Traveling in Russia: Images of Moscow

Just revisited Moscow in July thanks to Viking River Cruises. Here are nine images taken there. Check them out while listening to this radio segment updating the tourism situation in Russia.

Vintage Portrait of a Young Pioneer
at Izmailovsky Market.

Cyrillic 101: Mockba=Moscow

I spy the Kremlin.

The famous GUM department store has transitioned
into a luxury mall featuring Louis Vuitton and
Manoli Blahnik.

Leaving Moscow on the Viking Truvor.

St. Petersburg Travel Tips: Museums

Having just spent five days in St. Petersburg, Russia, I learned that there is a paucity of good travel information about the city. So, here's some inside skinny just for you.

1. Everyone knows about the Hermitage. But not everyone knows about the newest Hermitage outpost.

The Hermitage is Russia's largest museum. The main building is housed in the Winter Palace, the former home of several tsars. For years, the most popular galleries in the behemoth building consisted of works from Western Europe--more specifically, from the studios of Impressionist and post-Impressionist era giants like Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and Matisse. But here's the scoop. Last December, this collection was relocated across Palace Square to the General Staff Building. As of yet, no one seems to know about the move. So, while the old Hermitage is packed with throngs of tourists, the General Staff Building is almost empty. So, canvas this impressive collection before word gets out.

Top: Vincent Van Gogh: Chaumieres a Auvers-sur-Oise (1890)
Bottom: Henri Matisse: The Red Room (1908)

2. The Hermitage is dirt cheap. 

The Hermitage is actually a collection of museum facilities. Six hundred rubles buys you an entry ticket to the Main Museum Complex and the branches, including The General Staff Building, Winter Palace of Peter the Great, and the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory. If you want to go to just one branch, entry is 300 rubles (less than 6 dollars). If you don't want to stand in an endless line to purchase tickets, buy online.  The first Thursday of the month is free entry. More information can be found here.

The Hermitage and Alexander Column

3. The Faberge Museum is fabulous. 

This addition to the St. Petersburg art scene opened in the fall of 2013. The museum contains the largest collection of the works of Carl Faberge, jeweler to the tsars. Many of the pieces come from the famed Malcolm Forbes collection, which was purchased by Russian gazallionaire Viktor Vekselberg in 2004. The highlights are nine Imperial Easter Eggs created by Faberge for the last two Russian tsars--Alexander III and Nicholas II. (Prior to Vekselberg's purchase, St. Petersburg had been eggless).

There are more than 4,000 works of art in the museum, so make sure to spend some time. The Faberge Museum is open every day except Friday. From 10 to 6, the exhibition is only available for viewing with a guided tour. An English-language guided tour is available at least once per day, or you can join any tour wearing an audioguide. From 6 PM to 8:45 PM, visitors can explore the museum on their own.

Lilies of the Valley
Imperial Easter Egg 1908

The renovated Shulalov Palace (circa 1799), in which the collection resides, is a masterpiece in and of itself. 

The dome inside the main hall of
Shulalov Palace

Exterior of the Faberge Museum

4. In addition to its glam museums, St. Petersburg also has its share of the quirky. 

To wit, one museum features Pavlov's dog. Another showcases micro-miniatures: wee pieces of art smaller than one millimeter...and only visible by microscope. More on those unconventional menageries in the next post.  

The Hygiene Museum or the
Miniatures Museum? See next post for the answer.

Retro Soviet posters at the Museum of Hygiene

Things to Know Before Traveling to Russia: Part I

While international tourism arrivals in Russia are down this year, the fact is, politics aside, now it a fine time to visit the country. The ruble's value has plummeted, and fresh artistic attractions in St. Petersburg are among the draws.

1. At the end of 2012, $1 U.S. bought 30 rubles. In July 2015, $1 buys 57 rubles. In other words, the ruble has nearly halved in value in two and a half years. The dollar's new buying power is especially noticeable in the Moscow hotel market. Hotel rooms that cost $400 a night in 2012 are going for $150 a night today.

   

   Shopping at GUM, Moscow's
   famous shopping mecca, is much
   less expensive than it was just
   two years ago.

2. The Cyrillic alphabet was imported into Russia during the 9th century by St. Cyril and St. Methodius (poor St. Methodius. All the work and none of the credit). Back then, the alphabet had 42 letters. Now, there are only 33 to confuse you. Try to learn a few key letters before you go. The skill will greatly help you navigate your way.

   

   Learn the language by reading the signs.

3. Good cheese is hard to find. In August, 2014, Vladimir Putin put sanctions on many agricultural imports from the European Union, including cheese. While domestic production has soared this year (the first quarter of 2015 was up nearly 30% from the comparable period in 2014), eating local cheese is making Russians bleu.

   

   Customers at the upscale Eliseevsky Market
   in Moscow are missing their imported cheese.
   
   

Mayokovskaya (Маяковская) Station, built in 1938,
is considered among the most beautiful
in the Moscow Metro system.

4. The Moscow Metro is 80 years old. The first line was launched in 1935, part of Stalin’s vast plan to update the city's transportation system while creating "palaces for the people". Today, the Moscow Metro carries about 2.5 billion passengers a year (versus about 1.5 billion in Paris and 1.7 billion in New York). Many of the system's 200 or so stations are works of art. The earliest stations are filled with scenes depicting the idealized Soviet citizen--the farmer, the factory worker, the athlete, and the soldier.

Soviet solder in bronze at the
Ploschad Revolyutsii ( Площадь Революции)
,Metro Station

Ceiling mosaic at
Маяковская Station

5. Getting a visa for Russia is a giant pain, even if you live in a city with a Russian consulate. If you go through the process, get a three-year visa. It's not that much more expensive, and it will spare you the red tape if you want to travel to Russia again within the time span. Want to go to Russia without seeing red? St. Petersburg has a relatively-new 72-hour visa-free program which I will detail in the next post.      

Tourist poses with Lenin and
Stalin near Red Square

Travel to Russia?

Well, it looks like I won’t be pitching the story of my Trans-Siberian journey through Russia anytime soon. Given the events that have taken place in Ukraine since February, international tourism to Russia has plummeted, as has demand for information about Russian travel.

2013 was a blockbuster year for international tourism to Russia. Rosturizm, the state tourism agency, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying numbers were up nearly four percent, reaching 2.7 million international visitors. Russia was even making headway into the U.S. market, attracting 200,000 Americans (including me) last year. That’s the highest number since 2008.

And it looked like the increases were going to continue, given the impetus provided by the Sochi Olympics. But then, the Ukraine crisis began shortly after the Games ended.  After the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the impact on tourism was apparent. Cruise lines and tour operators started cancelling stops in Russia. Ivan Shirkov, Senior Sales Specialist at Travel All Russia, one of the top international inbound tour operators to Russia, reports bookings in March and April were down 200 percent from 2013. Alexander Maklyarovsky, head of incoming tourism at Moscow-based KMP Group, said he expected overall tourism numbers for the summer to be down by 30 percent. SPB Tours, which organizes visits in St. Petersburg (more than 650 miles from Kiev), reported reservations had fallen almost 50 percent by June, compared to the same period last year.

And now, given the international outrage over the downing of Flight 17, even fewer people are opting to travel to Russia. It’s not really a matter of safety, even though the State Department has posted travel warnings. But those focus mainly on the parts of Russia bordering Ukraine.

Instead, people are opting out for political reasons and are boycotting with their pocketbooks. Of course, fall and winter are not prime times for Russian tourism, so the question may become how all of this will impact travel into 2015. Shirkov says it is too soon to tell if the skies will continue to darken. The answer may depend on the continuing political fallout from the latest tragedy.

Developing Coverage: More political implications; interviews with Russian hoteliers and tour operators

Learning Russian: An Olympian Feat

I have been taking Russian for the past three weeks. Actually, full disclosure, as I am not trying to be a K-G-Beast, I took an introductory class three years ago, but I didn't get high marx. In fact, I never got beyond learning the ABC's...or in the case of the Cyrillic alphabet, the AБB's.

www.thegrissom-gram.blogspot.com

 My knowledge of that alphabet was enhanced by

 last year's trip to Russia, where I putin free time

 attempting to read restaurant (pectopah) signs. 

I will detail that exercise and my steppe-by-steppe progress 
in Russian classes in upcoming posts. Meantime,
for those confused by the order of the Parade of Nations 
at the Sochi Opening Ceremony, let me attempt to 
explain, given my rudimentary knowledge of Cyrillic.
I hope it will be godunov for you.

As you can see from the chart above, Cyrillic has a variety of 
characters. Some look familiar to those who know English; 
some look familiar to those who know Greek (pi); 
and others look downright unfamiliar.

Further mucking up the works is that many of the letters that look 
familiar are not pronounced the way we think they should be. 
B=V; P=R and H=N. Our B is the Russian Б (sort of); 
our P is the character that looks like pi П; and our H does exist. 

And don't even get me started on Ч, Ш, Щ or the bI.

Transliteration: Blini

So, let's refer back to the chart above. Because B which actually 
sounds like V is the third letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, 
Venezuela (Венесуэла) and the Virgin Islands (in the Winter Olympics?) 
were near the beginning of the parade and the Czech Republic (Чехия) and Chile (Чили), featuring that damned Ч (sound similar to the ch in chai), were near the end. Jamaica (Ямайка) and Japan (Япония) were the last to enter alphabetically. As is tradition, the host country  Россия, came last.

By the way, for fans of the Olympics Cold War style, remember the CCCP worn by Olga Korbut and her ilk? It stands for Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик. Gogol it.