2. I’ll just call that a transaction fee. Strange though how it came to such an exact even thousand amount. I thought I’d end up with some coins. I bet they always round down to the nearest 50 ruble.

After another count and calculation, I now have about 3700 rubles per day, way better than the 550/day I had a few minutes ago. Plus I still have the $180, so maybe another exchange will accept the bills.

Now food.
I am near my room, but I haven’t been in this location yet, so I start walking opposite to my arrival, seeking a restaurant.

Without a specified destination, I wander the streets. If a side street looks more interesting, then I turn, otherwise I go straight. Sometimes the best plans are to have no plan.

I see a blue dome over the rooftops, so I make a general aim for that, but without seeing it always, it is just a guideline, but I find it anyway.

It seems to be a church of some type, but it has two obelisks, made of cannons. Strange message for a peaceful organization. Perhaps it is a symbol to melt down all the world’s cannons.

The doors are closed, probably a Sunday service, but I hear nothing.

I remember seeing something while on the bus coming into town, a huge victory monument. That seems like something I should check out. Check the map, I ‘m only a few blocks from the metro. I exit and proceed to walk down the road, heading into an area that I already know has no lines. I will have to return the same distance no matter what.

If this isn’t a Soviet building, I don’t know what is.

There is a large round-about, over 6 major roads circulating, the memorial is in the center. The round-about must be 3 acres, the memorial is centered, clearly viewed by everyone who passes.

I see quite a few roadways in Saint Petersburg that have short tunnels for the pedestrian to cross busy roads. Fortunately, there is one here too.

It is some statuary, showing the brave soldiers who defeated the Nazis, all by themselves. Its not like any other

countries were in the war, right?It has a ringlike structure, with stairs descending. There are “eternal” flames along the inner ring. A door on the side leads me into a museum, highlighting some of the siege of Leningrad (the city’s name at the time). While not as bad as the siege of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), I remember hearing of it in school.

There are children grouped around, watching a film about the siege. Many artifacts are displayed around the walls and in cases in the middle.

A group of soldiers is here, whether on protection duty or just visiting, I don’t know. It is the largest group I’ve seen yet, maybe 25.

One section of the wall has, I presume, names of the fallen. Each end wall is covered in a mosaic mural, depicting the bravery and valor of the men.

Whatever you think about other countries, you need to remember most of the conflicts come from the governments. The ordinary people are the pawns who are required to go off and fight and die for the petty politicians, who are too inept to do anything themselves. The ordinary people are just trying to protect their own families.