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Nothing like remodeling to get you out of your apartment. We had the floors sanded and refinished, and for that EVERYTHING had to be off the floors, including me. So we stuffed all the clothing and furniture into the fire stair, blocking it completely, and I got on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow.
But first, I had to have a foretaste of the scams to come. Everything in Russia is a scam, and if you’re new to the game you are the fresh bait. I went to get my ticket at the agency in New York, and they charge a $75 fee for my official letter of invitation They told me I would need a complete blank page in my passport for the visa they were going to sell me. My passport didn’t have any more blank pages, except three at the end reserved only for notes. These pages, as it turns out, are not official passport pages. Couldn’t they find a place to stamp somewhere? No. I had to go to the State Department and get an extra 24 pages sewn into my passport. But I was leaving in 11 days, and the passport with the new pages had to be back in the agency’s hands within a week of leaving, or my visa would have to be expedited, which would cost another $250. Fortunately, they said, they can expedite the page-sewing for me, for only $180. I said forget it.
I spent the next two days in the lobby of the State Department’s passport office. "This is how one should prepare for a trip to Russia," I thought. Forty eight hours of solid bureaucracy.
With 7.1 days to spare, I managed to deliver my passport (with the extra pages sewn in) to the agency and avoided the expediting fees. They weren’t too happy about that. They asked at what hotel I was staying in St Petersburg, and I said “Tolstovsky House,” which brought the entire office to a complete standstill, including the cute skinny girl whose attention I'd been trying to get anyway. “How do you know about Tolstovsky House?” they asked. I told them I have a friend in St Petersburg (i.e., they weren’t going to get any fees from me for booking a hotel). They frowned. My passport and visa came back to the agency about 14 hours before my flight. So much for Travelocity. But the people at the agency told me I should arrive at the airport at least three hours before my flight. Yeah, right.
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Getting There
The flight to Moscow was, in fact, a breeze. All my papers were in order. My vegan meal on the plane was delicious. Once I had cleared customs at Moscow Airport, I discovered that there were no signs in English and that it looked a lot like I was going to have to go to some other airport to get my domestic flight to St Petersburg. I went down to the taxi stand, where it was raining cats and frogs. There was no real taxi situation, just a bunch of guys hawking their services. One guy told that the ride to the domestic airport would be 800 rubles (about $28), and showed me a printed plastic-coated card of the “official” ride rates. I told him I’d pay 200, and he said forget it. I walked away and he said 400. I kept walking and he said okay. I got in the car, and that’s when my adventure started. It was raining hooves and antlers at this point, and the old putt-putt Russian car had no windshield wipers (no cars in Moscow have windshield wipers - they’d be stolen if they did). So we drove crazily and absolutely blindly, and it wasn’t long before we had covered the 8 kilometers to the other airport.
At this airport, there is even less English than at the International airport. And the rules are less clear. I managed to find the right place to check in and got on the plane with minutes to spare - no thanks to the travel agency. After too many hours of travel, I met my friend Dasha at the Saint Petersburg airport, where we bargained with several cab drivers before finding one who would take us to town for a reasonable amount of money (basically, they all had to see if any other Americans had arrived from whom they could get more; when they saw there were no more people coming out, they decided to take our offer).
Saint Petersburg
Ah, the Toltovsky House, located very near the Nevsky Prospect (the main street in town), is no luxury hotel. The strange thing about Russia’s economy is that everything is really quite affordable except hotel rooms. The town, as usual, was pretty much sold out, unless you wanted a $1200/night suite at the Grand Hotel. In fact, my room was fine, but it was more like a relatively clean apartment than a hotel. The woman who checked me in spoke no english, but she happily took my passport for the next 24 hours. For a fee, she would register me with the government. If you arrive in Russia and don't register, the KGB come looking for you, so you need to register, and (surprise!) that costs money.
In addition, no one drinks the tap water in Saint Petersburg, because it carries giardia. Not even the locals drink it without boiling first. This is mostly true in Saint Petersburg, not elsewhere in Russia.
I spent four nights in Saint Petersburg. For three of them, my friend John from London joined me. So Dasha played tour guide to David and John, and the weather was gorgeous. It was cold – just a few degrees above freezing – but very sunny and beautiful most of the time. Saint Petersburg is a charming city, complete with canals and old stone mansions. My goal was to spend my birthday (September 17th) in the Hermitage Museum, which was of course closed that day. But we spent both the 16th and 18th there, and I saw probably 80% of the public rooms. It was great just spending that much time in the three main buildings that make up one of the world’s largest museums. You'll see in our photos that the three of us had a great time.
A few months before, I had seen “The Russian Ark,” a truly remarkable film shot entirely in the Hermitage in one single take. To do this, the filmmakers had to invent new digital cameras, hire over 800 actors, keep thousands of lights and multiple sets hot, and roll with the punches as they steady-cammed their way through many of the main ballrooms and back rooms of the palace. It was a remarkable technical achievement, and the film is a joy to watch. I hope you’ll have a chance to see it. Learn more at
The single most amazing thing about the Hermitage is, of course, the museum itself, built over centuries with rooms made of different elements and stones and miraculous ceilings and floors and decorations. But I want to mention that their fine collection of 20th century paintings, which I found breathtaking. They are deep in Monets and Matisses, and Gauguins and Renoirs. It was such a pleasure looking at many of these paintings I’d only seen in books. Even though I was tired I went back and saw them several times.
Oh, I love to be in Russia and try to learn what the letters mean and discover that a sign that was before incomprehensible says PEPSI. I figured out enough letters to go around saying all the words I could in a strong Russian accent, which Dasha enjoyed. The alphabet looks like something recently barfed out of a Cuisinart full of Greek and Roman letters, but in fact the Cyrillic alphabet has been around since the 9th century. I was so surprised at how many signs I understood once I could read some of the letters – they were very often their English counterparts. For example, MY3EN (with the “N” backwards) says “MUSEUM”.
I looked all over the city for a cool t-shirt with Russian letters, but no dice – all the clothes I found were either from companies you’ve never heard of, like Polo, Levis, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Versace, etc. Or they were knock-offs of same.
The street life in Saint Petersburg is very animated. There is the 20-year-old girl who rides her horse on the sidewalks of the Nevsky Prospekt, talking with her friends, smoking cigarettes, and giving rides to any tourists who ask. It’s strange to hear the hoof-clops in the underground passageways where people clog through on their way home from work. The people walking on the street could easily be Americans. Except for the shoes and the cheap leather coats, I’d say only about 30% of the people have the round-face eastern look and the rest could be residents of Pittsburg.
I feared the food situation, but in Saint Petersburg you can get everything, and sushi and pizza are plentiful and good. John took me to Viktor Sushi for a lovely birthday dinner. I took Dasha to a beautiful Indian restaurant called Swagat, way out of the center of town, where we had so much food that I asked if she wanted to take the rest home in a bag. She told me Russians never do this. I discovered a vegetarian non-dairy dumpling called a pelmeny, which I ate gladly whenever I was in a Russian restaurant, like the literary Café Idiot. Russians love creamy food – most lunch places are smorgasbords of creamy salads and whips and sandwich toppings.
The Russian people fall into three classes: homeless, poor, and extremely rich. The homeless I’ll discuss in a second. Most people are poor. The average person earns about $40/month and subsidizes his income with anything he can get. Want a taxi? Just put out your hand and several private cars will stop. You negotiate a fixed fee for going to your destination before getting in. It wasn’t long before I knew how many rubles to propose to a driver for a given distance. And then there are the rich. There is no demand for an $80 bottle of champagne in Russia. But the $400 bottles they sell regularly. The people with money in Russia have unlimited amounts of money.
And guess which group the police fall into? Cops make about $40 a month, so they make a game out of accosting tourists and shaking them down for money. I was told they probably wouldn’t let me go without a payoff – I’d end up at the police station waiting until I managed to pay my fine. They ask to see your papers and say they are no good. And they help each other out. The police station must be basically a place where white tourists are brought in, money is shaken out of their pockets, and the cash is split between all the players before the tourist is allowed to go. I kept an eye out for the men in blue and crossed the street to avoid them.
We spent a lot of time walking and jogging the canals, bridges, and back streets. It’s a charming city, and there are treasures everywhere. The “Church of Blood” (as Dasha calls The Church of Spilled Blood) was empty and closed for years, but has recently opened after a many-year restoration. It’s amazing, with its many onion-shaped towers and fanciful decorations.
Julia
I was walking to the Church of Blood one day when a small girl named Julia (pronounced "Yulia") came to me and held my hand. She was about 5. She was dirty, brown-eyed, and homeless, and she reached in and grabbed my heart. After two seconds of hand holding, I was ready to sign the adoption papers. She wanted money for food (she showed by putting fingers into her mout). Her brother and sisters nearby came at me for money. I let her hand go and we went on (I never give money to panhandlers).
That night I fantasized about offering her mother cash and taking her home with me. I decided that you can’t take a child who isn’t an orphan unless you are willing to take the entire family. But I couldn’t get Yulia out of my mind. The next day I went to the same place and waited. They came – three sisters, ages 5 – 9, and a small brother, about age 4. I spoke with them. They were very dirty. They all had some sort of skin infection and showed me scabs on their collar bones, elbows, and rib cages. They were Kazakhs – members of the gypsy underclass. I asked about their father. They indicated he was dead. I asked about their mother. They said she was home. I asked where they lived. They pointed. I was thinking about taking Yulia through immigration and getting her to a doctor in New York when a white man ran up to them and shouted: “Where is my camera you weasels!? Photoapparat!!!” The kids scattered. They had seen angry people before, and they had probably taken his camera. But they were too fast for him. He chased but it was useless. Gracefully, they vanished.
I went back the next day to look for Julia, but she wasn’t there.
One night John and I found a real traditional restaurant and had a lovely meal. The pianist played various inspired pieces. And then for dessert several of the Russians got up and danced to his campy music. They were slightly drunk, but the men actually crossed their arms in front of their chests and did the Cossack dance with style. There were polkas and oom-pahs and all manner of folk dances, which became more animated as the pianist played faster and the locals got drunker. I later learned that this place is mostly a tourist trap, and I suppose that those people were encouraged to come provide some entertainment for the European clientele.
It’s time for me to admit that Saint Petersburg is probably the best city in the world for admirers of thin women, and I am one of them. For some reason, the genes here produce girls who can walk through the narrowest of doorways without having to turn sideways. I often believe that I can recognize a woman from Saint Petersburg on the streets of New York by her style of clothing and her hips. If I don’t have any luck in New York, I should probably come to Saint Petersburg to meet my future wife (cheaper than getting therapy).
To Moscow
The fifth night I took an overnight train to Moscow, which was full of strange dreams and waking to pee in the middle of the night. I arrived early in Moscow and it didn’t take long before I noticed the difference. Moscow is to Saint Petersburg as Los Angeles is to San Francisco. It’s gray, cement, has lots of traffic, and the Internet connections are good. Moscow may be sophisticated but it lacks charm in large quantities.
But. If you’re a fan of modern painting, you have your work cut out for you. The New Tretyakov Gallery has a huge collection of suprematism, cubism, and Russian Avant Garde. While most tourists prefer to see Russian Icons or the art of the Tsars, I spent most of a day here gawking at paintings and sculptures I’d only read about. Here is Chagall, Malevich, Kandinsky, and even El Lissitzky! This is the birthplace of idealism in modern art – the chance for art to lead the world into a new century, a new beginning, a new way of seeing, living, and expression. Boy, did that not happen. But the paintings are the blueprints to this society that was never built, and I will go back and look at them over and over because you can’t get anywhere without a vision and people to inspire you. I’m glad that, unlike their nuclear weapons or their weaponized smallpox virus, the Russians have set aside enough money to protect their art. In the end, it may be more valuable – I wouldn’t want to see El Lissitzky in the hands of an evil terrorist!
The weather was decent, so I walked a lot. I covered much of the town on foot, even straying into a very local farmer’s market, where men sat on the backs of trucks dispensing sacks of potatoes and using an abacus to add up people’s bills. I stayed at a nothing fancy hotel. If I go back, I’ll stay at the Hotel Ararat – it’s in the right location, near the Kremlin. I saw many of the usual things one is supposed to see in Moscow, and they didn’t do that much for me. I don’t really have to go back to Moscow, except that I did meet a very nice woman there who works at an art gallery, and we had two lovely dates. But maybe the things I like from Moscow will come to New York, and then I won’t have to go back at all. Are you listening, curators of the Met and MOMA?
Time to go back and finish my remodel. It’s about 7am. I take the taxi to the airport. I pay the guy, get out, and head for the door. I am 15 feet from the door at the airport when a cop grabs me, spins me around, and says “passport.”
This guy speaks no English. I tear away from him and head for the entrance. He chases me down and grabs me. We are standing in the doorway. He’s not going to let me go. He says “PASSPORT!” The other cops are watching. For some idiotic reason, I hand him my passport. He looks at it and says “Nyet, nyet, nyet.” He speaks in Russian about how my papers are in terrible shape and I am in big trouble. He tells me I’ll have to go to the police station with him and I’ll be put in a cell and sodomized by other ruthless American tourists whose passports are also derelict.” I don’t make eye contact. I put my eyes on the ground and shake my head, saying “I don’t understand.” He tries again. I keep wagging my head. It’s a standoff. I’m patient. He looks around, sees the other cops watching. He tries again. I don’t move. People go past us with their luggage – some of them probably Americans with passports. He’s losing opportunities. I’m not budging.
Finally, he gives up, hands me my passport, and I dash into the airport, stand in the wrong line for security, stand in the wrong line for my flight, and I ask the nice Aeroflot lady where the flight to New York is. She has no idea. I ask for the manager. She has no idea. She is shaking her head back and forth, looking at the ground. I tell her I just want to know where to go to get my flight to new york! She looks at the ground and wags her head no. I start to raise my voice, asking for a manager. No manager, nyet, nyet, nyet. I start to yell. She’s not budging. Other passengers are looking at me like I’m losing my opportunity to yell at several other Aeroflot people. Finally, a passenger in line tells me I’m on the wrong side of the airport, that I have to cross the lobby and go through security again.
If you go to Moscow, always go to the airport at least three hours before your flight.
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