There have been a few road trips, all in my adult life, that are filled with memories…
My first trip to Connecticut and New York City where I got to see my nephew play foot and my first Broadway show.
My first trip to Canada – just to get away from it all.
My first trip to California for my Dad’s 80th birthday celebration.
But I guess my most memorable trip would have to be one of the two trips I made to Russia…but which one????
The trip in 1992 was five weeks long as a part of a summer study abroad program through Florida State University. Not only was that my first time on a plane…it was a trans-Atlantic trip.
We stayed in a dorm that was a former dorm for Soviet elite students. I had my own room but shared the bath and toilet facilities with a roommate. The kitchen was down the hall…way down the hall at the other end! The windowsill was wide enough to sit in and made a nice place to study or write in a journal.
We had classes in the morning and did the touristy stuff in the afternoon. I saw the Peter and Paul Fortress that even had figures of Gendarme who worked there when it housed a prison. All prisoners were in solitary confinement and created a form of communication by tapping on the walls.
We went to the Hermitage which at one time was one of the palaces for the Tzar but is now a museum; one so filled with artistic works that a person could go seven days a week, 24 hours a day for 10 years and still would not be able to see everything.
We made a visit to St. Isaacs Cathedral where we climbed the stairs up to the copula and could see across the city.
And then there was the numerous concerts and teatrical events I got to see. During Communism, the arts were heavily subsidized and tickets to events were very inexpensive because the government felt it was important for people to attend such events. Events that would cost $50, $100, or more in the United States; I saw for $6 and $7. Things like “La Traviatoa”, “Swan Lake”, “Jesus Christ Superstar”, and Mozart’s “Requiem”. The Kirov Theatre was absolutely gorgeous!
The five week program also included a weekend trip to Moscow where we got a tour inside the Kremlin walls! – a rare event. But we were always watched very carefully and had to stay on the proper path. For many years Russians attend Russian Orthodox services or a synagogue if they attended religious services. When the Communist Party took over, religion was severely frowned upon and many of the churches closed down. Now that Communism is gone, the churches are again open but more often than not, they are treated like museums instead of houses of worship. Our tours often included a church and thus was the case in the Kremlin where we saw Ivan the Terrible’s tomb.
Lunch was served each day in a dining hall of the hotel down the block. Even though we weren’t real sure exactly what it was, we had beef in some form and potatoes every day. After a while some of the students began to complain about meat and potatoes every day…so what did they do as soon as we got to Moscow and checked into the hotel???? They went to the local McDonalds for…you guessed it meat and potatoes in the form of a hamburger (gamburger in Russian) and fries (kartofel frie).
On one of our rides around the city, we passed one of the most dreaded buildings in Russia – 2 Derdzinski Square – the home of the KGB! Oddly enough across the street is one of the biggest toy stores in the world – Dieti Mir.
Back in St. Petersburg we saw the tombs of Catherine and Peter the Great. Royalty was often intombed in a sarcophagus inside a church.
One of the oldest cities on record in Russia is Novgorod – a city filled with churches – and we made a day trip down there. We toured several and ate lunch there but one of the most memorable things was the adventure going to the bathroom – it turned out look like a shower with a drain in the middle of the floor!
The five weeks went by at times in a blur and I knew that I wanted to return for a second trip the following summer. And I did; this time for both of the programs – eleven weeks; which was filled with even more.
Admittedly I may have mixed up a few of the attractions and added a few that were actually the second trip, not the first. But during those two trips, I saw another whole world and gained an understanding of the world and its people.
There are lots of photos but they are all on film. One of these days I am going to have to get at least some of them into a digital format.