Red Corner: Finding your Blini in Moscow

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s a common curse facing many developing nations: the local economy improves, money starts to flow, and suddenly ethnic restaurants start popping up on street corners everywhere because locals–long tired of eating the same old national dish–want to try something new and fashionable.

Over time, sushi and Thai food replace local cuisine and it soon becomes very difficult to find a restaurant that actually serves any local food at all.

This becomes a big problem for tourists; one doesn’t travel all the way to Moscow, for example, to eat sushi.

Thankfully, the good folks at The Independent have realized how this problem affects out-of-towners in Russia’s capital where ethnic restaurants have run amuck. Robin Buss has therefore put together a rather extensive article aimed at helping hungry tourists in Moscow find that traditional Muscovite meal. Be sure to take his advice; pass on the hamburgers and sushi and jump right into the caviar and borscht. You’ll be very happy you did.

Red Corner: Mass Games Video, North Korea

by Neil Woodburn on

Yesterday we introduced you to a cool new site on Yahoo which allows travelers to send in video clips of their vacations in YouTube fashion.

Today, we’d like to direct you to one of the more amazing videos on the site.

We’ve posted a couple of times before about the Mass Games held every summer in North Korea. These games feature thousands of participants dancing about in brain-washed, orgiastic praise of the communist dictatorship. Such choreographed propaganda used to be common throughout the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War; these days, however, it can only be witnessed in North Korea.

As of yesterday, I’d only seen photos of the event. But now, thanks to Yahoo Current Traveler, there is a short clip which encapsulates this amazing spectacle which manages to be impressive, beautiful, and horrifying all at the same time.

You really need to check this one out.

Red Corner: Dresden Turns 800

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s not so often one gets to celebrate a birthday after being fire-bombed by 3,900 tons of ordnance. And yet, the city of Dresden–80% of which was destroyed after the infamous World War II air campaign which leveled the city–turns 800 this month.

Celebrating Dresden’s 800th birthday is rather odd if you ask me; nothing standing in the city today is more than 60 years old.

As you can tell by the depiction above, Dresden was an extraordinarily beautiful city before the controversial bombings. Quite a bit of it has been rebuilt, first by the communists who threw in their share of ugly socialist architecture, and then later by the unified German state. The result is hardly as wonderful as the original, however, but it’s a nice start. I’d be curious to visit sometime in the future when all the reconstruction is finally done.

In the meantime, for those you who want to pop on over and pay Dresden a birthday visit, the New York Times has a pretty good write-up in last Sunday’s paper on what to see and where to stay while there. Just don’t tell anyone you’re American or British…

Red Corner: GDR Museum

by Neil Woodburn on

When the Berlin Wall finally toppled, East Germans disposed of their communist era goods and lifestyle as fast as humanly possible.

The change was so thorough that visitors to eastern Berlin today have to search very hard to find artifacts from the communist era. In fact, it is difficult to tell which side of the city you happen to be on if you don’t have a map handy; the former East has been westernized that much.

Fearful that all remnants of the communist era would eventually disappear, curators began collecting material from the period and have now organized a museum detailing what life was under communism.

The recently opened GDR Museum in Berlin houses 10,000 items donated by those who lived through this period. The museum highlights the mundane, the horrific, and the absurd.

Visitors can step into a replica of an East German apartment loaded with communist goods which have otherwise disappeared from society. Other exhibits reveal the insidiousness of the secret police, the crappy engineering behind East German automobiles, the bland packaging of consumer goods, and countless other reminders East Germans would rather forget.

While the museum has mostly been designed with tourists in mind, many East Germans I’ve met have a strange nostalgia for the period and will most likely visit the exhibits as well. “Not everything was bad in the GDR,” my friends often tell me. They fondly, and perhaps selectively, remember the foods of their youth and a handful of other consumer items which no longer exist. A visit to the GDR Museum will be a nice trip down memory lane for such people–as long as they avoid the Stasi exhibit.

Red Corner: Moscow Parks

by Neil Woodburn on

Like most big cities, Moscow can eat away at one’s soul. Too much traffic, too many people, and too much noise pollution can quickly transform even the most mellow of people into high-strung neurotics.

Thankfully, there is a remedy.

When the big city encroaches on a Muscovite’s sanity, a person can disappear into the sanctuary of one of the city’s many parks for some much-needed, mental recharging.

Moscow is surprisingly blessed with a number of green areas and parks. The Moscow Times has thoughtfully put together a rather extensive listing of 30+ restful respites hidden around the city, ranging from the well-known Gorky Park to the lesser known Patriarchs’ Ponds where Annushka spilled the oil.