Traveling Through Kyrgyzstan, Part 2: Ooh This is Me I'm Having Fun!by Randi / October 10, 2017
Now that our time in yurts is over (forever?!), I could fully relax (well I still had to worry about bathroom breaks) and enjoy the rest of our journey around Kyrgyzstan. This country kept surprising me! The people were nice, the food was plentiful, the watermelon was given to me, the roads were in existence. Most of all, the landscape kept enthralling us with its extremely varied beauty. We still had a few more days driving with Sacha around Lake Issyk Kul and in small villages and towns before we landed in Bishkek, the big city capital. I liked the activities almost as much as I liked the fact that we had activities, but I started to get sick of the little villages. (Literally.) Hence my completely shocking personal revelation mentioned in the title.
Catch up on the previous Kyrgyzstan posts!
Crossing the Torugart Pass; Tash Rabat
Part 1: Back in the Yurt Camps
Part 2: Issyk Kul and Kyzart Village
Crossing the Torugart Pass; Tash Rabat
Part 1: Back in the Yurt Camps
Part 2: Issyk Kul and Kyzart Village
Snow capped mountains never get old
Day 5
“Everything’s coming up (roses?)”
Our lovely be-gardened guest house in Tamga village continued delighting us on this new day, with a lovely breakfast in the lovely little dining space surrounded by the beautiful flowers and tons and tons of…bees. Bees? Bees. I guess with flowers come bees. We had forgotten this since bees are super endangered everywhere else in the world save for this garden, apparently. I had oatmeal and watermelon and apples for breakfast so it was a great start, aside from the bees.
“Everything’s coming up (roses?)”
Our lovely be-gardened guest house in Tamga village continued delighting us on this new day, with a lovely breakfast in the lovely little dining space surrounded by the beautiful flowers and tons and tons of…bees. Bees? Bees. I guess with flowers come bees. We had forgotten this since bees are super endangered everywhere else in the world save for this garden, apparently. I had oatmeal and watermelon and apples for breakfast so it was a great start, aside from the bees.
We set off on our drive, stopping shortly again at the lake shore for a few minutes just to take more pictures and enjoy the view for a little longer and so I could pee in the most picturesque outdoor pop-a-squat location yet. You’re welcome.
We drove through a valley called Jeti Oguz, which is famous for its enormous cliff-face stretch of the same name, which means Seven Bulls. The cliff face is of dark reddish brown bumpies that symbolize “furious bulls” standing together. I am a taurus; is that the bull one? If so I would like to be called Furious Bull from now on. If not I don’t care astrology is dumb as a trump.
furious bulls
The plan was to continue our eventual complete loop around Issyk Kul Lake by heading to our next stop of Karakol, but we had a surprise stop at the most amazing geo park (eco park? both). Seriously, it was a surprise to us at least, because the itinerary for today pretty much just said ‘drive to karakol’. So unforch that means I don’t know what this geopark was called (I’ve been trying to find it online! Maybe it existed just for us like a Brigadoon situation OMG IS KELLI O’HARA GOING TO SING WHEN I’M THERE??? oh no chill out this already happened and she didn’t, time doesn’t work like that no matter what McConaughey says (just kidding I totally believe him). The whole big area is Jeti Oguz and it might just be the resort or park or the same name but I can’t confirm.
For a few hours we drove along (and across!) the most beautiful somehow jade-colored rapids, up and around the rockiest of paths (I almost didn’t care because it was so beautiful but man alive that was some shaking) and hills and the scariest little bridges across the river rapids. Those bridges, man alive, I saw the first and was like ‘who would be dumb enough to walk across that little plank of a bridge!’ and then we DROVE across it, across ALL of them, in an SUV.
taken from a rickety little plank bridge erma erma erma
This valleypark was enormous! There’s security at the entrance (I guess it works because the whole thing is surrounded by mountains that sneakers can’t drive down so) and then you can just drive and hike for miles and miles and hours and hours like we did, all along this insane colored water. I know it doesn’t look amazing in the pictures (no filters!) but it was like pure jade and so incredibly beeyoot.
After we drove through most of this amazing valley, Sacha parked the car in a clearing and was like ‘there’s a waterfall about 40 minutes hike that way’ he literally just nodded his head upwards. That way just meant ‘up’ the mountain. And he said we should go check it out. We were hey so how do we find it exactly, like how much upping and in what part of the ENDLESS MOUNTAINS AROUND US ARE WE TALKING. He pointed to a person on a horse about halfway up the mountain and was like ‘they’re going to the waterfall so you can follow the path they are taking.’ Guys this was not helpful. The horse was like already a kilometer up the mountain and we couldn’t tell how he got to that point or what came next. We started up the mountain and the ‘trail’ was pretty much ‘do you see a way you can go that will let you continue your journey? does it seem a little ridiculous but less ridiculous than the other options you observe? follow that one!’ It was scary! Thank god Z was a boy scout because he could tell MUCH better than I could which fork prongs (tines?) were probably the right ones. The scary trail (or lack thereof) put me in a mood something terrible. AND of course I kept skidding the whole time because it was gravelly!
Finally, after lots of treacherous rocky crossings and tree branches that gave way when I tried to grasp them, we found the waterfall. IT WAS FINE.
“just go up” “okay, monster man”
who dat ninja
view from our waterfall trek
So apart from the skidding and the constant fear of tumbling down the mountain because of the tiny little narrow not-trails, this whole geo park majig was amazing! It’s so beautiful and so fun. I wish I knew its name.
I couldn’t know it betterrrrrr if I knew its name! (anyone?)
Because we had to enter (with tickets I think) at the entry point (you don’t say), we had to drive allll the way back through the valley and across the rapids and over the bridges and through the woods in order to leave. Haha ‘had to’ like it wasn’t such a treat to see it all again. We continued our drive towards Karakol in order to reach that town by lunchtime. I was sooo pumped for lunch because, are you ready for this? You know the website (and super useful app) HappyCow that I talk about all the time? If you don’t know, it tells you what restaurants near you (everywhere in the world) have vegan options. It’s magic (no it’s crowdsourced so if you find something incorrect it’s on you to fix it). Well, the ONLY HappyCow listing for ALL of Kyrgyzstan that wasn’t in Bishkek (the big fancy capital) was in Karakol! I was so so excited. We found the place, called The Fat Cat Cafe, sat down and looked at the menus and…there was not one thing veg on it. Well there was a grilled cheese for vegetarians CAN YOU SEE HOW HARD I’M ROLLING MY EYES? I asked the worker ‘hey so I was told that you had vegan food?’ and the woman said “Oh yes I can make you lentil soup if you give me like a half hour, 45 minutes? I haven’t been to the market yet today so I would need to buy vegetables and lentils.” THA FUCK? I reread the only other HappyCow review of the place (there’s a second on on there now with the TRUTH you’re welcome) and it said there was vegan food ‘on request’. So, first of all, no way in hell this place should be on HC if it doesn’t have any regular menu items that are veg. Second of all, WHAT KIND OF RESTAURANT ISN’T PREPARED FOR THE DAY AT 2PM ON A SATURDAY? Isn’t that your busiest time, all restaurants in the world? What kind of place is run like that? And I don’t just mean for the vegan request. Like, she hadn’t been to the store yet, at all, on a Saturday afternoon. And she had other employees just sitting around. What kind of fuckery I can’t even. I reported them to HC hoping to get them deleted but they are still on there. Le sigh.
Luckily Sacha has been to every restaurant in town and knew good ones with vegetarian options. If I’m reading my blursula picture of the menu correctly, it was Dastorkan restaurant, a good restaurant and an amazing name for a JK Rowling character. The menu even had 3 green-tipped pages that were all the vegetarian options.
do you think they put my salad on a heart-shaped plate because they knew how much I love salad
vegetable soup!
broccoli to share! I share my vegetables I”m such a good wife
This place was great! We also got the requisite basket of fluffy lavash bread. It was great…except, I don’t know if it was the food here, or the food the night before, or the spring water from a few days ago, or who knows how many endless factors, but I started to feel sick soon. We were staying in Karakol that night, at a nice little guest house about 10 minutes drive from the restaurant. We arrived and relaxed for a little and I had a little of the Travelers’ (TM(i)) but thought nothing of it. Z and I soon walked to a cafe to use their wifi (yay!) and after a little while I Traveled (TM(i)) again. I started to feel worse so I said let’s walk back to the house, I don’t feel so good. We had made it about 2/3 of the way when I vomited the hardest I ever have right on the sidewalk. Well in a grass patch but still. It was very violent and horrible and so painful that I thought I was choking. LUCKILY it happened, if you can even believe it, in front of what can only be called “Apteka Row” (the russian word for pharmacy) – a whole string of pharmacies. Z ran into one and I think just pointed out the window to me and was given anti vomit and anti nausea pills. It seemed to help a little, despite the fear of taking unmarked Kyrgyz pills (I still have some if anyone wants to try! or examine). When we returned, I told Sacha I wasn’t going to eat dinner and he was SO mad because the owner lady had already started making it and I was like okay if you really want me to try I will happily vom again on her little white tablecloth. I didn’t say that but I should have. But like come on dude.
So, I just slept the whole evening and night. Luckily I had some saltines from China in my pack and had those in the morning. Saltines are amazing. You watching The Good Place (also amazing)? You know when Ted Danson is like “I wish I could have tried a saltine”? I feel him.
Someone tell McConaughey to get a message to this girl in the past and alert her ‘girl you gon vom’
DAY 6
“Suuuuunday morning TIME FOR CHURCH!”
The mean old lady and the mean old Sacha made me drink tea for breakfast even though I HATE tea especially strong black tea and, guess what, tea makes me nauseous, because they both thought that my drinking bottled water instead of tea was what made me sick. This is the kind of ‘bullshit science’ that republicans can only DREAM of taking hold in America. FFS. It’s funny, actually – our Trans Siberian guidebook mentioned offhand that old Russians in Siberia had a weird rampant distrust of ‘dangerous’ cold water, warning against its consumption for no reason other than that it had become a rural myth. But now in Kyrgs we actually meet the old (ethnic) Russians who believe this! Ahhhhh! Shut UP!
We had a busy morning planned with lots of activities and somehow we still had to end the day at our guest house in Chon Kemin – more than 300 kilometers away! First we had a visit to Karakol’s mosque, called the Dungan Mosque, which is really cool because it was built like a Chinese Buddhist temple! We haven’t seen nearly enough of those! No it was really cool to see how the roof had dragons and other traditional Chinese symbols carved all over, and the structure as a whole was very China.
buddha mosque buddha mosque
What was not cool, was that this mosque made women wear these RIDONK heavy coverups like f-ing WIZARD robes. So smelly and so extra hot in this weather and just ugh annoying. I try to be chill about all religions but I can’t get behind any of the parts that require women to cover up so the mens don’t get too excited. Control YOURSELF, Aaron.
who dis ninja
it me
After the mosque, we went to the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church. So much religion! The church was built in 1894 in the ‘six-pillared’ fashion but it has only 4 pillars! Fan thyself!
I really dig the whole decaying wood thing they have going on here. Very wool.
After all the gods and everything, we were to see a local museum in the town of Cholpon Ata, which is a really satisfying name to say. Unfortunately, the museum was closed, despite the sign on the door with the museum’s schedule clearly stating that they should be open right now. Guyssss. Sacha made a few calls and we amused ourselves in the small grocery store next door. GUESS WHAT I FOUND.
MANNER!!! Why didn’t I get more than one? (Ed. note: Don’t cry for me. Have you seen my instagram? Thanks Emmeline & Josh!)
When we returned to Sacha, he had bad news: The museum people said it was closed today because they had no electricity. Sacha didn’t buy their excuse and said “I think it’s really because they are sleeping.”
We still had more to do though, so no harm no foul. Next up was the Open Air Museum of Petroglyphs – a whole field of rocks and boulders with ancient drawings made from carving or scraping and such. Some had miraculously retained their clarity, but most had faded in the like thousands of years.
After we burned in the dry sun to a sufficient crispiness, we had lunch at a terrible cafe on the side of the road that was giant and full of tourists and had wifi but had a terrible waitress. She brought me my vinaigrette salad with fish on it even after Sacha made sure she knew no fish! Who puts fish on a vinaigrette anyway! Also people were smoking in the bathroom. It was an OUTDOOR restaurant. I don’t understand. I ate some vegetarian borscht instead (soup is always a good idea) and then we continued the drive to Chon Kemin and our last guest house, one run by the popular tour agency CBT (we were looking at CBT and NoviNomad when we were deciding who to go with, but CBT was terrible at answering emails and our questions so NoviNomad luckily won out. If you like loud hostels with giant dorms full of yoots, CBT seems the choice for you.) Because it was a CBT house, it was full of the most tourists we’d seen in weeks! It was a nice enough place and it had wifi! It was just a shock to have all the noise and PEOPLE when we’d been mostly in isolation for so long. I love isolation from other tourists.
The best part was the saddest part – our last gorgeous communal dinner in a yurt with the traditional set up. How wonderful is this kind of meal!
There were many plates of tomato salad (course) and vermicelli and carrot salads all over, and then the main event was plov, the main dish of Kyrgyzstan (and Uzbekistan and like the entire region I think). Plov is a rice pilaf usually with giant hunks of mutton or other gross meat (spoiler all meat is gross) on top. It’s a lot of rice. Mine was rice with bits of carrot. It was a lot of rice – the vegetarian platter was almost as big as the meat version but the meat plate was for like 11 people and the veg was just for me! How much rice do you think I can eat! I have to save room for watermelon!
We made some small talk with the other tourists and met some that didn’t make us too angry or annoyed (progress) but then, as is our wont, spent most of the night trying to get the weak wifi to connect. We heart wifi. Then we enjoyed our last night’s sleep in a shared space! We hate sharing! From here on out – hotels! (Well and hostels but private rooms!) Tomorrow we leave for Bishkek!
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St. Petersburg, Russia: So Much Better Than What “Anastasia” Taught Me
Greetings from Cankt Peterbourg! I wish I could access the Russian keyboard on this little netbook but I can’t/don’t feel like it. We’re having a great time in St. Petersburg, which in English adds the ‘s’ after Peter but in the Russian there’s no ‘s’! Fun! With! Languages! Before this trip, my only exposure to this quite charming city was the song from “Anastasia” that starts: “St. Petersburg is gloomy! St. Petersburg is bleak! My underwear got frozen standing here all week!” But it’s better than that. Well that is a very low bar but St. Petersburg is very nice. Though it has been raining hard a lot which is gloomy, and yes it is cold but like, for the summer, not for the earth, and definitely not cold enough to freeze undies. The city is a very interesting mix of old and new school while still seeming totally European. We are surely easing in slowly to the onslaught of Soviet towns we will be seeing later, because right now it still feels like we’re in Europe.
Well, except for the Cyrillic everywhere! It is so strange and so cool to finally see what we have been preparing for with our Russian classes. We’re doing great, if not at communicating with people (omg SLOW DOWN (oh and maybe could you write it down I’m better at reading kthx)) then at least at reading signs (and menus! Most are in English too! We’re great at that!). They say for all languages you really learn when you are immersed, and I can see how true that would be for Russian, now that we actually are surrounded by it and its alphabet. We’re definitely getting stronger with reading Cyrillic quickly and I have high hopes that that will lead to comprehension. Maybe by the time we get to Siberia we will actually be able to handle the fact that no one will speak English! I dream big.
When we got off the train on Saturday at Finylandskiy Vauxhall (named after the country we had just left? That’s confusing!), we walked around the station to find the giant Lenin statue, commemorating the big speech he gave when he arrived in St. Petey’s in 1917 during the Revolution. We start our sightseeing immediately, even when we have 90-pound backpacks on (and I’m frontpacking too ughhh I have too much stuff but I don’t know what I can get rid of! I really did just bring the bare minimum but we’re going to every season!). We walked the half hour or so to our hostel, The Travellers’ Palace, and it was hot so that was pretty rough because like I said, 90 pounds. I will either break or be super strong by the end of this. The receptionist at the hostel is very friendly and helpful, and even though we can hear every footstep people take at all hours of the night and they sound like gorillas stomping around and even though someone stole my bananas and apples from the fridge (they were labelled!) (and I KNOW bananas in the fridge is weird but I was keeping everything together in the labelled bag (so f-ing ironic!)), we like the hostel fine. The shower is legit the strongest I can remember taking in my entire life, like it was intended for an elephant and I wish I could take it with me. The rooms here are named after famous Russian literary characters, like Onegin and Catherine. It was quite the good omen when we were put in Karenina, considering Anna K is my favorite book (once you pretend that that final section about Levin finding Jesus by talking to peasants (“Life is often so unpleasant / You would know this, as a peasant!”) doesn’t exist)! There’s a little light-up train on my bedside table and everything, haha so morbid. And across the hall is the room called Bolkonsky, like the prince’s family in War & Peace! So it’s like the universe wants me to keep singing “The Great Comet” at every moment of this trip!
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Nevsky Prospekt
Horse Wash!
Once we dropped our stuff, it was already late afternoon, so the best use of our time was to stroll the Nevsky Prospekt, the main boulevard running through the city that everyone spells with a K even in English so I’m rolling with it. It houses all the big stores, lots of restaurants, a good number of statues and monuments, and lots and lots of people. Walking along it is a great first thing to do in St. Petey’s because you can get a sense of the city’s layout and feel, while seeing both important historical markers and fun Russian chain stores (like the Russian version of Sephora whose Russian name is pronounced like Rive Gauche lol that and Sushi Wok, where the ‘sushi’ is in Cyrillic but the ‘wok’ is in our/Latin characters, crack me up every time. There are also horse statues along the various canals which we liked because it reminds us of our flat in London (those who have been over and have seen what we call the Horse Wash will know why!).
Singersss
On the Nevksy Prospekt is the famous Singers sewing machine factory, or the building that used to be that and now is a giant bookstore in the most beautiful building along the boulevard. Inside, they had a snack section that had vegan bars (similar to Lara Bars)! Marked and everything! Come on obviously I love books and bookstores but we can’t buy books on this trip (or anything) but we need snacks. We also saw this monument to Catherine the Great (with her laavaaahs).
you can call me kitty kat
So many canals all over the place, so they call StP the Venice of the North and it’s hard to get a handle on streets
The other hugely famous building along the Nevsky Prospekt is the giant department store Gostiny Dvor. Although we are so determined not to add anything to our packs right at the beginning of the summer, we have a necessity exception – and we needed umbrellas so we bought umbrellas there yesterday (after we got drenched in a downpour, naturally). Upstairs at the Gostiny Dvor, the long, curving walkways are nearly empty and provide great views of the Prospekt. What most people don’t find, however, is the INSANE CELEBRITY FIGURE AND ANIMAL SCULPTURE GARDEN around a far bend that no one goes to. OH MY GOD, look, it’s Hagrid and the Harry Potter kids STANDING BEHIND PUTIN! No big deal! Don’t mind the peasants with sickles! OR THE DINOSAUR! Why this isn’t the #1 thing to do in St. Petersburg I will never understand. As it is, it’s pretty much hidden and NO ONE was there or even nearby so I think I discovered some kind of magical walkway.
you’re a wizard vladdy
Ruby Sparks was a very good movie
As for serious things, the Kazan Cathedral is along the Prospekt, a Russian Orthodox church dedicated not to Elia or even Zoe but to Our Lady of Kazan, which I know is very helpful. It’s not a very nice looking Cathedral, kind of the most Soviet and drab-looking thing we’ve seen yet, but it could just be that it is severely outshone by the gorgeous cathedral across the way from it, The Church of Spilled Blood. I know, I know, it doesn’t exactly sound like the most beautiful spot in all St. Petersburg, but it is! It’s real name is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood which yes doesn’t really help my case. So it’s built around the spot where Alexander II was mortally wounded and inside there’s a little stone area and canopy marking the exact spot where he was hit by grenades and suffered the injuries that killed him a little later (he actually died in the Hermitage) you know what why don’t I just show you:
no use crying over spilled oooohhhh nm
come at me laser jesus
See it really is soo beautiful even though it’s so dire. But all churches are built around and commemorating dire circumstances. This church, which we went in yesterday, is one of the most incredible churches I’ve ever seen, definitely in my top five. I know I said in a recent Spain post that ugh churches, who can tell them apart after St Peter’s, but this was a great one. I was blown away by how beautiful it was inside and outside. Usually they’re whatever on the inside, full of paintings of oldies and crucifixen, but this one is decorated in 100% MOSAIC. Every painting and image you see is made up of tiny tiles (that is what mosaic means!). See that lady getting lasered from the heavens by a laser-happy Jesus? ALL TILES. How incredible is this?
what happens if the glue stops working rain of tiles |
This canopy covers the actual spot where Alexander II was hit by the grenade/s. They built the church around it. |
this is the most beautiful lavish door to jesus I’ve ever seen
THE HERMITAGE
erma gerd, the hermiterge
On Sunday, we woke up early (lol not) and went to The Hermitage, the endless museum inside the Winter Palace. We read about how crowded it is, especially in the summer, and how the lines for tickets can stretch to a kilometer long. Because of this, we were tempted to buy tickets online, but they cost $18 online and only 700 rubles in person so we decided to risk it. And it’s a good thing we did, because there was no line. We bought tickets at one of several kiosks in the courtyard and went right in. On a Sunday! In the summer! We were so pleased with ourselves and got a little too cocky about it because after about an hour and half the Chinese cruise ship groups arrived ahhhh! It was wall to wall and they really like to push so it got a little rough. But it was still great. The Hermitage has millions of pieces of art, so you really need a plan to make sure you see what you wanna see. The state rooms of the palace and the Russian art are the most important. The Italian and French art is great, of course, but we’ve seen that literally every weekend at museums in London. That sounds very ridiculous of me but when you live in a museumy city like London, it’s important to see stuff that’s different from what you see all the time and feel okay about skipping the same same stuff. So in the Hermitage, we focused on the palace parts, the preserved rooms and furniture and sculptures and stuff, over paintings that have nothing to do with Russian history. And the palace rooms, hoo boy are they amazing. We both love malachite and cobalt shiz and this palace was full of both. It was all so stunning. I especially loved this gazebo.
i wish luke and lorelai got married on this one
We were both obsessed with the library, which was so Belle. And I loved the Peacock Clock, which I didn’t know at first even was a clock. I mean the tiny mushroom thing at the bottom has a clock on it so it’s not like the whole amazing gold artwork is a clock, it’s literally just the smallest piece of it that is a clock, but still, pretty cool. I got in fights with Chinese men who were trying to push me aside when I was taking this picture.
The Hermitage is important to visit, I think, since it’s such a well-known tourist attraction, but it’s exhausting. It goes on forever, and the bathrooms are very poorly located. We had to backtrack through to the entrance to find one, when we were like in the middle of the top floor. So dumb. It shouldn’t be that hard! But I’m glad we went and saw the great pieces they had. It’s easy to spend hours and hours there, but don’t.
I expect grander thrones 
how beautiful is this fancy witch’s cauldron 
a clock that is also a giant piece of furntiure |
not sure what this was but i liked it it was like a big like thing 
this was called the boudoir but it was just a lot of velvety chairs so nice though |
Even though we were pretty beat after our day at the Hermiterge, we decided to walk to St. Isaac’s Cathedral next (in the pouring rain! no umbrellas yet!) and climb the 260 stairs to the top of the golden dome! For the view! So pretty! The golden dome you see in the picture is very striking in the skyline. The climb wasn’t that bad at all, and it was worth it for the stunning views. Note that the main Cathedral is one ticket and the entrance for the climb to the top of the dome is another separate ticket. It’s worth it though! Again I’m proved wrong because the insides of this church were beautiful too. Russia keeps proving me wrong about church insides! St. Isaac’s was full of malachite columns which were stunning.
the view from the top of Isaac’s
main altar at Isaac’s |
that’s Isaac! no i don’t know |
The cathedral tour of Russia is only just beginning! After we saw the Church of Spilled Blood, we went to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of St. Petersburg built by Peter the Great in 1703. It’s a big complex full of various museums, but we skipped the many museums (so many museums!) and went straight to the Peter & Paul Cathedral, the gold spire in the city skyline. This Cathedral houses the tombs of Russian czars from Peter I to Alexander III, and there’s a little room off to the side with the Romanovs, including Anastasia, which I was excited to see and then realized how messed up that is. But speaking of, I still haven’t written about the new Broadway musical so maybe I will do that in honor of seeing her tomb! So morbid I’m sorry. It was a decent show, and a decent church. The fortress was best for its views of the Hermitage and other stately buildings from the other side of the river. Luckily today was the one sunny day in the middle of lots of rain so this view on our walk along the riverfront fortress was lovely.
the Romanovs tombs
After we saw all the things Monday, we took the subway (new subway!) down to the Grand Maket Rossiya, which is a private museum of a scale model of ALL OF RUSSIA. It is AWESOME. It shows everyday life in every part of Russia, from St. Petersburg (included the building we were in, weeeird) and all the monuments we’ve seen so far, to Moscow, to Siberia and the Urals and the Sochi Olympics and farmers everywhere and a movie studio with various funny backlots and people on the beach and lots of trains and lots of construction and just EVERYTHING you could imagine in life, they had it on the model. It was so cool, and so giant and detailed that it took an hour and a half just to walk around it once. One of the coolest parts was that the lights would go down every 13 minutes for 2 minutes, gradually to show the sun setting and then rising. Some of the ‘night’ sections there were thunderstorms which was kind of crazy. My favorite part, of course, was that Vinnie Poo (the Russian Winnie the Pooh who is NOTHING like the Winnie we know) was hidden in one of the forests. I also loved the “Bad Husband” section that showed a man in his underwear on the sidewalk as his wife threw all his clothes out the window. Like. What.
Is that Putin riding a bear?? 
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So yeah so far St Petersburg has been very nice! The weather is ploha, with super heavy rainstorms most days. Yay for anoraks! Drivers here are absolutely insane, like super speeding down the Nevksy and no cops ever stop it. Don’t rent a car here! Traffic is really bad too so we mostly walk everywhere. One thing I’ve noticed is how confusing but nice the pedestrian crossings are. Most have green walking man countdown clocks, and most give you a crossing time of well over 30 seconds, some even 90 seconds! BUT, the confusing part, the red man/don’t walk man gets a countdown too, and sometimes they switch red to green/ stop to go without finishing the clock. Like yesterday we were crossing and green man said we had 30 seconds left but then it changed to red man and cars started going. I don’t know about that! I am tired. We’ve done a lot and we still have some museums we haven’t discussed yet! Today we are thinking of going to Peterhof, like the Versailles of Russia, but again it is super storming and it’s really a good weather type thing. We will see! Last night we saw the World’s Longest Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre, which was, well, long. It wasn’t as long time-wise as the Mastersingers but it was longer soul-wise. It also might be as fun to write about as the Mastersingers was so stay tuned! A little more on St Pete’s to come (and food!), and then we’re off literally on a midnight train to Moscow. Byeeee!
Volgograd, Russia: Significant, Tragic History of a Cool Modern City
After our long, challenging train journey from Uzbekistan, we arrived in the city of Volgograd, in the southwest of Russia, I mean it’s roughly in that blobular section of the biggest most endless landmass that is old country. That’s right, after almost three months, after traveling through Mongolia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, we made our way back to Mother Russia. And we were overjoyed to be back in a place where we sort of knew the language, and where we could reunite with the trappings of modernity, and where I could eat at an actual vegan restaurant. But I didn’t realize how important a city Volgograd is, in critical and meaningful ways far beyond its current offerings of comfort for my spoiled behind, and I was and remain in awe of its history. I initially wanted to come here just to see the incredible, enormous statue pictured at left (or above if you’re on your phone), but there’s so, so much more to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. We had a lovely few days here, learning more than I ever learned in school about World War II, exploring what the city has to offer today, and finding all the vegan food for me to eat.
It’s not an accident that I’m choosing to lead with this picture of a tank on the Volga river. Volgograd needs you to know two things, right off the bat: It was the site of one of the most important battles in history, and the most tragic, and also it is on the Volga river get it that’s what its name means (bye Stalin!) So I knew one of these. I’m sorry, universe. If you are like my husband, you are horrified that I didn’t know about Volgograd’s role in World War II. I mean I knew about the Battle of Stalingrad, in the sense that I knew it was a thing that happened, but I didn’t know the details: that it was the largest and bloodiest (almost two million casualties) battle in the history of warfare. I didn’t know how essential it was to the war, how crucial it was to what came next. And this is because I was educated in American public school, where you learn that America is the best and without us everyone in Europe would be speaking German. And as much as we want to believe that the Americans saved WW2, it really was the Russians who won it and lost the most. They sacrificed so much, so many of their people and so much of their world, and this is the truth in Volgograd.
A part of a preserved/destroyed building from the war, called Pavlov’s House. It was any old apartment building, but Soviet soldiers stayed inside for a 60 day siege, holding it against the German forces. The house was important to hold for its position to a vital bank of the Volga. Germans attacked several times every day. For 60 days! Can you even imagine what this was like? War is AWFUL. It’s outside the Panorama Museum (an easier reference than the State Historical and Memorial Preserve the Battle of Stalingrad
In 1942, Stalin et al. assumed that the Nazis would focus their efforts on Moscow but then they surprised everyone (those tricky Nazis) by attacking the south of the Soviet Union. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted more than five months, as the Soviet Union fought the Nazis for control of the city. Armies fought in the streets, at extremely close range, facing the challenge of urban warfare. A main objective was to destroy the city’s industrial capacity, but they pretty much just destroyed the city full stop. Well, except for the Stalingrad Tractor company, which continued making tanks until the Germans actually physically entered the factory. Air bombings added to the onslaught, killing many civilians and nearly leveling the entire city. Stalin refused to evacuate the civilians (did anyone ask him why) (well someone said he wanted the civilians to stay so that people would fight harder to protect them, which is super f-ed up) so 400,000 regular joes (/ivans) were trapped in the city during the offensive. Some were taken to Germany as slave workers, some fled, a few ended up being evacuated, but many were killed, and only 10,000-60,000 were left out of that original 400K after the battle ended in February 1943. All civilians in the city during the battle were put to work building fortifications and whatever else they could contribute. And the Soviets famously ordered anyone strong enough to hold a rifle to fight. In fact, the initial defense of the city fell to a group of young female volunteers making up the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment. When they found out they had been fighting a group of girls, the Nazis were pisssssed! They hate girls!
The Flour Mill in Stalingrad, preserved in its destruction as a monument to the battle. I love that there is now a statue of children dancing in front of it. It’s called the Barmaley fountain, informally, and features six children dancing around a CROCODILE. There are two in the city (neither the original), called Barmaley because of the old fairytale poem about a pirate villain and crocodiles that bite people? I think it’s saying to be cautious?
So you can see it was terrible. It’s one thing when war is waged in fields like in movies making it seem all heroic. It’s completely different in a city, even more chaotic and hideous than usual. Fighting filled every street, every building and every house. Even the sewers were filled with fighting. And remember how many civilians were here. No wonder old Russian ladies are stereotyped as being tough as nails. They were! And while it’s true that the Russians deserve a lot of credit for their helping to win WWII and all they sacrificed, Stalin was, well, Stalin, and there was a great deal of ‘trimming the ranks’ – executing any Red Army soldiers who defected or fell out of line – like, even literally, falling out of formation. Scary times. Let’s not having another world war guys.
To learn all about this battle and what it meant for the war, your first order of business in Volgs is to go to the Museum Panorama about the Battle of Stalingrad – official name, I am finding, the State Historical and Memorial Preserve the Battle of Stalingrad. I feel like some punctuation would be good there but here we are. The museum was wonderful, sad but wonderful. The worst part about it was that they checked my water bottle EYE ROLL. It’s worth it to do the audio tour, not because the audio is that great but because the signage is lacking. It was actually kind of hard to find the numbers on the exhibits, but it became like a scavenger hunt! Fun! Note that the last audioguide clues are all the way at the top of the museum, up stairs, and not marked with like ‘exhibit continues up here’ signs or anything. I had no idea about it but husband did, luckily, so we made our way up and were rewarded with these gorgeous murals depicting the battle. That’s why it’s called the panorama museum – this last incredible part was the panorama.
I also really enjoyed this sculpture of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, the three amigos! The three musketeers! The three…tenors.
sad that Darkest Hour didn’t have any Stalin craziness. They did have Roosevelt on the phone, declining any help. oops.
MAP OF WAR
MORE MAP OF WAR
war stuff
My favorite part, of course, was the amazing anti-Nazi posters that were all over the museum and seemingly all over Russia (they REALS hate Nazis, good job Ruskies) that we all need to print out and post all over America. And England. And everywhere apparently! What a time!
SMASH THAT NAZI WITH YOUR AX!
HAHA POOR LITTLE CRYING HITLER BABUSHKA PEEP THIS STEPHEN MILLER
THIS ONE BELOW OH MY GOD IT TRANSLATES AS ‘PARTISANS: RETALIATE WITHOUT MERCY’ WHAAAAAAAT.
Because the war defines so much of the city, there are memorials everywhere. I don’t know all the details for them, but they all looked appropriately serious.
I loved this super old tree
There are also lots of statues around the city not directly tied to the war. As I mentioned above in the caption for the Flour Mill picture, they love seeing children dance around a crocodile – the so-called Barmaley fountain is also found in front of the train station, which was a very fun first sight for us when we disembarked! Crocodiles and children, the best dancing pair since Fred and Ginger. And of course, because we were in a town east of Poland, we found the requisite Lenin statue.
But like I said in the beginning, we had originally come for one purpose – to see the gigantic The Motherland Calls statue. We had to see the big fucking thing! I knew it was big and I knew it was a fucking thing, but when we spotted it from our train window, we realized oh, it’s really forking big.
view from our train
The Motherland Calls is a statue commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad (what else would it be for!). It was designed by two men, named Yevgeny Vuchetich and Nikolai Nikitin (Tommy Thomas), which I like because they designed the largest statue of a woman in the world which means maybe they are two of the few men who aren’t scared of women. It was once the largest statue in the world period (haha) (get it) (it’s funny because women get periods) but now it’s just the largest statute in Europe (*just*) which is still pretty much the world that matters, can’t count Dubai and stuff because all they do with their time is literally try to build the tallest things. Regardless of how its size measures up to the rest of the world’s big ass statues, TMC is BY FAR the most badass statue ever and I’m obsessed with it. SO BAD ASS. (By the way, if you haven’t watched this Finnish comedian’s take on the word ass yet, you should. He points out the very interesting fact that when you add ‘ass’ after a word like ‘stupid’, it is a bad thing, but when you add it after ‘bad’ like I just did, it makes it a great thing. whaaaat.)
The statue was modeled after a real person, named Valetina Izotova, which is SO cool. I hope she was cool.
who’s this knucklehead
There are 200 steps leading up the hill to the monument itself, representing each day of the horrific Battle. They are lined with walls featuring pretty remarkable reliefs.
On the hill beneath the statue are lots of gravestones for various military personnel, and next to it is a hall with the Eternal Flame, another thing every Russian town has in addition to the bust of Lenin. The walls are covered with the lists of names of those who were lost in the war, I assume. When we arrived, they were having a moment of silence and it was quite moving. Many armed soldiers were guarding the flame, more than usual because this was a really important place, an entire hall of a war memorial, but how much must it suck to get assigned to this kind of position, just standing there at attention all day and watching all the doofy tourists take selfies.
The Volgs had already won me over before we got to the Badass Mother, but considering this is all I originally (thought I) wanted to see, I was not disappointed. We need more gigantic statues of women. Maybe that’s what can take the place of all the confederate ones.
Volgograd had incredible history and sights and some pretty good food too! I was so eager to get to the all vegan restaurant and shop Mirnaya Eda (Peaceful Meal), and while it was a little tricky to find, it was worth it. Even if the food sucked it would have been worth it – my first all vegan place in so long! – but luckily it did not suck.
I was a little overwhelmed with all the choice, when I had to read everything in Russian and then by the time I deciphered one and moved on to the next I forgot what came before so I couldn’t compare and contrast and it was very stressful! I chose a salad and a wrap, and they were both good but a little weird! The salad was covered in chia goop, a little strange, no? It was herby chia goop like a thick dressing but chia goop nonetheless. I love chia seeds and pudding but it was weird as a salad dressing. I was still psyched for veggies though! Likewise, the wrap was a little of because it was full of all hot cooked soupy veggies, which is not the usual either. But still good and yay veggies.
sorry for this picture I forgot the word for knife
The best part of Mirnaya Eda is that it’s an entirely vegan shoppe too! They have tons of fun sounding products, from milks and granolas to cheeses and faux meats. They have a big case of desserts too. I would have bought stuff but I didn’t want to be carrying stuff until home, and I didn’t need emergency supplies any longer now that we were back in European cities.
Honestly my favorite food in Volgograd was this cafeteria-style place in a very cool, cosmopolitan area. There’s a bunch of dishes behind a glass case and you just point to which things you want. Because there’s so much choice, there’s bound to be a lot of vegan-friendly options. And it’s so super cheap. We were eager to try a lot of dishes too, so these types of places are the best for that. We chose a nice one called Chaste Est, which we entered even though the guy pictured outside on the window looked just like the devil incarnate Paul Ryan. Yeesh.
DOESN’T IT
all my fave Russian foods! Kasha, broccoli, beans, and cabbage-y salad!
To celebrate getting through central Asia and all these insane train journeys, we stayed at the Hotel Volgograd, which was super lovely. It’s a great location for walking everywhere and for catching the bus to the Motherland Calls monument. It was built in 1890 and used for a variety of historic purposes. And the room was beautiful, clean, with a comfortable bed. The staff was great too. I called down when we checked in for an extra robe (fluffy white terrycloth hotel robes are my favorite) but they had no idea what I was saying so soon a maid arrived with an extra of every single bathroom amenity just to cover all the bases – shower towel, handtowel, bathmat, toothbrush, combs, soap, shampoos, slippers, and a bathrobe. It was really funny.
not a great picture and I wish I took a pic of the gorgeous lobby but alas
So Volgograd was a great stop and I’m so glad we fit a few days into our schedule. It has such important history that could have destroyed it forever but it has come a long way to be a pleasant, modern city with great sight and a great vibe.
