Kazan

I left Moscow at midnight on Saturday, July 19th, heading for Kazan in the Tatar region of Russia. Tatars are a moderate muslim people. I had contacted a Tatar man named Ravil, through couchsurfing, who had agreed to host me for one night in his city, and met me enthusiastically at the station platform around 1 pm on sunday. Rival was extremely pro-west and anti-russian, probably stemming from the fact that his father served 5 years in a KGB prison for 'unknown' reasons. Ravil had been to America 3 times, and had had such great experiences and received such warm welcomes there, that he tried his best to make my stay the best possible. However it ended up being a short one. I discovered that the train the following night was already sold out, and was forced to take the train to Novosibirsk at 2:30 am, only 13 hours after my arrival. Ravil is an active man, and had planned to go windsurfing in the lake near kazan, i refused the invitation to join him, and he dropped me off outside the Kazan kremlin after a brief stop for a traditional tatar lunch of 'triangles'. Basically, they were pastry dough filled with meat and potatoes and very delicious.
The Kremlin of Kazan has white walls, as opposed to the red ones in Moscow, making it look very beautiful in contrast to the clear blue skies. The highlight of the kremlin is the newly built azzure Mosque. It rose high above the kremlin walls, with it's 4 minarets and large dome. It was the first time i had entered a mosque, i covered my feet with plastic baggies, and had a walk around. Unfortunately, photos are forbidden. I continued on, next visiting the orthodox church, and finally the tower of ...? I guess i can check my guide book for the name. It was built by Ivan the terrible, supposedly, for his future wife, who upon it's completion, leapt from it, choosing death instead of a life with Ivan. After leaving the Kremlin, i walked past the beautiful St. Peter and Paul cathedral, then down the main pedestrian steet where i witnessed a large hari-krishna street celebration. Lots of singing and dancing in traditional krishna garb. At 7 pm, Ravil picked me up, and showed me his home. It was basically a wooden shack built by his great-grand father in the late 19th century. It had an outhouse! He raccounted that the local government had been trying to buy him out in order to use the land for development. But the offer had been to low, and was not equal to the value of the land, let alone the value of his family's history. He also told me that mysterious fires are often set to homes and businesses like his, and even that one of his neighbours had been killed in this fashion.
We then picked up a friend of his, sasha, and took a late night drive to famous monastery 3o km out of town. It was closed at the time, but the night guard was nice enough to let me have a quick look around. Next to the monastery is a beautiful lake and nature preserve. We then drove to a supermarket, so that i could get some supplies for my 38 hour train ride. One of which was a tatar snack called chak-chak, kind of like what cheez-doodles would taste like when the cheese is replaced by honey.
Ravil was nice enough to take me to my train, although it was past 2am, all the time telling me that i must come back someday to spend time hiking, camping and rafting with him. I hope i do.

moscow!

What can i say about moscow...hmm, seems so long ago that i was there. I stayed a week, which looking back may be too long for somebody not really interested in the city itself. However the stay was quite relaxing because my cousin (from calabria) rocco, is currently living and working there. He let me stay at his apartment, which is about a 20 minute walk to the red square and kremlin. My train pulled into the station at 4:30 am, right on time (get the hint italy!) and rocco was there to greet me after a night of clubbing russian style. He took me back to his pad, where i slept off the train ride. We got up around 1 pm and took a stroll down to red square. I've always loved the iconic picture of st. basil's church and it's onion domes...and to be greeted in the square by it was wonderful. If i recall, it was a cloudy day, and i kept doing 360 turns, st. basil's, the kremlin walls, the history museum, red square gate, GUM shopping center...fantastic sites surrounded me. Later on we took a walk to the main cathedral of moscow and met up on the riverside with natalya, a russian friend of rocco's who speaks italian. She was a really nice girl, who proposed an hour and a half cruise down the moscow river, a wonderful introduction to the city. The clouds broke and the trip was very relaxing as we went past the famous monuments. One of the more interesting was a tall monument of Peter the great standing over the river on 4 caravels. This made little sense as he was not a sailor, but the reason ws explained to me by natalya. It seems the original structure was to be topped by Columbus, not Peter, and was meant as a gift to the city of New York! The city however refused the gift, as they could not find a 'suitable' location for it. At the end of the trip we stopped to have some dinner at 'MuMu, and i was able to have my favorite Ukrainian dish...Vareniki! YUMM YUMM.
The next day was monday July 13 and Rocco was working, so i ventured alone to visit the kremlin. The cost to enter and visit the churches inside is about $10, but if you want to include a visit to the armoury, it came to $30!! Would it be worth it, i asked myself. After consulting the book, i decided yes, then kicked myself for not getting a 'student card', which i believe would have been possible even if i was no longer one, and would have given me a 50% discount. Upon entering the armoury, i hapily discovered that an audio guide came free with the entry ticket! It gave a 'quick' 90 minute explanation of the most beautiful objects in th museum. I should use a stronger adjective than beautiful however. This place was frickin' amazing! The crown jewels of england would gather dust here, i have never seen so many jewels in my life, infact i hadn't even believed this many jewels existed in the world. As i passed object after object, the audio guide kept informing me about ' the only...remaining in the world' or ' the only...ever made'. Crowns, clothing, thrones, etc. completely covered in diamonds, rubies, eneralds, etc. The most elaborate and gorgeous Faberge eggs ever made. Silver dining sets with elaborate designs of dragons, lions, etc. Original 17th century royal carriages of every design. My favorite piece was an silver incense burner in the form of a castle in a mountain, with the smoke from delicious oil emanating from towers and caves that would be used a centerpiece before and after dinner. Let's just say that I quickly felt the $20 fee was worth it! After 2 hours in the armoury, i stepped into the Kremlin 'courtyard' and a powerful sun shining down on me. I hopped from church to church, there are seven in all, admiring the iconostasis and frescoe paintings covering the inside walls. Although they had stopped functioning as churches during the communist period, and used for other purposes, they had retained their beauty.
The rest of my days were spent walking different areas of Moscow. Before arriving, i had written on the Moscow couchsurfing forum about my visit, asking if anyone was free to show me around. I happily got seven responses within 2 days, so was often in the company of a private city 'guide'. A few evenings i had the pleasure of a girl named diana, who not only brought me on beautiful evening walks, but also gave me interesting conversation, and invited me along to a couple of couchsurfing meetings. Rocco also came along to these meetings and was able to find some italian speakers, as he is reluclant (without a few beers) to use his english. Here i met many other people, mostly russians, but also a few Americans teaching english in moscow. They told me how easy it would be to find good employment there, which has not left my mind as a possible next phase to my life. :)
All in all, i enjoyed my week in Moscow, and left hoping to return one day

Extra anecdote: One afternoon, diana, her friend ilya, rocco and i had a picnic in the park below the kremlin walls, and just a bit of advice for sarah palin....if you really want to see Putin rear his head, you have a much better chance of doing it from there!

new photos..

Actually got the photos up...more from moscow, kazan, the train rides, and novosibirsk...enjoy!
click the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mattdeleo76

Quick update...

Hi! I wanted to put up new photos, but the hostel computer can't support my flash. I can't stay on long, so i'm not writing any more details, only wanted to tell you that for the next 10 days i will be going on a jeep tour in northern mongolia. Jeep rental and gas, driver, sleeping in ger tent and eating with nomadic families, horse and camel riding, lake fishing, visiting mountain, desert, archaelogial sites and beautiful nature...all for 250 dollars(180 euro)!!!! I'll write again soon!

new poll

please vote in my new poll, more pics and updates coming very soon!

Train ride, St. Petersburg-Moscow

On July 11th, I boarded an over night train for Moscow...Because of the lack of darkness, it was difficult to sleep, so i put pearl jam on the ipod, and stared out the window from my bed...the others in the compartment didn't sleep either, but seemed not to speak a conversationable english...so i kept to myself. From the window, throughout the trip, I saw trees. Trees, trees and trees. But every so often the trees broke to reveal tiny villages hugging the rail lines. An isolated group of 5 to 20 small wooden homes, led to by faded dirt roads. I wondered, what do these people do?...I saw very few cars, so they probably don't get out of town often...I saw neither animals nor fields, so they weren't farmers...only small gardens beside the house. Hmmm? I wanted to get off the train to ask them, but there were no stations...
Later on, as I dozed in and out of a light sleep, I felt a tap on my arm. Waking to find my ipod had long since stopped playing, I looked down from my top bunk at my Asian-looking 'room mate', probably Siberian, holding out an ice-cream cone. Welcome relief for the overly-warm train car..I gave him my best 'spasibo' (thank you in Russian), chomped it down, and returned to 'Benaroya hall' and the acoustic ballads of vedder....

Map update

I've updated my map! Check it out here:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ptab=2&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=110087376724794924774.00046d83e27421193854b

St. Petersburg

As far as i can understand, sitting here in an internet cafe in Ulan-Ude, Buryatia (Eastern Siberia), I've just paid $3 for unlimited time. So, although I'm a bit tired and hungry, I'm taking the opportunity to write as much as possible. Just a reminder: If you don't visit the site frequently (kind of like me recently), don't read from the top down as the posts are chronological from the bottom up!!
The center of St. Petersburg used to be filled with what we might call townhouse apartments, some of which were grand penthouses with multiple bedrooms. Obviously, living conditions for the rich; aristocrats and others belonging to the elite classes of European Russia...Then along comes a revolution! Under communism, being rich, (overly) educated and cultured didn't exactly fit in the big picture. So what happens? Many of these people are sent packing, ironically to Siberia, where I currently sit. Beautiful in July 2009, probably less so sitting in prison, or in work camps in winter (temperatures can reach -40). With these people gone, what becomes of these luxury apartments? Communal housing! Each family (of the working class) was given a room, with as many as 5 families in 1 apartment, sharing a bathroom, kitchen and entrance. As nuvou rich Russians have been popping up at fast rate (a bit less so in the current crisis), many of these apartments are being refurbished and built back again to their original granduer and purpose. Some however have yet to be 'saved'. Anatoly lives in one such apartment. Anatoly is a friend of Elena and Oleg, and currently working as an english teacher, after working for 3 years in english call center, which has given him a bit of an interesting british accent. The building entrance is like any other Soviet style block building, big heavy door with a mechanical button code. Making your way up the delapidated stairway and into the hallway, you can see that this was (many years ago) a place of elegance. Intricate carvings on the door frames and ceiling, now with faded or cracking paint. Beautiful light fixtures, hanging by rusty chains. Hard wood floors, ravaged by time and the elements, now resembling the inside of a fun house...bumpy, wavy, cracked and creaky. It was late and the other tenants were alseep as far as we could figure, we tip-toed into the communal kitchen where Oleg and Anatoly made a wonderful dish of cooked buckwheat (a staple grain in Russia, and really quite delicious!), mixed with beans and tomato sauce, then topped with a cold sour cream and herb (similar to parsley, but stronger) mixture. We gobbled it down between sips of Baltika 7 (a St. Petersburg local beer, there are 9 varieties) and chatted untyil 4am)
Other Highlights of St. Petersburg:
The Hermitage museum, 2 hour wait to get in, but filled with more picasso's, monet's and matisse's than you could imagine. But for me the highlights were the rooms themselves. The Hermitage is located in the tsar's old winter palace(look at the photo link). And a globe from 1733!
The Church on spilled blood (see photo)
An Expressive dance performance, an invitation by couchsurfer Katherine. A really nice girl, who along with her friend, brought me to see an interesting performance by an American dance troupe...lots of eggs! hmm?
A walk in Yeragin Park, a small island north of the center, where there are no cars, and from the western edge, you can look out on the Gulf of Finland.
The Potato Joint! After being advised to try them for the first several nights, finally on the 5th, we stopped at this fast food place, specializing in baked potatoes. They open it up and mash up the potato with cheese, and then give you a choice of topping. I got Mushroom in a sour cream sauce...Delicious!!!!

Next Update: Moscow!!!!

No rest for the weary!

After a rather enjoyable 38 hours on the train (spent mostly eating and playing cards with a group of Ukrainians), i finally settled for a hotel last night.....warm shower and real bed! However, my comfort is short lived as tonight i will agian board a train, this time for the lake baikal region and the city of Irkutsk (if you've played RISK, you know this place). The ride is only 31 hours....My days in Siberia have really been adventurous...but being that i haven't even written about days 2-16, I'll continue to keep you waiting. In Irkutsk, i'll be staying in a hostel that has free internet, and i PROMISE to at least finish the stories from St. Petersburg! Take it easy----Matt

short update

So now i'm in Kazan, Tatarstan Republic....I'm using a public computer and have limited time...Tonite i'm getting on a train to Siberia, it will take 38 hours, so don't expect any news in the next 2-3 days. As soon as I settle down somewhere, I'm gonna write about my days in St. Petersburg and eventually about Moscow too. Please have patience, and in the meantime check out the pics. Thanks!

more new photos of russia!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattdeleo76

First day in Russia.....

Russia...what comes to mind? Communism? Snow? Super hot chicks? Well, communism ended in 1991, it doesn't snow in here in july (unless you're in the mountains), so if you said super hot chicks, you were on the money! Let me tell you, although what I've seen of the monuments so far is beautiful, it's hard to keep my eyes off these northern beauties....but i digress....Upon landing in St. petersburg, i really didn't know what to expect. I had set up accomodation through couchsurfing with Elena, and was off from the airport to find her boyfriend Oleg, who was to meet me at a certain bus stop. Using my basic knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet, I was able to read the street signs that led me to my destination...after having taken about 10 steps off the bus I passed a person meeting Oleg's description, and I guess I met mine, as we both turned simultaneously towards eachother, saying one another's name. A great start, I'd say, especially learning that he had never received my phone message advising him of my arrival! My first real experience was taking the metro. If the soviets did anything right, it was certainly building amazing subway stations, each one is uniquely decorated with paintings, murals and mosaics, chandeliers and extremely long escalators to reach depths of what seem like middle earth.
After a shower and a cup of tea (boy, do Russians love their tea), we (oleg, his friend sasha and I) headed off to the city center....A massive blue mosque caught my eye first, rising above the 3 and 4 story apartment blocks (think of them as a cross between victorians and brownstones), about 200 meters further up we ascended a bridge that led to the old city center....Walking acroos the bridge, I immediately realized the sheer beauty of St. Petersburg. You see, the city is trasversed by the Neva river, which splits in two as it arrives at the center, creating a series of small islands, and then breaks off into a dozen or so canals, which spread out through the city. The view from this particular bridge allows one to see the fortress of peter and paul in one direction, and the hermitage (winterplace) and other victorian age buildings lining the riverside in another. We crossed Mars field, and came into view of the totally cool Church of spilled blood(see my photo link for a pic), thusly named because it was built on the site in which Alexander II was blown up in a terrorist attack in the early 19th century....Later that evening we met up with some other of their friends for foosball and beer in a bar in the city center. At that point the realisation that I was in Russia came to the forefront. Growing up during the cold war, Russia was always 'the enemy', now being amongst 'the enemy' became a quite surreal experience, as I could not distinguish any difference between a night hanging with them, and a night hanging out in centrefields with my oldest, dearest and nearest friends....like the Disney song...it's a small world afer all....My hosts lived on one of the islands of St. Petersburg, and bridges are the only means to reach them, however St.petersburg is also a busy seaport, and cargo ships need to make some deliveries further inland...so what happens? Every night at 1.30 am the bridges rise to allow the ships clearance. This lasts for about 3 hours, and means whoever doesn't make it back across the bridge is stuck! Did I mention that St. Petersburg in this period never sees darkness...the famous white nights! This makes it ever harder to understand what time it is. So, controlling our watches intently, we wait until the last possible moment to leave the bar, and make a run for the bridge...being the very last ones to cross. All in all, a very exciting and interesting first day to my long, long trip......

Che stanchezza!

I'm too tired to write tonight, but i'll do it tomorrow(maybe), i swear!!!! Enjoy the pics, more to come! I've also updated the map....just scroll down for the link! A prestissimo!

New Photos of Moscow and St. Petersburg!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattdeleo76

UPDATE

Hey everyone,
I'm really enjoying myself here in St. Petersburg! On sunday I'll arrive in Moscow, where I'm staying at my cousins apartment, therefore I'll soon be able to really sit down in front of a keyboard and give some details of the trip.