Bucharest

Even though we weren't big fans of Ukraine, it prepared us for Bucharest.

We'd heard some awful things about this city. It was dirty, scary, and there were dogs everywhere.

All this is true, but at the same time Bucharest is exciting, and it feels untouched by tourism. You can walk the streets here and discover alleys full of clubs, bars and cafes. There is music blaring from every car stopped at a red light, and through every open apartment window. The people are friendly and many can speak English (but they are still huge fans of adidas tracksuits, mullets, and 'double denim' outfits - which were all very popular in Russia and Ukraine!)

I think the dirtiness isn't bothering us anymore after travelling in Moscow and Lviv. Any grime in Bucharest is overshadowed by a constant feeling of youthful excitement and culture. Bucharest feels like a breath of fresh air in comparison to our previous stops.

Mum always said...

...'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all'.

So,

We went to Ukraine.

We don't have anything else to say.

Money Talks

We know this is a long entry... but it's a good story. What would you do if you were stuck at the Ukrainian border with a visa that may not be valid???



Not long before we were to leave Russia to go to Ukraine on a 24 hour train ride, we found out that our train was leaving 7 hours earlier than first thought.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem.

Except that Gwil's visa didn't start until midnight on May 22, and we were now a little concerned that we'd get to the border before then. (thanks Flight Centre!)

Em was also leaving Russia as an Australian, and entering Ukraine as a British citizen, so needed to change passports without the border police seeing.

Needless to say, we didn't sleep very well on our approach to the border!

We shared a 4 berth cabin with one Ukrainian man, Alexander, who despite being lovely (he made our beds for us, and offered us food every time he ate!), didn't speak any English. This made the trip interesting with lots of sign language and miming!

We got the the Russian border control at 11.30pm, and I think speaking no Russian helped the process go faster. They came into our cabin, turned on all the lights and started asking us questions in Russian, to which we kept relying "Nyet Ruski... Anglyski?". They pretty quickly got tired of us, and left us alone.

By the time we had finished at the Russian border and travelled the short distance to the Ukrainian border control, it was 12.45am, so we were very relieved that Gwil's visa was now valid... we thought.

We soon found out that when you get into Ukraine, you turn your clocks back by 1 hour. So it was now 11.45 on May 22!

Ukrainian border control came on the train looking very serious. Gwil's passport was taken and they said "Visa. Problemo." and pointed to the date on the visa and to a watch. There was a few minutes of miming and pointing to watches before the official took Gwil's passport and mimed 'follow me'.

Gwil was taken to a small room on the train where he was yelled at in Ukrainian... the word "Problemo" kept being repeated, with much shaking of heads. It was now only 10 minutes until his visa was valid, so Gwil did the only thing he thought would get him across the border, and made a money gesture with his hand.

This seemed to move the situation forward. 100 hryvnia was handed over (only about $25 AUD), and it went straight into the official's pocket. Gwil's passport was stamped, and he was allowed back into the cabin. The time was now midnight. (bastard!)

Last days in Russia

We had an eventful last few days in Moscow...

Saw the Kremlin, which is essentially a big walled city with lots of cathedrals in it, and the houses of parliament. I think Em was expecting a few more KGB spies and excitement. But, we got our excitement on leaving the Kremlin, when we saw (from a distance) Moscow riot police! Not just one or two... but dozens of them - all with batons and helmets. We decided to keep our distance from whatever they were trying to control, but on walking away from Red Square we saw a group of people running towards us (and away from where the riot police had been). Behind us someone yelled "RUN RUN RUN! It's very bad!"... so we ran!

We now have bags full of babooshkas (they call them Matrushka dolls here) and mini Faberge eggs. Moscow was a daggy tourist souvenir shoppers heaven!

We've finally had some time to upload photos to Flickr... (from Tallinn, Sareemaa and St Petersburg)

Here are some of our favourites from St Petersburg:

Church on Spilled Blood
(Built on the site where Alexander II was assasinated in 1881. Looks a little bit like St Basil's in Moscow)


Palace Square
(The square outside the Winter Palace and the Hermitage)


Inside the Hermitage
(The Hermitage is made up of 5 buildings, one of which is the Tsar's Winter Palace)

Two outta three aint bad

We have to start with.... go Russia! Eurovision is on tonight, and Russia has made it into the final. It's very exciting to be here, we'll be at a Eurovision party!

Soviet experts have embalmed 3 'great' leaders - Ho Chi Minh, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong, and we've now seen two of them. (We didn't head overseas to do this intentionally, that would be a little bit creepy, but they're pretty big tourist attractions)

Lenin's mausoleum was just as strange as Ho Chi Minh's. But not nearly as busy. We were told that many Russians don't like to visit his body, as his wish was to be buried alongside his mother, and they think that many of the bad things that have happened to Russia since Lenin's death are because he is not buried.

Just like Uncle Ho, Lenin was looking pretty waxy, and maybe a little bit fake.



(the photo above wasn't taken by us... you're not allowed cameras in there. but we promise that we'll get some of our photos from the last month online asap)

MOSKVA

"So, what do you do for work?"

"I'm a fireman"

"Oh ok... so you put out fires."

"No. I'm a fire-man. BANG BANG! Passport control!"

So went the conversation on our overnight train from St Petersburg to Vladamir. We were in a 4 berth cabin with 2 other Russians, so we thought the best thing to do would be to get into the vodka. One of the Russians we met on our train was a 22 year old from the army who was a 'fire-man' (he works as border control with a big gun!), and another was in something to do with computers and was a huge fan of Interpol and Bloc Party!

It was a hilarious night, and Gwil discovered that even Russian vodka can leave you with a hangover!

We went to a Russian banya in Vladamir. It's like a sauna, but not as relaxing. You get into a hot room (110 degrees c!) and are beaten with birch twigs. It's meant to help the circulation. Once you're hot and beaten, you jump in a freezing cold plunge pool. Then you do it all again.

The next day, the bus took us to Moscow, where we are now. Red Square is incredible. You can stand in the centre and spin around to see the Kremlin, Lenin's Mausoleum, and St Basils. It's a bit scarier here than in St Petersburg. You must carry your passport with you at all times, as police can carry out random passport checks.

We've just come back today from Star City, which has just recently been opened up to the public. It's a secret city where the cosmonauts still train! They have a replica of the MIR space station in there which was used for training, and we went inside there to check out the space toilet... I'd never really thought about how you use the toilet in space before. It's quite interesting! Star City is also where 'space tourists' come to train. They offered us a flight to the space station for 10 days for $20 million USD (just like Lance Bass from N*Sync). Or you can go around the moon for $100 million USD!

After seeing the space toilets, I think we'll give it a miss.

Late nights and early mornings

It stays light here until about 11pm... which makes 3am feel like it's still early, and that it's not a bad idea at all to grab another $4 bottle of vodka. The best part of which is - Russian vodka doesn't seem to give you a hangover! (which may be why they seem to drink it ALL day)

We leave St Petersburg today for Vladamir, which is just outside of Moscow. This place has so much to see though that we don't feel like we've covered even just the start of it. We've been through only a few rooms of the Hermitage (if you walked the entirety of it, and looked at each piece of artwork for a few seconds, it would take you more than 11 years to get to the end), we've seen the Church on Spilled Blood (Em's new favourite building. It's like a fairy-tale castle, and looks a little like St Basils in Moscow), and we've eaten Beef Stroganoff in Stroganoff Palace (where it was invented. It was pretty tasty!)

At night we've checked out a Cossack show (Gwil got pulled up on stage!) and the St Petersburg Ballet's version of Don Quixote - Amazing!



Off now to follow the last few minutes of Rasputin's life. And they have Pavlov's dog in a museum here. Yes. The original Pavlov's dog, which has been stuffed!

Hope everyone at home is well and keeping warm. It has plummeted back down to 8 degrees here today. Fingers crossed for warmer weather near Moscow.

мы находимся в России

We are in Russia! (мы находимся в России)

We got the bus from Tallinn, and couldn't work out why it takes 9 hours to get to St Petersburg, when it is so close to Estonia. We now know it's because of the border control... it's crazy! It took us more than 2 hours to get across the border.

It was less than 12 hours into our stay in St Petersburg before we were in trouble with the police...!

It is illegal to take photos of train stations... who woulda thunk it? Nobody had told us, and there aren't any signs, and so when we stopped to take a photo of one of the amazingly long escalators inside the main city metro station, we were pulled aside by a cop who spoke no English, but was NOT looking happy with us. The only English word he said was "photos", and we assumed by his angry face that this meant "you are in trouble for taking photos"!! So we pretended to be puzzled for a little while to see if we could get away with keeping our happy snaps... but he wasn't giving in (and the police here are scary!). We ended up taking out our camera, and deleting the series of metro shots we'd taken in front of him. So you're just going to have to trust us when we say the escalators are huge!

We've spent our first full day in St Petersburg exploring the city. It's full of amazing churches, museums, gardens, palaces, and really beautiful people. We'll take some photos for you (if we're allowed!)

Kuressaare

Finland was so much fun... but after being in Vietnam it was a little out of our price bracket! We spent 4 days in Helsinki, spent lots of time in Design Museums, and checking out some of the amazing design stores (Em bought some Finnish Aalto inspired stuff), before jumping on the ferry and heading to Tallinn in Estonia.

Tallinn is called the 'Medieval Capital of Europe'. But it's kind of like an adult disneyland... packed full of tourists, pretty cobbled streets, and people in medieval costumes.



It is amazing to see, but after 3 days there we didn't feel like we were actually seeing any of Estonia, so we are now on Saaremaa, a tiny island in western Estonia.

We were approached at the Kuressaare bus station (main town of Saaremaa) by an elderly woman who wanted us to stay in her apartment. Em had heard lots of dodgy travel stories which began just like this... so we were a bit apprehensive. But we checked it out anyway, and both the woman (Kristina) and the apartment are gorgeous. The apartment was built in 1867, and feels like a little farmhouse cottage.



We're right near the main town square, and can walk to Kuressaare's most famous attraction, Kuressaare Fortress - built in mid-1300s.



We've got a few more days here, and then we go to Russia!

There are lots of photos, but we haven't been able to upload them yet. Sit tight.

Vappu

We're now in Helsinki. It's been around 8-12 degrees... but it's nice to not step outside and be in an instant sweat!

Our first day here was Vappu Day Eve, which is a traditional student celebration. At 6pm they give Helsinki's most famous statue, Havis Amanda, a foam bath, and then put a student graduation hat on her...



then the serious drinking begins!
(along with a free concert on the steps of the Helsinki Cathedral)