Photo of the Day (5/26/08)

by Iva Skoch on

Since I am still on my Russian kick this week, I couldn’t resist picking this photo from St. Petersburg by Radim.

I just saw this sight in St. Petersburg this weekend. Right outside the Alexander Nevsky Monastery are two major cemeteries. One of them houses graves of prominent Russian artists such as Dostoevsky or Rimsky-Korsakov. The other cemetery, buried in unkept grass and bushes houses graves of “atheists and communist scientists.” Yes, it is hard to believe that right outside a monastery, there is a resting place for the most non-believing of non-believers. Russia is full of strange paradoxes.

Poetic it is. Just like this picture illustrates. The red star of communist’s grave and a cross in the background.

***To have your photo considered for the Gadling Photo of the Day, go over to the Gadling Flickr Pool and post it. Make sure it is not copyrighted, otherwise we can’t post it here.***

Bolshoi in Russia: Driving like it is the last time ever. It could just be.

by Iva Skoch on

Greetings from Moscow! Bolshoi in Russia is my variation on Big in Japan. (Bolshoi means “Big” in Russian. Get it?) Stay tuned for my live dispatches from Russia this week.

A few things to know before driving a car in Russia: avoid it if you can. The traffic is terrible. I suppose anytime you have a country where half the people own fast, luxury cars and the other half owns piece-of-junk Ladas, it’s not a good set up. They have to somehow share the same roads, you know.

The funny thing about driving in Moscow is that you have to know exactly where you are going. The city is filled with one-way highways which do not give you many opportunities to turn around if you end up going in the wrong direction. This is true for taxis, too. Know which direction you are going before you flag one. Not doing so could result in a lot of extra miles on the meter.

The other bizarre thing is that their highways are built so that they could be used as landing strips for aircraft, I’m told. Honestly, every highway here looks like it was built for tanks, not cars. It’s not that they have more lanes than US highways, it’s just that Russian highways seem extra wide because they do not use a median to protect you from on-coming traffic. People drive fast and they look like they are driving right into you. I took this photo from the car I was in, praying to God for no head-on collisions.

Onto more driving tidbits. Check out these cars.

Painting kitchy images on one’s car is a Russian specialty. Apparently, it’s popular mainly because you get a discount on your car insurance if you “mark” your car with, say, a big wildlife theme. Car theft is very common here.

You see wildlife images, Andy Warhol pictures, and even entire city skylines painted on people’s cars. I guess it makes sense, in a weird kind of way. Who would want to steal that?

From Russia, with love.

Bolshoi in Russia: No hot water for three weeks…makes you stronger

by Iva Skoch on

Greetings from Moscow! Bolshoi in Russia is my variation on Big in Japan. (Bolshoi means “Big” in Russian. Get it?) Stay tuned for my live dispatches from Russia this week.

One of the joys of life in Moscow in the summer is that they turn off hot water for up to three weeks for maintenance. The energy company does this every year. They switch off hot water in different areas of the city as they carry out hydraulic tests, repair work and replacement of pipelines, the English-language newspaper Moscow News reports.

Switching off hot water for a while is not too surprising. Many parts of Europe still do this, including the Czech Republic. In my district of Prague, we get our hot water switched off in July for about 4-6 days. We know about a month in advance, so it is pretty easy to deal (my trick – hit the gym or pool and take a shower there). But three weeks???

I see several problems with this concept. Moscow gets very, very hot in the summer.There is no air-conditioning in the subways and buses. I cannot not even imagine the way it would smell in public transportation (or any busy public places) after about a two-week period with no hot showers.

OK, you could argue that the locals are used to it and tourists have no right to complain. Still, imagine being a tourist and paying, say $200 for a room (and we are talking hostel quality here; remember Moscow truly is ridiculously expensive) and getting no hot water on top of everything else (such as the toilet not flushing, the shower reeking like somebody died in there, etc.) Oy! Then again, you would get a pretty good idea of what life in the Soviet Union was like. There is nothing that screams collectivism quite like a cold sponge bath!

If you are not looking for that kind of experience, and are planning a trip to Moscow in the summer (starting now through the end of August), make sure you check out the schedule for the annual hot water holiday for the district where you’ll be staying. If you read Russian, the schedule is here. (Or, at least call ahead and make absolutely sure your hotel heats it’s own water.)

From Russia, with love.

Bolshoi in Russia: Stray dogs in Moscow’s metro

by Iva Skoch on

Greetings from Moscow! Bolshoi in Russia is my variation on Big in Japan. (Bolshoi means “Big” in Russian. Get it?) Stay tuned for my live dispatches from Russia this week.

Just as I was wondering why there are so many stray dogs everywhere in Moscow (including the subway), this Wall Street Journal article came to my rescue. Moscow estimates the population of stray dogs at about 26,000.

Apparently, “in Soviet times, dogs were barred from Moscow’s metro. Today, however, they are so common there — curling up on empty seats, nuzzling their neighbors, lounging in stations — that there is even a Web site devoted to them: www.metrodog.ru.” (Couldn’t have said it better myself.)

I just got back from subway trip in which there was a dog literally queuing at the train door on the platform, just like everyone else. The weird thing is, these dogs actually look like they know where they’re going. They seem to wait for “their” stop to come up. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit, but…

According to the article’s sources (including a zoologist), the main reason for the exploding dog population is the ease of getting food nowadays. “One of their chief tactics, made possible by their increasing comfort in crowds, is simply to lie in a busy subway passage, where thousands of people pass by, and wait for someone to toss them something.” And, just as Muscovites toss (and I mean literally toss) food or money at homeless people (and I mean AT them), they toss some at dogs, as well. Egalitarian society at its best.

From Russia, with love.

Bolshoi in Russia: Moscow truly is a ridiculously expensive city

by Iva Skoch on

Greetings from Moscow! Bolshoi in Russia is my variation on Big in Japan. (Bolshoi means “Big” in Russian. Get it?) Stay tuned for my live dispatches from Russia this week.

Moscow has been ranked the world’s most expensive city for two years now. Still, it’s one thing to see the ranking in the newspaper and another thing to actually be here and pay the prices. In an average bar or restaurant, this is what you are looking at:

  • $5-10 for a shot of vodka
  • $8 – 10 for a latte (and they insist on putting a straw into it, to make matters worse)
  • $8-10 for a beer (sometimes, they put a straw in beer, too)
  • $20-$30 for lunch (and I am taking sausages, not an actual meal)
  • $50 for a decent dinner

It is the price of coffee which would kill me here. It would be very hard to just hang out in a coffee shop without going completely broke.

The funny this is, the average salary in Moscow is about $1,500/month. Most people, however, make less than $1,000. How do they afford this stuff? The easy answer is they don’t. You see kiosks all over Moscow where people grab lunch, dinner or beer to go. Every metro station has a cluster of these kiosks and people simple hang out outside of them, drinking beer and talking. What do they do in the winter? You got me.

There are, however, some really affordable aspects of life in Moscow:

Take metro tickets, for example. They are only 19 rubles, or roughly 80 cents. The subway system has great coverage and is extremely efficient. Trains come every 1-2 minutes. They pretty much have to because the subways are always packed.

Another bargain in Moscow? Theater tickets. We paid 300 rubles (or about $15) to see a classical music concert in the Moscow International Hall of Music. Really nice venue, great music, all that for the price of two lattes. As much as I love coffee, I would have to opt for music here. Even the Bolshoi Theater has bargains.

The other thing that is fairly affordable in Moscow is sushi. Like many place around the globe, Moscow was swept by the sushi wave about five years ago. So many new sushi restaurants opened, that they all had to reduce prices. Mind you, it is still not a bargain, but comparing to everything else in Moscow, California roll for $10 is a good deal. They really go crazy with rolls here, by the way. Most of them don’t even have fish in them. You can get a Caesar salad roll, (yes in a Japanese restaurant), pizza roll, ham and cheese roll…you see my point.

Let’s see, what else if affordable in Moscow? How could I forget! You can see dedushka Lenin in his tomb for free! I saw him today. He looks very peaceful in there. I couldn’t tell if he is real or if its just a wax figure, as some conspiracy theories suggest. At the end of the day, who cares.

Then, of course, there is vodka. You can get some good deals on Vodka, but I wouldn’t suggest going with the cheapest stuff. You an get a shot from as little as $3 to as much as $20. Russian Standard is a good brand. A shot would set you back about $5. With a little vodka in you, the cost of hanging out in Moscow doesn’t hurt as badly.

From Russia, with love.