On April 30th, I met with Irina around noon since my train was scheduled to leave around 15.30 or so and she was going to be helping me to purchase a gift before I left. The shop we were looking for was right near the metro luckily (she had helped look it up the night before.. amazingly helpful, she really didn't need to help me like that and I can't thank her enough!) We got to the metro about 90 minutes before the train was set to depart and I before we even got to the door I noticed that the security here is ... well, it's kind of pointless. You walk up to a metal detector which apparently only detects nuclear weapons because no one was stopping to take off jewelry or belts of take out wallets. You walk up, set your bags on a table between the detectors, walk through, pick up your bags and proceed. At no point are the contents of your bags checked and I could have had an entire bag packed full of automatic weapons and no one would have known... as long as I don't have them in my pants it's fine ... even though as soon as you're through security you can take them out and put them back in your pants, and that's just fine. I thought that was more than a little strange.
On the way out of the building towards the platforms we saw a woman fighting with a Militia officer. She was trying to take the stairs out of the station and down into the metro and he was fighting to get her bag from her. Apparently although it's considered rude to look at other people in the transport, it's not in poor taste to blatantly stare at people when strange things happen, and a crowd of people stopped whatever they were doing to watch the proceedings. I tried to look away and was actually urged to watch as if it was vital that I see everything that transpired lest I miss what little excitement is apparently available in Russia.
We got up to the platform once the train arrived and made our way up to the car number 2, all the way at the front of the train (roughly 20 passenger cars total), and it took about 5 minutes to get there. We waited about 15 minutes or so for the conductress to start boarding, and when she saw my ticket she advised me that since I had an electronic ticket I would need to wait for the conductor. We waited another 15 minutes before the conductor arrived, who then told us that the ticket I had printed off wasn't really my ticket and so we had to walk all the way back, out of the station, around the block to the ticket window, and use the paper I had to pick up the ticket... with less than 15 minutes before the train left. I handed the woman at the window my 2 sheets of paper (1 for each ticket, I purchased round-trip). She gave me an official orange ticket for my return voyage, but assured me that my paper that was clearly not a ticket was in fact actually a ticket and the people on the platform were mistaken. I wasn't satisfied with that response, but Irina clearly was, and so we walked all the way back to the front of the train again.
When we got there, Irina started talking to the conductress and told me to go ahead and get on the train since it was leaving in about 3 minutes. I stood just outside the conductor's quarters and soon the train started moving. The conductress ran up as the train pulled off and jumped in. Realized I was still on the train, but we were already moving. There was some confusion since I in fact DIDN'T have a ticket, but having the sheet saying I had paid for one I guess she settled on since the train was already moving and it was too late to kick me off. Good job, Irina, very clever. However, we then discovered that I was looking at the wrong sheet, and I was in fact in cabin 17, not 2... awesome. So I lugged my 2 bags and gift (a porcelain doll) through the train 15 cars, trying not to break any of them and finally got settled in my proper seat.
Then I got to try to explain in Russian that I didn't speak Russian at which point I got a lot of strange looks. Sometimes, when you're not fully fluent it's just easier to tell them you don't so you can relax instead of struggling for 15 hours to understand when you really just want to sleep. In Moscow people tend to look at you for an extra few seconds when they hear you speaking English, but it's not totally unheard of. IN Saratov however... well no one speaks English. What English speaker in their right mind would travel this far away from Moscow unless they were visiting family. As I have no family that I'm visiting, most people assume I'm insane, and have an incredible tendency to just stare at me until I'm out of sight. I'm kind of already used to at this point though, so no biggie. I'm still mildly aware that I'm being stared at, but I've learned to not let it phase me.
The car was old and I spent the first 8 hours trying to not die from discomfort. I think this thing may have been one of the first passenger cars ever built in the world and by the time bedtime came around I was miserably uncomfortable. We pulled down my bed and laid out a mattress and tried in vain to sleep in the cramped side-bed, which by the way didn't have a safety harness of any kind. I finally managed to get to sleep from sheer exhaustion about 4 hours before the trip ended (15.5 hours total) and woke up as we neared Saratov to find that my mattress had almost fallen off the shelf and I scrambled not to fall as I regained consciousness.
The train arrived at 6.30 and I climbed off the train to a beautiful sunrise and met with Natasha and she took me to the hotel she had helped me book the day before. Apparently most of the hotels in Saratov don't accept foreign visitors and it was one of the few that would take me. Luckily I was visiting on a holiday (I tried to learn what holiday it was, but no one seems to remember... apparently some old soviet holiday... it really doesn't matter anymore as it's really just an excuse to drink and take 3 days off), so I paid less than half per day what they usually charge. I would argue that it was a rather excessive discount for a holiday no one even knows the name of, but I can't really complain about paying 800 rubles a night as opposed to 1 700 rubles a night.
The rooms are small by American standards, and including the bathroom closet and front hall it was about the same size as my bedroom at home. It wasn't by any means cramped though, and I had more than enough room. However, the beds were created I suspect around the time WWI erupted and I couldn't sleep at all the first night from all the hard metal springs sticking into my spine and sides. That's what you get for 800 rubles a night I guess. At least my room was overlooking the Volga river, so I had lots of pretty lights to watch while I wasn't sleeping. Natasha dropped me off at the hotel to unpack and shower, and after accepting the porcelain doll and giving me my birthday present, she went to run some errands, leaving me 1 of her phones to use while I was in town so that I could avoid substantial roaming charges.
Although in her particular case she only purchased her second phone several weeks ago for her trip to Belarus for a teaching conference, it's apparently pretty standard for most people (or at least young people) to carry 2 phones. A nice phone for music, pretty apps and internet, and a cheaper phone for calls and such. I may be wrong about the uses, but I have noticed a good number of people carrying 2 phones. Since phones here are paid as you go, not with expensive plans, it's not so expensive to have multiples as long as you divide their uses.
She returned about 2 hours later and we headed out into town so she could show me around the city. Here I noticed several things. One, the bus fare here is only 10 rub as opposed to 60 rub. Awesome. Second, the buses are done differently here. If you're riding a shuttle bus you pay as soon as you sit down, by passing your fare to anyone sitting closer to the driver than you, and they pass you back a ticket to show you paid in case you're stopped by the police to check that everyone on board has paid (if you haven't, you pay double fare). On city buses you get on through any of the three doors, and some buses will have a conductor that comes back and collects fare and gives you a ticket, and some buses you just pay whenever you get off. I suppose it's possible on these buses to just jump off, but the problem is that if you need to take the same bus again, which you will at some point, the driver will attack you, so I was told people rarely jump without paying.
That reminds me of something else, actually. I'm sorry to jump back to Moscow, but the turnstiles at the Metro entrance make me laugh. You hold up your pass and a monitor tells you how many more credits you have left and then turns green for a second for you to pass through. If you don't have any credits it turns red and closing gates pop up. At least 5-10 times a minute young guys just walk up and jump over though, and although there are several police stationed at booths next to the stiles and they will blow their whistles at you, they never bother to chase you... so... yeah, not really much of a deterrent.
The seating on buses as on the metro is the same, and there is a seating priority. The older and more woman you are, the higher your seating priority. If you are an old woman, you get first priority; young women, 2nd, old men, 3rd, and young men, 4th. If the train empties and there are enough seats for young guys, awesome! You're welcome to sit. But as soon as anyone else gets on you're supposed to get up so they can sit. You don't have to, of course, but it is considered polite of course. Typically for young guys, it's easier to just stand than to bother with sitting down and getting back up constantly. The only immunity from this seems to be if you're with a woman, in which case people tend to be more lenient. When I was with Natasha she got a seat, and I got one with her.
I also noticed an incredible number of packs of dogs running up and down the streets. They all seemed like decent enough animals, like they were house trained, but had been abandoned at some point. They never attack you, but the young ones understand that they're better at getting food and look at you all super adorable to get food for the others. Interesting ... apparently no animal control here
The next few days are rather a blur and I won't try to log for you every minute of every day. On the second was Natasha's sister Lena's birthday, and so she joined us and we went up to Victory Park at the highest point in the city. The city of Saratov is situated in a valley between mountain ranges and the Volga river, and the monument is situated on top with a huge monument at the edge overlooking the city and surrounded by all manner of both mobile and stationary weaponry from the era of The Great Patriotic War (WW II). I assured her I didn't need full translations of every single sign for every single tank and jet and artillery platform, but being a translator it's one of her great passions, and so I chose to indulge her and she translated the signs for me for hours. In return, I told her about the specifications and mechanics of a lot of the weapons and she laughed, saying her father would love me. He apparently used to serve with a tank battery when he was in the army and it's a great passion of his. I hope to meet him soon!
There is also a small village nearby called the International Village (forgive me if I am recalling this name wrong... I'm only like 90% sure that's right) that had the traditional residential residences of each of the different countries that formerly comprised the USSR. Half of them weren't labeled despite the monument having been opened 5 years ago, but the girls knew a good number of them, and Lena took great pride in telling me the story about a castle near the end of the village which she is apparently particularly fond of.
Over the next 3 days I sampled several other foods, including pizza. I know that sounds weird for an American to try pizza.... and Natasha was hesitant to let me try it, sure that I would be disappointed by how it stood up to American pizza, but my reaction was quite the opposite. I'm inclined to tell American to get their act together, because it's ridiculous that Russia's imitations of American pizzas are tastier than actual American pizzas. They were like gourmet pizzas with a flaky almost buttery crust that was phenomenal. I did notice that in Russia people eat pizza with a fork and knife though, and that might take some getting used to.
There are also still circuses here, and they are stationary. The Saratov Circus operates out of the same building all the time. Although there are malls, there are a plethora of outdoor covered shopping centers with tons of small shops. It's basically the same as in Moscow, but since there's no underground here, there are large areas on the sidewalks that have semi-permanent structures reserved for selling goods. As in Moscow, you'll be walking down the street, look right, and see a wall of underwear and bras hanging there in your face... it's a little strange, but again... I'm starting to get used to it.
I got to see all of the major parks in the city and spent a good deal walking down near the Volga along the embankment. There is a park for children along the water and several monuments which I enjoyed tremendously, but I have to admit that the Volga was much more beautiful at night when you could see the reflection of all the beautiful lights on the water rather than the water itself. It was .. well, I'll just say I think I'd catch some sort of infection or disease and potentially die if I fell in (slight over-reaction for the sake of clarity).
I had been looking for crab flavored Lay's for several weeks now, and Natasha also being a fan assured me that everyone sells them. Several stores later (much to the embarrassment of my lovely hostess) we finally found a shop that sold them, and although their tasty... I agree with Lay's that they probably wouldn't be a huge hit in the US where people have tasted crab... whicchhhhhh reminds me. While we're on the subject of meat, I should point out something I've learned about meat and milk.
The reason people don't panic about leaving milk out for hours is that it's not actually milk really. Apparently back during the era of Russia and the US trying to always one-up each other, someone genius had the brilliant idea that in order to surpass the US in meat production, the solution was simple: kill every cow in the country. Great idea, except that the country to this day is still trying to recover. The vast majority of milk is powdered and comes in from china where water is added in Russia. Since it's not realllyyyy milk, it keeps better apparently. As for meat, I don't know where it comes from, but there certainly doesn't seem to be a shortage of it, so it must be plentiful somewhere nearby.
The city park near my hotel also has a fair in it where performances are held every night on a stage and there are rides like a centrifuge, ferris wheel, and all sorts of other fun stuff to do at night (by the way, the view from the top of the ferris wheel at sunset is quite lovely). There is also a children's area in the park, an area for skaters and bikers, and of course lots of walking paths and several small lakes with lots of benches around for ... reasons I don't need to mention. Definitely a very lovely park, and one I hope to spend much more time in.
The train ride back was much less eventful as I had an actual boarding pass this time and got on the right train. The car was a brand new model and the seats were actually cushioned with railings so I didn't wake up about to die. I fell asleep quickly and awoke in Moscow. I can't wait for my next trip to Saratov, and I hope to spend a good deal more time there.
I hope everyone has an excellent day, and I pray you can forgive me for my lack of posts this past week! As always, I find myself nervous to fall asleep, and looking forward to what adventures may come tomorrow. Take care, All!
On the way out of the building towards the platforms we saw a woman fighting with a Militia officer. She was trying to take the stairs out of the station and down into the metro and he was fighting to get her bag from her. Apparently although it's considered rude to look at other people in the transport, it's not in poor taste to blatantly stare at people when strange things happen, and a crowd of people stopped whatever they were doing to watch the proceedings. I tried to look away and was actually urged to watch as if it was vital that I see everything that transpired lest I miss what little excitement is apparently available in Russia.
We got up to the platform once the train arrived and made our way up to the car number 2, all the way at the front of the train (roughly 20 passenger cars total), and it took about 5 minutes to get there. We waited about 15 minutes or so for the conductress to start boarding, and when she saw my ticket she advised me that since I had an electronic ticket I would need to wait for the conductor. We waited another 15 minutes before the conductor arrived, who then told us that the ticket I had printed off wasn't really my ticket and so we had to walk all the way back, out of the station, around the block to the ticket window, and use the paper I had to pick up the ticket... with less than 15 minutes before the train left. I handed the woman at the window my 2 sheets of paper (1 for each ticket, I purchased round-trip). She gave me an official orange ticket for my return voyage, but assured me that my paper that was clearly not a ticket was in fact actually a ticket and the people on the platform were mistaken. I wasn't satisfied with that response, but Irina clearly was, and so we walked all the way back to the front of the train again.
When we got there, Irina started talking to the conductress and told me to go ahead and get on the train since it was leaving in about 3 minutes. I stood just outside the conductor's quarters and soon the train started moving. The conductress ran up as the train pulled off and jumped in. Realized I was still on the train, but we were already moving. There was some confusion since I in fact DIDN'T have a ticket, but having the sheet saying I had paid for one I guess she settled on since the train was already moving and it was too late to kick me off. Good job, Irina, very clever. However, we then discovered that I was looking at the wrong sheet, and I was in fact in cabin 17, not 2... awesome. So I lugged my 2 bags and gift (a porcelain doll) through the train 15 cars, trying not to break any of them and finally got settled in my proper seat.
Then I got to try to explain in Russian that I didn't speak Russian at which point I got a lot of strange looks. Sometimes, when you're not fully fluent it's just easier to tell them you don't so you can relax instead of struggling for 15 hours to understand when you really just want to sleep. In Moscow people tend to look at you for an extra few seconds when they hear you speaking English, but it's not totally unheard of. IN Saratov however... well no one speaks English. What English speaker in their right mind would travel this far away from Moscow unless they were visiting family. As I have no family that I'm visiting, most people assume I'm insane, and have an incredible tendency to just stare at me until I'm out of sight. I'm kind of already used to at this point though, so no biggie. I'm still mildly aware that I'm being stared at, but I've learned to not let it phase me.
The car was old and I spent the first 8 hours trying to not die from discomfort. I think this thing may have been one of the first passenger cars ever built in the world and by the time bedtime came around I was miserably uncomfortable. We pulled down my bed and laid out a mattress and tried in vain to sleep in the cramped side-bed, which by the way didn't have a safety harness of any kind. I finally managed to get to sleep from sheer exhaustion about 4 hours before the trip ended (15.5 hours total) and woke up as we neared Saratov to find that my mattress had almost fallen off the shelf and I scrambled not to fall as I regained consciousness.
The train arrived at 6.30 and I climbed off the train to a beautiful sunrise and met with Natasha and she took me to the hotel she had helped me book the day before. Apparently most of the hotels in Saratov don't accept foreign visitors and it was one of the few that would take me. Luckily I was visiting on a holiday (I tried to learn what holiday it was, but no one seems to remember... apparently some old soviet holiday... it really doesn't matter anymore as it's really just an excuse to drink and take 3 days off), so I paid less than half per day what they usually charge. I would argue that it was a rather excessive discount for a holiday no one even knows the name of, but I can't really complain about paying 800 rubles a night as opposed to 1 700 rubles a night.
The rooms are small by American standards, and including the bathroom closet and front hall it was about the same size as my bedroom at home. It wasn't by any means cramped though, and I had more than enough room. However, the beds were created I suspect around the time WWI erupted and I couldn't sleep at all the first night from all the hard metal springs sticking into my spine and sides. That's what you get for 800 rubles a night I guess. At least my room was overlooking the Volga river, so I had lots of pretty lights to watch while I wasn't sleeping. Natasha dropped me off at the hotel to unpack and shower, and after accepting the porcelain doll and giving me my birthday present, she went to run some errands, leaving me 1 of her phones to use while I was in town so that I could avoid substantial roaming charges.
Although in her particular case she only purchased her second phone several weeks ago for her trip to Belarus for a teaching conference, it's apparently pretty standard for most people (or at least young people) to carry 2 phones. A nice phone for music, pretty apps and internet, and a cheaper phone for calls and such. I may be wrong about the uses, but I have noticed a good number of people carrying 2 phones. Since phones here are paid as you go, not with expensive plans, it's not so expensive to have multiples as long as you divide their uses.
She returned about 2 hours later and we headed out into town so she could show me around the city. Here I noticed several things. One, the bus fare here is only 10 rub as opposed to 60 rub. Awesome. Second, the buses are done differently here. If you're riding a shuttle bus you pay as soon as you sit down, by passing your fare to anyone sitting closer to the driver than you, and they pass you back a ticket to show you paid in case you're stopped by the police to check that everyone on board has paid (if you haven't, you pay double fare). On city buses you get on through any of the three doors, and some buses will have a conductor that comes back and collects fare and gives you a ticket, and some buses you just pay whenever you get off. I suppose it's possible on these buses to just jump off, but the problem is that if you need to take the same bus again, which you will at some point, the driver will attack you, so I was told people rarely jump without paying.
That reminds me of something else, actually. I'm sorry to jump back to Moscow, but the turnstiles at the Metro entrance make me laugh. You hold up your pass and a monitor tells you how many more credits you have left and then turns green for a second for you to pass through. If you don't have any credits it turns red and closing gates pop up. At least 5-10 times a minute young guys just walk up and jump over though, and although there are several police stationed at booths next to the stiles and they will blow their whistles at you, they never bother to chase you... so... yeah, not really much of a deterrent.
The seating on buses as on the metro is the same, and there is a seating priority. The older and more woman you are, the higher your seating priority. If you are an old woman, you get first priority; young women, 2nd, old men, 3rd, and young men, 4th. If the train empties and there are enough seats for young guys, awesome! You're welcome to sit. But as soon as anyone else gets on you're supposed to get up so they can sit. You don't have to, of course, but it is considered polite of course. Typically for young guys, it's easier to just stand than to bother with sitting down and getting back up constantly. The only immunity from this seems to be if you're with a woman, in which case people tend to be more lenient. When I was with Natasha she got a seat, and I got one with her.
I also noticed an incredible number of packs of dogs running up and down the streets. They all seemed like decent enough animals, like they were house trained, but had been abandoned at some point. They never attack you, but the young ones understand that they're better at getting food and look at you all super adorable to get food for the others. Interesting ... apparently no animal control here
The next few days are rather a blur and I won't try to log for you every minute of every day. On the second was Natasha's sister Lena's birthday, and so she joined us and we went up to Victory Park at the highest point in the city. The city of Saratov is situated in a valley between mountain ranges and the Volga river, and the monument is situated on top with a huge monument at the edge overlooking the city and surrounded by all manner of both mobile and stationary weaponry from the era of The Great Patriotic War (WW II). I assured her I didn't need full translations of every single sign for every single tank and jet and artillery platform, but being a translator it's one of her great passions, and so I chose to indulge her and she translated the signs for me for hours. In return, I told her about the specifications and mechanics of a lot of the weapons and she laughed, saying her father would love me. He apparently used to serve with a tank battery when he was in the army and it's a great passion of his. I hope to meet him soon!
There is also a small village nearby called the International Village (forgive me if I am recalling this name wrong... I'm only like 90% sure that's right) that had the traditional residential residences of each of the different countries that formerly comprised the USSR. Half of them weren't labeled despite the monument having been opened 5 years ago, but the girls knew a good number of them, and Lena took great pride in telling me the story about a castle near the end of the village which she is apparently particularly fond of.
Over the next 3 days I sampled several other foods, including pizza. I know that sounds weird for an American to try pizza.... and Natasha was hesitant to let me try it, sure that I would be disappointed by how it stood up to American pizza, but my reaction was quite the opposite. I'm inclined to tell American to get their act together, because it's ridiculous that Russia's imitations of American pizzas are tastier than actual American pizzas. They were like gourmet pizzas with a flaky almost buttery crust that was phenomenal. I did notice that in Russia people eat pizza with a fork and knife though, and that might take some getting used to.
There are also still circuses here, and they are stationary. The Saratov Circus operates out of the same building all the time. Although there are malls, there are a plethora of outdoor covered shopping centers with tons of small shops. It's basically the same as in Moscow, but since there's no underground here, there are large areas on the sidewalks that have semi-permanent structures reserved for selling goods. As in Moscow, you'll be walking down the street, look right, and see a wall of underwear and bras hanging there in your face... it's a little strange, but again... I'm starting to get used to it.
I got to see all of the major parks in the city and spent a good deal walking down near the Volga along the embankment. There is a park for children along the water and several monuments which I enjoyed tremendously, but I have to admit that the Volga was much more beautiful at night when you could see the reflection of all the beautiful lights on the water rather than the water itself. It was .. well, I'll just say I think I'd catch some sort of infection or disease and potentially die if I fell in (slight over-reaction for the sake of clarity).
I had been looking for crab flavored Lay's for several weeks now, and Natasha also being a fan assured me that everyone sells them. Several stores later (much to the embarrassment of my lovely hostess) we finally found a shop that sold them, and although their tasty... I agree with Lay's that they probably wouldn't be a huge hit in the US where people have tasted crab... whicchhhhhh reminds me. While we're on the subject of meat, I should point out something I've learned about meat and milk.
The reason people don't panic about leaving milk out for hours is that it's not actually milk really. Apparently back during the era of Russia and the US trying to always one-up each other, someone genius had the brilliant idea that in order to surpass the US in meat production, the solution was simple: kill every cow in the country. Great idea, except that the country to this day is still trying to recover. The vast majority of milk is powdered and comes in from china where water is added in Russia. Since it's not realllyyyy milk, it keeps better apparently. As for meat, I don't know where it comes from, but there certainly doesn't seem to be a shortage of it, so it must be plentiful somewhere nearby.
The city park near my hotel also has a fair in it where performances are held every night on a stage and there are rides like a centrifuge, ferris wheel, and all sorts of other fun stuff to do at night (by the way, the view from the top of the ferris wheel at sunset is quite lovely). There is also a children's area in the park, an area for skaters and bikers, and of course lots of walking paths and several small lakes with lots of benches around for ... reasons I don't need to mention. Definitely a very lovely park, and one I hope to spend much more time in.
The train ride back was much less eventful as I had an actual boarding pass this time and got on the right train. The car was a brand new model and the seats were actually cushioned with railings so I didn't wake up about to die. I fell asleep quickly and awoke in Moscow. I can't wait for my next trip to Saratov, and I hope to spend a good deal more time there.
I hope everyone has an excellent day, and I pray you can forgive me for my lack of posts this past week! As always, I find myself nervous to fall asleep, and looking forward to what adventures may come tomorrow. Take care, All!
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