May 22

Beijing

We cleared Mongolia customs and China passport control without much ado. Hans proudly announced that he had “worked out a deal” with the Mongolian army troops guarding the border to move all our luggage for us (which they did in style, goose stepping and saluting). I don’t know if Hans had to pay off anyone else and we did not ask. We said goodbye to our extraordinary guide, Katya, as we all lined up to give her a hug and wish her well for her marriage in August. Our guide for the next three days will be Chinese. When we arrive in Beijing, Hans informed us we will have traveled almost 8,000 kilometers or almost 5,000 miles. Combine that with our journey to get to Moscow and my estimate is that we are close to the 10,000 mile mark. We are also just over half way in terms of time (day 69), so that makes sense.

So on to China! We are going to be here for almost a month, so we will see and learn much. The first three days we will be with our Siberian tour group, which will visit the major tourist sights in Beijing. Then when the tour breaks up, we will be met by the first of several private guides in various cities, who will guide us along the itinerary we arranged through Asia Trans Pacific.

This is not my first time in China. I visited China in 1986 as part of a US Delegation on housing. The idea was to bring US housing development expertise to China, which at the time was just coming out of the Cultural Revolution. The timing was perfect. Nixon’s ping pong diplomacy had broken down barriers, and the Chinese were anxious to be our friends. They clearly could use some help since we were told that no new housing construction had taken place for over 15 years. There was literally nothing new in the country. The only thing close to a high rise were the colonial administrative buildings built by the Brits in Shanghai in the Nineteenth Century, and they were under 10 stories. The Chinese infrastructure was old and falling apart. Hardly anyone owned a car. Both heating and cooking were usually accomplished by charcoal burning stoves. Electricity was limited and unreliable. Roads were often narrow and unpaved. Buses were always jammed packed and subways non existent. There was only one first class hotel in all of Beijing,

The Chinese were eager to move on. We told them to build houses. They did. I was looking forward to seeing what they looked like.

I was soon to find an answer. We found ourselves in the border town of Erlian when we emerged from passport control. Chinese buses transported us from the border to a hotel where we were greeted by our new Chinese guide, Lily, had lunch of countless, delicious Chinese food dishes, which just kept coming, and took a tour of Erlian, which included the new Dinosaur National Park (the site of numerous bone discoveries) and then the rest of the area. The dinosaur museum, which opened a few years ago, occupied several hundred acres at the edge of the Gobi desert and included three museum buildings displaying dinosaur bones and rocks. Several dozen bronze and metal replicas of various types of dinosaurs were placed in seemingly random spots in the desert surrounding the buildings. The overall quality of the exhibits and design of the buildings were quite good. However, except for a couple of local visitors (One, a father, asked if he could pose with us for his wife to take a photo.), the 100 or so people in our group were the only people visiting the museum, making the experience a bit weird.

After an hour and a half of wandering around among the dinosaur statues (which was about an hour more than we needed), we boarded the bus for a tour of the city, which was described as a very small town—about 120,000 people—without much of interest except the dinosaur park. Basically we were killing time until we could board the train headed for Beijing.

It was only minutes before we were on a divided, four-lane main street, which went on for mile after mile. Side streets were also wide and most included wide sidewalks and separate paths for bikes, and these side streets extended at right angles from the main street almost as far as you could see. New trees had been planted along the roads.

For the first few miles brand new, huge apartment complexes of 10-15 stories lined the main street and many of the side streets. Then you would drive for a block or two past vacant lots with only sand and scrub brush, and then on the next block would be more high rises, most of them very attractive. One building in the distance looked at lot like the famous opera building in Sydney, Australia. Many other structures were under construction. I stopped counting after awhile, but there had to be tens of thousands of units in hundreds of brand new buildings. Parks and plazas appeared every few blocks and then more open space with more statues of dinosaurs. A city planners dream, I thought, remembering the New Town Movement from my city planning school days in Chapel Hill. Toward the end where there was a huge overpass created by two huge dinosaur sculptures, we stopped to take photos. A large wind farm surrounded the sculptures with windmills stretching into the horizon.

There was only one thing missing from all this: people. They were nowhere to be seen. We were in fact driving trough a modern day ghost town. No people, no cars, vacant storefronts. It could have been a movie set.

When I asked our guide to explain what was going on, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say she did not know what I was talking about. So I asked specifically, how many of these new buildings were occupied, to which she replied, not many. When I pressed harder, she shrugged again and commented casually, “Nobody wants to live here. Cold in winter, hot in summer, no jobs.”

Welcome to the New China!

Embry commented, “Well, when you were here in 1986, you told them to build houses and they followed your advice. Maybe you should be a little more careful what you say next time.”

Whether this is representative of the New China or not is yet to be determined. When I asked Hans about it, he said that while there is a lot of overbuilding in China, eventually most of these new cities fill up, and it is a delicate balancing act to coordinate job creation with housing production. Thinking back again to my Chapel Hill days, I remember that in our own New Town Movement in the US in the 1960s, most federally insured new towns failed initially because of that same problem—not having the jobs to attract the people. While the development effort in Erlian     appears out of sync with housing demand, Hans says there are many more examples of similar efforts that have created new towns with millions of people, all happening within one or two decades. The next day our train would pass by one of those “new towns,” and we would get a glimpse for ourselves.

The evening following the tour included a stop at a surprisingly huge and bustling market (So despite the empty buildings, plenty of people must be living in the old part of Erlian.) and a “hot pot” dinner (Mongolian specialty) in a hotel in the old part of town. After dinner we boarded a commercial train to Beijing, which like every other train we have been on, departed exactly on time—this time at 9:16 pm. The train was very much like the Russian train, which had been our home for over a week and somewhat newer with elegant finishes to the compartments. Toilets—emptying directly onto the tracks—were at each end of our car, and we shared a wash room with Joyce, who was in the next compartment.

We woke up very early the next day—around 5:30 am—and spent the time watching the scenery, which was as spectacular as you will ever see—towering jagged peaks, going straight up with a sparkling river winding through the valley below the train tracks. Small, ancient villages with dusty, dirt streets and crumbling walls and tile-roofed homes appeared from time to time; and when the valleys widened, we could see farmers with traditional round hats in the fields, bending down, planting and weeding.

Along the way we also passed through several larger towns. One of these was Zhangiakou. What made this interesting was that the ancient, dusty villages lining the railroad tracks were just like the other villages we had passed except that right behind them were gigantic, modern 20-30 story apartment buildings, which extended for miles. Unlike in Erlian, however, there was plenty of activity on the streets. Hans later told me the city had grown in the last 10 years from a few hundred thousand to over three million. Tower cranes everywhere indicated the growth was still going on.

As our train got closer to Beijing, the mountains disappeared, and we soon found ourselves in the middle of a vast landscape of concrete and brick and marble buildings towering into the sky. Some were showing their age, but the vast majority appeared very new and for the most part very attractive. If I had been blindfolded and suddenly had it removed and asked where I was, I would have guessed maybe Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or perhaps Miami along Biscayne Bay. Who knows? Some glitzy, growing city on the make, flexing its muscle, strutting its stuff, with new, showy buildings, some gorgeous, some not, expensive shops for rich people to spend their money, fancy restaurants–exactly the kind of place that I would definitely not want to live in. And then I recalled the images of 1986, less than 30 years ago, of the drab, grey decaying buildings, the bike-filled streets and signs of poverty everywhere and wondered if this could possibly be the same place.

Is this China? Are we really in Beijing? Or is it just a dream?

We have about three more weeks to find out.

May 19

Ulan Bator

When we were in Mongolia, we had the option to stay overnight in a “ger” (which is the Mongolian word for the more-commonly used term “yurt.”) Apparently in past years this early part of the season (the snow has only recently melted) has been “iffy” for ger-sleeping, due to extremely cold weather, so we were not encouraged to do this (in fact we were discouraged). However, when I read about this option long ago when we signed up for the trip, I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to do, since I love sleeping out in the wilderness, and being in the Mongolian wilderness sounded amazing. I was the only one of our group of 18 who chose to do it!

The following is the excerpt from my diary describing my overnight ger stay, which I took with my own personal English-speaking Mongolian guide, Baggi:

We made our way with a driver through the awful traffic of Ulan Bator out of town and through the beautiful countryside of Mongolia. It is extremely arid, all brown now, with some green grass peeping through and some wildflowers.

All sorts of animals graze in flocks with shepherds, usually on horses. (In the course of the trip we have seen horses, cows, sheep, goats, yaks, and camels.) Regardless of the species, all the animals are short, stocky, and with plenty of shaggy hair. This allows them to survive the harsh Mongolian winters by grazing in the snow. For the winter they are often on their own, especially the cows and yaks, who seem to know how to wander for food and get back home. Now is the time of calving and foaling, and there are lots of newborns in the herds. All of these animals are milked, and there are a variety of specialized milk products from each type. For example, horse milk is fermented overnight and drunk the next day (and not made into cheese). Cow and goat milk is made into cheese, etc.

When we reached the “ger camp,” we were in a beautiful, remote place which has been somewhat spoiled (but not much) by several of these camps, which have been developed for tourists (including Mongolians themselves from the city who like getting back to nature). Each camp has about 30 gers, as well a central facility with toilets and an eating hall. Ours was very nice. There were numerous staff, about 25, but It was confusing to me what their jobs were. Some were in the kitchen, some maintained the facilities, some stoked the fires in the gers, and some apparently are just sitting around waiting for more tourists to show up since it is very early in the season. The night I stayed only three gers were occupied, one for me, one for my guide, and one for an adventurous Swedish couple who are taking the “regular” Trans-Siberian to Beijing and just got off and Ulan Bator for a ger stay.

A ger is a round Mongolian house made of fabric (canvas, I think) that is a rather standard size, regardless of family size. These are used by many Mongolian families, no matter how large, and you see them in towns or in the countryside. They are completely round with a peaked roof, out of which goes the stove pipe. Some light comes in at the top, but there are no other windows. The style or color outside (off-white) does not seem to vary very much from place to place. While the outside is plain, the inside is quite colorful with painted wooden spokes that hold up the ger fabric and colorful painted furniture.

That night we had dinner in the central facility, and they stoked up my fire. The wood stove is necessary because it gets very cold at night. When the fire is going, it is very warm in the ger, and when it is not going, it gets very cold after sunset. Luckily, I had packed my “cat burgler suit” (so named by my friend, Sue Dodds, because it is tight fitting and solid black). Purchased it some time ago at REI for a sailing trip in the Puget Sound, this hooded fleece garment always warms me up, and luckily I had packed it for this very occasion. I put it on after supper and was never really cold afterwards.

When it got dark at 10:30 my guide took me stargazing up the hill. It was amazing to see the stars and Milky Way slowly appear in the vast Mongolian sky. Afterwards, with my warm clothes and four blankets, I stoked up the fire and slept like a baby.

After a great breakfast with Baggi and the Swedish couple, we set off walking across the nearby hills. We stopped at the home of a nomadic family (prearranged, I’m sure) for another breakfast with traditional food, including Mogolian tea (which is drunk with salt and not sugar) and dried goat cheese (which has a very savory—almost bitter—taste). Their ger was similar to the one I slept in but houses a family of five, with beautifully painted furniture inside. It also had the father’s medals from horse riding contests hung around on display.

We took a fairly strenuous walk up into the hills, where we saw a tree with prayer flags. Apparently this is a place where shamans come to offer prayers. Baggi is concerned about environmental issues, including one that is uniquely Mongolian. They used to have prayer flags made of silk which typically lasted only a couple of years. Now the prayer flags are made of plastic, and they never go away, a situation which apparently kills the trees.

Baggi is interested in birds, and we saw some on the walk, which he identified for me. It was interesting to see the magpies in their large nests.

After this we hiked down to the paved road where we were picked up by the bus with the rest of the group, who had driven out from town for the afternoon. I was able to tell them (trying not to gloat) what an amazing experience they missed!

In the afternoon we had a “typical” outdoor Mongolian barbecue, and then saw a nice show including two amazing musicians singing and playing on traditional Mongolian stringed instruments. One of the men sang in the traditional style called throat siging, which is difficult to describe. It is wordless for the most part. He sings both extremely low (sounding like a bass fiddle) and extremely high, sounding like a bird or a flute.

Then we saw some traditional Mongolian wrestling, archery, and horse racing. Mongolian racing resembles sumo Japanese wrestling; all ages and weights wrestle against each other, and there are almost no rules. The archers are both male and female. The horseback riders are old and young. These are the three big Mongolian sports, and there is a huge national competition in each sport every July.

We went back to town and again boarded the train headed for the border, sleeping on our Russian train one last time. Early the next morning we awoke in the Gobi Desert. It is a vast expanse of brown/beige sand, with some minimal foliage, somewhat like parts of Arizona. Astonished, I looked out the window and saw what I thought was a herd of horses, which turned out to be a herd of camels running very fast, herded by a rider on horseback. Then the train stopped and the camels and rider came up near to the train. Hans (our tour leader, the “big boss,” a very nice and out-going German, who speaks multiple languages fluently, including Chinese) had apparently arranged for this touristic “photo-op” stop. So most of us got off and put our feet down in the gobi Desert, which was actually pretty fun, if a bit surreal, even more so when the Mongolian musicians who had entertained us the night before hopped off the train and began playing and singing in the Gobi Desert surrounded by camels.

You wondered what those camels and their herder thought of these strange Europeans and Americans and all of their elaborate cameras. From the look of the camels, who were milling around and munching the occasional bit of desert grass, it looked like they felt it was all in a day’s work. The herder himself seemed rather amused (especially since he was going to be paid an unknown sum). He came right up, lay down, and listened attentively to the music, while his camels started roaming out into the desert. No problem. When the concert was over and it was time for the train to leave, he hopped on his horse, rounded up the camels easily, and headed off across the desert.

(Joe: As we returned to the dining car for breakfast around 8:30, we pondered two profound questions: how did Hans ever find these guys and how much did he pay them. But you have got to hand it to Hans. This guy knows how to run a tour and show his flock a good time.)

May 19

Mongolia

Approaching the Chinese Border

Mongolia. The end of the earth. At least that is what it feels like on the high plateau as we wake up to pink skies as our train rolls along through vast, open plains surrounded by jagged mountains. Unlike Russia, where you rarely see a farm animal, herds of animals are grazing—cows, goats, sheep and even an occasional camel. As the morning progresses we see shepherds and herdsmen on horseback with sheep dogs following close behind. Yurts—called “gers” in Mongolia, the large round tents used by nomads, dot the landscape.

Crossing the border occurred between 11:00 pm and 2:00 am requiring three interruptions of sleep as first the Russian officials knocked on our door and examined the passports, shining flashlights in our eyes to verify our identity. After that action was completed and we dozed off, the same process was repeated by the Mongolian officials who took the passports and about an hour later again knocked loudly on our door to return them. So much for sleep that night. But everyone on the train cleared passport control, and we were in Mongolia.

Not that anyone can truly understand Mongolia, but if you know a few facts, it will help. First this is a vast and mostly vacant country—four times the size of Germany and only three million people, two-thirds of whom live in and around the capital, Ulan Bator. At an altitude about a mile above sea level, the climate is cold in the winter, hot in the summer and unforgiving. The only trees are along rivers or near the tops of mountains. Second, from the beginning of time this was a land of nomadic herdsmen. According to our guides the concept of land ownership remains fuzzy and vague even today, and the nomadic identity is part of their heritage and their soul. These nomads ruled the world under Genghis Kahn and his children and grandchildren in early thirteenth century. Genghis Kahn is revered today as the Mongolian’s greatest leader as evidenced by the many statues of him and the Genghis Kahn name on all types of establishments—bars, restaurants, hotels and businesses. Third, this country was hard core Communist beginning in the early 1920s when they were closely allied with Russia and a de facto Stalin puppet. Since the break up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, they have had a two party Democratic Republic, and from all we can tell despise Russia, which came close to destroying the country.

Nowhere is the malice by the Soviet Union more evident than in religion. I knew the Soviet Communists believed religion was “the opiate of the masses,” but had no idea they outlawed all and every type of religion in all the areas they controlled. This did not mean simply that church doors were locked. It meant murdering or exiling the clergy and destroying most religious buildings. In Mongolia it meant destroying scores of Buddhist temples and religious buildings, leaving only two that survived (which were used as stables during Soviet control). We visited both. One, called the Winter Palace because it was the residence of the last of the reigning Kahns, is now a museum. Though it has not been maintained well, it gives you an idea of what life was like for the elite before the Communists took over. The second is now a functioning temple with the world’s tallest standing Buddha, a gold painted statue about a hundred feet high. A dozen Buddhist monks in red robes were chanting as worshippers came and went, placing their hands so they could feel the smoke from incense burning in the erne. The monks are Tibetan Buddhists and belong the branch called “Yellow Buddhism,” and their worship service to my eyes had a strong dose of mysticism. Lots of gold everywhere, incense, candles, chanting, gold statuettes of deities—in some ways mysteriously close to the Russian Orthodox and Catholic services we have witnessed.

The other things we did were to take a bus tour of the city, visit the large central square with statues of Genghis Kahn and Mongolian warriors on horseback, watch a Mongolian folk music show, have lunch at a Mongolian barbecue grill (very good) and dinner (not so good) in a local restaurant located in a downtown theme park. By six we were on our bus headed to the Kempenski Hotel for our second “train break.” Embry chose to stay in a ger located in a national park about 30 miles from the city. (More on that in the next blog post.)

A word about Ulan Bator: the capital with almost two million residents and the only real city in the country, Ulan Bator, is a mixed bag. Traffic is horrendous with not enough traffic lights and way too many cars for the streets. Air quality is a problem, especially in the winter. It was not that good today. The buildings are a mix of old, Soviet style structures like you see in Siberia, many in disrepair, and an assortment of new apartments and office buildings, some quite stunning and others awful. Lots of construction is underway. There is more English language on signs and advertisements than we have seen in all the cities we have visited so far combined. It seems like every block has at least one karaoke café/bar and some signs are in Korean. Some older neighborhoods have dirt streets with homes that look a lot like the Siberian shantytowns except here the roofs are painted bright colors—red, blue, and green—so the city seems much brighter than Siberian cities. The sprawling suburbs seem to go on forever with a mixture of modest houses, many in poor shape, gers, and a few, brand new, larger houses, usually in gated communities (one named “Happy Valley”). If there were any city planners involved in any of this, it is for sure they are not graduates of the UNC School of City and Regional Planning.

Most sprawling neighborhoods, not just the gated ones, are surrounded by walls, which look a bit like corrals. All this gives the impression of a dynamic and somewhat out-of-control frontier city that is way too big for its own good.

So Mongolia is a nation of extremes: extraordinary natural beauty and wide open spaces with nomadic life styles that go back more than a thousand years and a huge, bustling metropolis with helter-skelter development and insufficient infrastructure to handle the volume. Lots of people are very poor, but there are also of signs of energy and renewal. There is no way to know in a two-day visit what the future holds.

May 18

En route in Mongolia

We are now more than 3,000 miles from our origin in Moscow–five time zones and one full week on our train, which frankly seems like at least a month. Time blends together at this point. It could be a day; it could be an eternity. It is now almost nine o’clock, and though the sun set almost an hour ago, there is a glow of red over the mountains. The last three or four hours of travel have been the most beautiful. Were it not for the clusters of weathered wood houses, you would think we were in Montana: towering blue mountains and vast plains with occasional herds of cattle. It is not that I dislike birches and huge conifers, which were the staple before we arrived in Ulan Ede. Every landscape we have seen so far has been beautiful. The steppes, however, are something special. We have climbed several thousand feet since we left Ulan Ede and still have more to go.

So the question of the day is this: what is it like to travel 3,000 miles with 16 people you had never met, only three of whom are Americans.

Well, if you are lucky, you make new friends. Let me tell you about Embry’s and my new best friends.

Our best friends are the young Italian couple who are on their honeymoon. He is a dental assistant, and she works for a company that makes gifts for hotels. They are smart, articulate and Pierre-Antonio is an avid NBA fan. He played point guard when he was in high school and college and knows far more about U.S. basketball players than I do.

Our best friends are also two English ladies about our age, who have travelled together many times. Both are retired school teachers in the UK. Jean’s husband is disabled and does not travel, and Sandra is a widow. They are they are energetic and adventuresome. There is nothing they won’t do, including dipping (their feet) in Lake Baikal, and their enthusiasm is contagious.

Our best friends also include Pat and Chris from Ireland. Both are in their fifties. Chris is a retired nurse, and Pat is the retired CEO of the Irish subsidiary of a major multinational service company. Chris says Pat may be “between careers” since he retired mainly for health-related reasons and is doing fine now. They are both sharp, savvy and sophisticated. Chris won the limerick contest this week hands down.

Our best friends are also the Spanish couple, a fifty-something mother and her twenty-something daughter. She does not speak English very well but her daughter does, and both are fun loving and always upbeat.

Our best friends certainly must include the four wild and crazy, middle-aged Israeli guys, who mostly don’t speak English but who dutifully try to take in what our guides are saying even if they do not understand it. Embry got into a heated discussion with one of them last night, who is a big Netanyahu fan and more or less held her own. Two of the group are world class cruising sailors, having sailed around the world together.

Our best friends are Joyce and Chris. They are not a couple but rather two singles, traveling independently, never having met before this trip. Chris, a Brit in his early sixties, is happily married, but his wife does not accompany him on many of his nostalgic train journeys. His wife still runs the marketing firm they started in England. He likes to say, “She makes the money, I spend it.” Joyce, an American a little younger than me, is an international development consultant, having worked for the Gates Foundation on issues related to finance in emerging nations. She is a Mennonite, and it turns out we have some friends in common from my retirement housing days when I had Mennonite clients. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro last year.

Chris, as they say, is a piece of work. The best description of Chris is that he is a lovable teddy bear. The only thing he would rather do than buy drinks for a half dozen people is to buy drinks for a dozen. He has not seen anything in Russia he couldn’t find interesting or say something nice about.

Our best friends are also Teri and Robert. Teri is probably about ten years younger than her husband, Robert, who is 61. She is a retired teacher/trainer for IMB and a very smart techy. When I first met Robert, I thought he was a bit strange, and then on day two or three he suddenly appeared at our open compartment door and said, “The thing about people like me who have Asperger’s is that we want to be your friend but don’t know how.” Suddenly a light went on. From then on Robert became my best friend. We share a love for sports, but unlike him I can’t remember the score of virtually every game ever played in US professional sports, and I do not immediately know the square root of any number you might dream up.

And finally there is Katya, our thirty-something guide, who is, quite simply, the best in the business and everyone’s best friend.

So you what do we have in common? It takes a certain kind of person to take the Trans Siberian Railroad, and the threads that seem to tie us together are a sense of adventure, curiosity, a good deal of previous traveling experience, perhaps a small dose of hedonism, a lot of patience, and enthusiasm for life. Frankly, I have found our traveling companions to be inspiring. I have not heard a whimper or a complaint. Our new “best friends” all seem to respect the various cultures we are experiencing and appreciate what they see, eat, and drink regardless of whether they really like it or not. When asked about  whether we are a “good” group or not, our guide, Katya, replied, “You or not a good group, you are a marvelous one.” I agree. Our English speaking contingent of the Siberian tour has been one of the most pleasant surprises of the Big Trip so far.

But it is not just us English speakers. The German and French speaking groups seem to be enjoying the experience as much as we are, and dinner gatherings in the dining car are chatter and laughter-filled with plenty of wine flowing alongside the delicious food. The dinner before last bordered on being out of control with live music by a wandering accordion player, lots of wild laughter, followed by boisterous singing and then dancing in the isles—all facilitated by the 16 bottles of champagne that Chris had purchased throughout the evening to share with everyone. Before the evening wound down around midnight, Germans, French, Spanish, Americans, Brits, and Russians were kissing, hugging and embracing each other like they were all first cousins at a family wedding. And just think, at one time or another our respective countries have been mortal enemies.

The most touching moment for me came when several middle aged German men embraced and kissed the four Israelis, any one of whom could easily have lost a relative in the Holocaust. You can only shake your head and wonder why we humans can’t hug and embrace all the time, not just on trains chugging across the isolated and lonely steppes of Central Asia in the middle of the night.

May 17

En route to Mongolia

We have just completed a day in Ulan Ude, the capital of the region of Burjatia, which is where most of the Mongolian people in Russia live and for this reason has a strong Asian influence and feel to it. It seems a bit poorer and ragged around the edges, however, but still is a vibrant city of around 500,000. We enjoyed seeing a very impressive folk concert featuring both Asian dances, Russian Cossack songs (featuring “throat singing”) and music on a primitive stringed instrument. We also attended a Russian Orthodox church where a service was in progress—packed house (all standing, diverse ages) and enough chanting, singing (excellent choir), incense, bells and whistles and regalia to put our High-Church-Lite All Souls Episcopal Church in DC to shame. Embry got to see this, not me, and said it was one of the most remarkable experiences of the trip so far. I would simply add that having a service like this in Russian rather than English is a strong satisfaction enhancer. Later we visited a Buddhist temple, also with a service in progress presided over by six monks in red robes, chanting prayers to another full house, this time all Asian looking. Lunch was in an upscale 11-story hotel on the top floor with a revolving restaurant, another example of the many contradictions in this ethnically diverse and incongruous country.

 

The journey from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude was memorable for several reasons. First we traveled by bus from our hotel respite night in Irkutsk (Courtyard Marriott, lousy food) along the Angara River (the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal) stopping along the way to visit an outdoor museum consisting of old, wooden buildings created by the pioneers and settlers of Siberia. What became apparent during this visit is how the US and Russia both share a frontier heritage. The settling and conquest of this vast area happened about the same time that the West in the US was settled. The houses looked remarkably similar to the cabins built by settlers in the US, and the primitive implements like plows, millstones and rough hewn furniture also looked the same.

Our local guide talked about the bad rap Siberia has gotten over the years for being known only for its cold and inhospitable winters and for its gulags. While the winters are cold and the summers hot, the area is extraordinarily beautiful with its snow capped mountains, vast planes, wild rivers and deep and endless forest, “the Taiga.” Most important, she said, was that the use of the area for political exile came rather late in its development, and for a long time it was the only region in Russia that was “truly free.” Serfdom was never permitted in any of Siberia, and until the political exiles began happening under Czar Nicolas I in the early 1800s, the people attracted were mostly independent, hard working and industrious. Many of the early settlers became trappers, traders, hunters and farmers, and some became wealthy. The indigenous nomadic population, the Buryaits, were largely ignored or pushed aside. In contrast to European Russia, however, it was largely a classless society.

While the czars sent dissenters here, it was not until the Soviet period—from 1920- 1952 being the worst– that the word gulag and Siberia became synonymous. Reportedly over two million in work camps at any given time and almost twenty million political exiles in all.

The wild West frontier in the US has shaped our character and our values as much as just about anything, and I suspect that may also be true of Russia. Our guide told us that of all the groups she takes on tours of Russia, the US tourists are far more like the Russians than any of the Europeans. She says we tend to have a similar sense of humor and to relate to people in similar ways. Perhaps the two frontiers—the West for us and the East for Russians—has played a role in this. Another similarity is that Russia had serfs and we had slavery. Both institutions were terminated in the 1860s and left legacies both countries are still dealing with.

The second reason that the journey was special was Lake Baikal. This lake contains more fresh water than any other lake in the world, about 20% of all the fresh water on the planet. It is several hundred miles long, on average about 40 miles wide and about a mile deep. There are hundreds of species not found anywhere else on the planet including the world’s only fresh water seal. Over 35 million years old, it is by far the oldest lake in the world and is still widening albeit slowly, several centimeters a year.

The day was warm and partly sunny but also fairly hazy so you could barely make out the towering snow capped peaks on the eastern side. After visiting the local market, we said goodbye to our bus and boarded a ferry, which in 45 minutes deposited us on the eastern shore at a small and somewhat decrepit port. The lake was calm and the ride uneventful. At the port we boarded our train again and set off on an old and partially abandoned railroad track alongside the lake.

Of course, many may recall that we were in the Lake Baikal area in the summer of 1993 when Andrew and his Russian friends at “Friends Travel” arranged a tour for us and a group of our friends to the remote Lake Baikal Nature Preserve, a pristine forest very close to where our ferry landed. That trip was as different in accommodations and tourism style as you can get but also just as much fun as this one and still ranks highest on my list of great adventures.

But that was then and this is now. We are 22 years older and the world has changed. Russia has made progress but is still struggling through the privatization period and is now flexing its muscle in new directions, which leaves the West—and most of the Russians we have talked to– perplexed and anxious, not knowing where it is all headed.

On the famous Great Siberian Odyssey of 1993, we forged flooded streams on makeshift bridges of fallen trees and ended up getting out of Siberia by flagging down a converted troop carrier and paying them to drive us over 100 miles to Irkutsk (since rail road bridges had been washed out). On this trip those who wanted (which included me) were invited to board the locomotive engine and ride in open air alongside the lake, gripping the safety rail like mad. We were supposed to stop for a picnic, but because of rain had to settle for a stop to allow brave passengers to take a dip in the 40 degree water of the lake. Out of close to 100 people, twelve people took the plunge. Most were Germans but our Robert was the only American. More on Robert –and other members of our tour group–to follow in the next blog.

May 16

Irkutsk

We have just completed a fabulous tour of Irkutsk where we heard a music presentation by extraordinary opera singers and also visited a real dacha where we enjoyed a delicious homemade lunch. The dacha was fully winterized and lived in by a retired hydro engineer and his wife, who provide this service to tour groups as a small business venture. So it is not typical, but most of the dachas in the “cooperative” are; and while they aree a bit more modest than this one, they are in much better shape than those along the Siberian railroad. Our very excellent guide, Svetlana, has a dacha herself as does Ektratina, along with roughly 80% of Russians who live in cities (according to Svetlana). It would appear to be a fundamental ingredient of surviving the long winters and the ups and downs of living here. My advice to Putin: you can mess with a lot of stuff here, but you mess with dachas at your own risk.

So what else are we learning about Russia as we head for Lake Baikal, the last stop before we get into Mongolia ? Here are some observations:

1. It is a big country. Ok, you knew that already, but when you are on a train and see the open space mile after mile after mile, you begin to get an idea of what big is, and we are only just over half way on our Siberian journey.
2. Much progress has been made since our last visit in 1993, but there is still a long way to go. Moscow is totally a different city and unrecognizable to us from what we remember in 1993. While we did not visit Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk in 1993, they have enjoyed revitalization as well. New skyscrapers and modern buildings dot the cityscape, tower cranes are numerous, and shopping malls and upscale stores are everywhere. Restoration of old buildings is in progress. Cities are generally clean and have much less graffiti (Hurrah!) than Western European cities though when asked why, people just say “police.” Old buildings—some decrepit—have not disappeared, but overall the four big cities we have visited–all over one million people– seem generally healthy.

Not so with the villages. If anything most along the Trans Siberian railroad seem in worse shape than in 1993. Few roads are paved. Tin roofs remain on most houses, many of which seem on the verge of collapsing. Many villages resemble the old shanty towns we used to have in the South and still have in Appalachia, or the African villages and informal settlements of today. It is not clear how many houses have running water, but there are surely a lot of outhouses around, so probably not many.

Near the larger cities there are also communities of dachas, which are not to be confused with “villages” since they serve as second homes for weekend escapes and vacations. (Dachas supposedly do not have chimneys and that is supposedly how you tell the difference.) However, many of the dachas look a lot like the villages and are in similar condition. (What I did not know is that the big surge in the construction of dachas occurred during the early stages of Communism when land was given away in order for people to build homes and grow their own vegetables as one way of dealing with the food shortage.)

Crossing Siberia in 1993 and crossing it again today leave one with the same impression: Russia is still in some respects a Third World country.

Yet our guides caution us that the villages that we see from our train are not representative and generally are there to house people who maintain the railroad tracks. Other villages are superior. The “dacha cooperative” we visited today was definitely in better shape and actually very modern and comfortable.

3. While there is nostalgia for some aspects of the past—particularly the safety net and relative economic security—I can’t see the country returning to Communism. As the saying goes, “That train has done left the station.” Too much has changed. Putin’s actions are nationalist, not ideological. No one we have talked to or heard about is talking about destroying shopping malls or skyscrapers or outlawing Chanel or Louis Vuitton or cut off jeans.
4. There are also many other differences between Putin’s actions now and the Communist system. One is the role of church and state. The Communists were atheists, required people to sign atheist “creeds,” and destroyed or converted tens of thousands of Russian Orthodox churches to other uses. Most of the Orthodox clergy were executed or became political prisoners in gulags. Under Putin, the church is back big time. The Russian government has spent billions of rubbles restoring or rebuilding Orthodox churches destroyed by the Soviets and has even financed construction and restoration of mosques and upon occasion synagogues. You could argue that this is simply a way of controlling or taking over religion, which could well be the case. Just like the old days when the czars ruled Russia, church and state now show signs of appearing pretty close. For the moment this seems to be working and has helped enhance Putin’s popularity. For the long term, when the church and the state become too close, it usually spells trouble.

Also under Soviet rule, tens of millions of Russian citizens were murdered or imprisoned in gulags. Under Putin there have been mysterious deaths of oligarchs and reformers, but very few; and our guides and the various people we have talked to seem to speak freely and do not hold back on their political views.

The guides also openly describe Stalin’s “reign of terror” and cite the statistics of 15-20 million murdered while he was in power. Some leaders, like the Mayor of Kazan, remain critical of Putin, yet have not been squelched. We have not had the impression that we were being watched or followed though some would argue I am naïve about such things. For us, however, Russia does not feel like a dictatorship or totalitarian state.

5. The Russian people are tough. They survived the czars, the two world wars, which took the lives of millions, the reign of terror under Stalin which took many millions more. Nothing like this has ever happened in the US. Yet they keep going and are proud to be Russian. Here in Siberia they also endure weather that seems intolerable—highs in the summer of over 100 degrees, lows in the winter of 20 below or lower. These Russian people are strong and resilient.
6. Russia is diverse ethnically. There are something like 140 ethnic groups in Russia, representing about 20% of the total population, and most people say that that ethnic diversity is now respected.
7. The Russian view of Putin is very different from the Western view. His popularity is real, not some concocted poll. The reasons have little to do with ideology but with what he is perceived to have done for the Russian people. He has restored the pensions, which had been reduced to practically nothing. He has been present at the site of natural disasters and provided funds for relief. For a good a while, strong oil and gas prices were lifting most boats, and he got credit for that. He has rebuilt churches and mosques. For these actions he gets high marks from most Russians .

Many here even see the Crimean intervention and Russia’s role in the Ukraine as justified and reasonable. Almost everyone says only a ruler who is powerful can hold Russia together; and if not Putin, then who?

8. Ironically while Putin is perceived as the strong man who is right for Russia, several people we have talked to believe that behind Putin there may be an invisible force which is really calling the shots. They suspect remnants of the KGB or oligarchs or some combination of the two. As the saying goes, just because you are paranoid does not mean people are not out to get you.
9. Just as we are learning more every day, every day the complexities multiply, and it seems harder to make generalizations. I am reminded of the comment about India: stay three weeks and you know it all; stay three years and you know nothing. The last local guide said, “If there is one thing that I want you to go away with it is this—that generalizing about Russia is very dangerous. This is a large and complex country with differences by region great and small.”

Ekatrina, our primary guide, said this today at the vodka tasting as our train chugged along toward Irkutsk: “ Russia has always been multi dimensional. The Russian government and the Russian people are not the same. They have always been separate and always will be. But the Russian people are great. We are survivors.”

 

WiFi is limited as we get deeper into Siberian and there is no telling when we will find a hot spot next. Maybe Ulan Bator in Mongolia in five days. Stayed tuned.

May 14

Siberia

Every day or so I keep a diary to remember the events of each day. Joe suggested I type it up for you, to convey some of four experiences on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

We are now on Day 3 of our very pleasant train journey across Russia. We arrived in Siberia yesterday, after two days on the train. Siberia composes most of the geographic area of Russia, but has a small proportion of the population ( 15%). Siberia is not an administrative area, but rather the entire geographic area east of the Ural Mountains.

I am writing from the top bunk of our tiny cabin. The logistics are a bit challenging. For example, it is quite hard to get up to go to the bathroom at night. You risk your life going up and down a narrow ladder in the dark, so I try not to do so. But after vodka (hard to avoid here), wine, and water before and after dinner, it is hard to avoid this challenge.

The first day we stopped in Kazan, which is the capital of Tatarstan. We are really getting a sense of the diversity of this vast and under populated) country (with about 143 million people in Russia and only 1 million in all of Tatarstan). Tatars are one of Russia’s 160 ethnic groups. They are partially self-governing (and proud of this). Katarina (“Katya”), our excellent guide throughout our trip, is from Kazan and served as our local guide.

The Tatars, a Turkish-language speaking group who were converted to Islam in the 900s, were conquered by a grandson of Genghis Khan in the 1230s, as part of the widespread surge of the powerful Mongol armies into Europe and Asia. Then in turn, they were conquered by Ivan the Terrible in the 15^th century, at which time they were forbidden to openly practice Islam. Catherine the Great discovered three centuries later that they were still practicing their faith, and she allowed them to openly practice their faith and build mosques. Then there was another religious persecution under Communist rule when many of the numerous mosques were destroyed. Mosques are again being rebuilt (many receiving government financial assistance), as are churches, since the 1990s; and currently mosques outnumber churches.

Over the centuries ethnic Russians moved into the area. Now 48% are Russian, Orthodox, and Russian-speaking; equally 48% are Tatar, Muslim, and Tatar-speaking. But there is intermarriage, and children speak both languages in school. (However, we did not notice street signs in Tatar.)

We visited the “Kremlin” (or fortress), which is high on one of Kazan’s seven hills. (They are proud that, just as in Moscow, which has seven hills.) One of the buildings is very old, a watchtower dating back to the 14^th century, but most are from the 19^th century. There is also a huge and beautiful recently-constructed mosque, built with both money from Moscow and local money (but no foreign funds, although our guide said that many imams now go abroad for training, leading to a conservative trend in Islam in the country). It was built in part to commemorate the recent millennium celebration for the founding of Kazan.

In general, throughout our trip so far, we are very impressed with the huge investment the national government, local governments, and wealthy people have made in rebuilding the churches, mosques, and synagogues. It is as if the entire country has been “reconquered” by the traditional religions of the past. (We have not seen much evidence of Protestant or Roman Catholic religion, however.) In addition, these buildings are not serving as museums. In all cases, we have seen active worshipers in every religious site. It is as if Communism never happened when it comes to religion (except that many of the buildings are new.) The question that keeps coming to my mind is: “How did all these people learn how to practice their religion—ie.   (in the case of Orthodox churches) kissing icons, crossing themselves, praying in front of icons.” It was required to declare yourself an atheist when joining the Communist party, but many people obviously lied about this aspect of their lives; Vladimir Putin himself is a baptized Orthodox Christian and attends services on important days. While the Communists did not knock down all these buildings, they ruthlessly destroyed most of them. Perhaps practicality won out in the end in some cases, since some were used as administrative or storage facilities, and some became museums.

Back to the Kazan: We took a “city tour” in the bus. There are some beautiful old buildings, happily preserved, although there are few of the beautiful wooden ones left, due both to fires and being knocked down.

The last stop of our Kazan visit was to visit a music school where we heard an amazing performance by eight young musicians, ages 8 to 18.  This school has produced musicians for orchestras all over Europe. It is impressive how pervasive music and arts education are here, and how much of a difference that makes in the cultural life of this country. Everywhere you go you see theaters and posters for concerts, and there are many museums, large and small, everywhere. We are impressed that we always see children in attendance at either concerts or in the museums. This is another way that a love of the arts is introduced at an early age.

The second day of our train journey we stopped in Yekaterinburg, a large city (4^th largest in Russia) that was formerly closed to outsiders in Soviet times due to nearby military facilities. The city is now trying to develop their tourist infrastructure and encourage tourism.

The most interesting tourist site is the place where the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, was killed along with his wife and four children, in 1917, during Russia’s bloody civil war. The actual site, a home of a rich Russian engineer where the royal family was confined, existed up until the 1960s when it was knocked down on the orders of the local Communist official, Boris Yeltsin, because it had become a pilgrimage site for “monarchists.”

Yeltsin lived to regret this act. As the first president of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Yeltsin attended the ceremony at a St. Petersburg where the remains of the royal family were entered (having been discovered in a grave near Yekaterinburg) along with most of Russia’s previous monarchs. All six of the murdered royal family have now been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

On the site of the murders, there is now a huge Orthodox Cathedral. There were many active worshipers in the cathedral when we visited, many placing flowers beneath the plaques for the Tsar, his wife, and each of the four children. There was a huge pile of toys for the young Tsarevich. Regardless of your opinion of monarchy or the Russian Tsars, it was a touching sight, since it demonstrated an outpouring of guilt for what was done. (Apparently French tourists are somewhat puzzled about this, and someone said, ”What are you so concerned about? We killed off our royal family and think nothing about it!”)

Otherwise, I found that Yekaterinburg was not a very interesting city to visit. There is a huge statue of Lenin in the town square, and “Lenin Prospect” is the main street of the town. Apparently there were discussions about taking down the statue and changing the street’s name. For now they are leaving them because it costs money, and our guide added, “After all, this is part of our history, and the Communist Party is legal in Russia, so we might as well leave it the way it is.” They did change the name of the city back to its original name, but a lot of the “name changing” happened in the 1990s, and now there is a loss of momentum.

There is a lot of what our guide called “constructivist” architecture, and I would call “ugly Soviet-era buildings.” He did point out a rather lovely “Stalin Empire” style building. I generally don’t like the Stalin-era architecture, but this one was made of red brick and had some nice statues, so not bad.

We visited two other interesting sites out of town. The first was a shrine commemorating the murder by Stalin’s orders of 15,000 people. There were numerous large plaques, with names of all the victims killed in 1936-37 and buried together in a mass grave. The grave was discovered when the highway was widened, and the name of each victim was found in the archives that were opened up. At last, there is the beginning of a movement to document the horrors of the massive purges under Stalin. They estimate that somewhere between15 and 20 million people were killed in the purges and died in the gulags.

The last stop was to see a music presentation by “Cossacks” at the border between Europe and Asia, which is not far from the city. (Cossacks are not a specific ethnic group, but are rather the descendants of soldiers who were sent by the Tsars to conquer Siberia. They are now reviving some of the music and costumes of these colorful people.) I was invited to play one of their percussion instruments, and join the performance, which I did.

May 13

Siberia

We are chugging along the Siberian plain in our eight car train, which is now attached to a conventional train with another 15 or 20 cars, making this one very long train. The landscape is occasionally dotted with decaying grey wooden homes with ten roofs in small village clusters with no paved roads; but otherwise it is vast and vacant with groves of birches, endless brown and green grass, and lots of standing water left from melting snow and heavy spring rains. Novosibirsk, the capital of western Siberian is our next stop, late this afternoon, and then  three other cities before arriving in Irkutsk and then Lake Baikal. There is lots to catch you up on.

The beginning of the Siberian Odyssey got underway five days ago in Moscow where we changed hotels to meet up with our tour group. Switching from one hotel to another turned out to be a challenge since half the streets in Moscow were closed for the May 9 VE Day celebrations. Two strong, young hotel attendants helped us roll our bags a few hundred yards down a back alley connecting with another main street where we flagged down a taxi.

Of all the things to be wary of in Moscow, taxis are high on the list, notorious for overcharging unsuspecting tourists. Some would argue that I am the quintessential unsuspecting tourist. Well, this cab driver not only charged us a reasonable rate when the roads leading to our new hotel were closed off, he parked the cab and escorted us cheerfully (rolling my bag, while Embry rolled hers) a good quarter mile to the hotel.

The second hotel–Moscow Kempenski–was even a notch above the Intercontinental. Situated next to the Moscow River , it provided spectacular views of the Kremlin and had a luxurious bar, fancy restaurant and world class fitness center. The grand fireworks show that evening was directly above the hotel.

At dinner we assembled for the first time as a group. Who would these people be? Where would they be from? Why were they on the tour?

Since we are now on Day 5 of the Siberian Odyssey, we have gotten to know many of them and in a strange way getting to know this odd assembly of adventurous travelers may  be worth a good portion of the price of admission. Here is a brief summary:

There are 99 people on the tour occupying eight train cars. There are about 40 Germans, roughly the same number of French and a handful of others—mainly Swiss, Italian and Spanish. There are five Americans, along with several Brits and one Irish couple. Our group—the English speaking group—consists of 18 people, all the native English speakers plus four middle aged Israeli guys, a mother-daughter(twenty-something) couple from Barcelona, and a young Italian couple, who are on their honey moon. We are not the oldest. There are two energetic, British ladies travelling together who are probably around our age. Except for the young Italian couple, everyone else is “advanced middle age” or older.

After five days of traveling with these people, I am happy to report that everyone we have gotten to know is friendly, and there are no complainers. Enthusiasm about the trip and about Russia is high. It is a good group, and certainly a diverse one. We all eat together and take the same bus when touring towns and cities along the way with our English speaking guides.

A word about the guides: they are about as good at they get. The person who is heading up the entire tour is Hans, who works for Lernedee, the German company which is tour operator. He speaks English with an American accent and could probably pass for an American in the US. He has a contagious sense of humor, gives thoughtful and informative lectures over the loudspeaker in both English and German (sometimes in French) on various Russian topics and is ubiquitous. He came up to me yesterday calling me by name (no one has a name tag) asking what I thought about Russia. Does he know everyone’s name on the tour? It turns out that Hans’s real specialty, however, is China. He lived there eight years, writes and speaks  Chinese; and when he is not leading tours, he is running a small management consulting practice assisting Germany companies doing business in China.

The person who is responsible for the 18-person English speaking group is Ekaterina, a Russian probably around thirty and like Hans, an excellent English speaker. She diligently keeps us together and on time and is herself an authority on many things Russian. When we take a tour of a city along the way, we are joined by a local guide who takes the lead on the tour that day. The first city we visited outside of Moscow was Kazan; and since Ekatrina is from that city, she was our local guide that day as well.

So far we have spent a day touring Moscow, a day in Kazan and a day in Yekaterinburg. Both Kazan Yekaterinburg are in the top five in population with about 1.3 million each, well below Moscow (over 13 million) and Saint Petersburg. Kazan is known for its Muslim and Mongolian influence and for its religious tolerance, Yekaterinburg for its heavy industry and the site of the murder of the last Czar and his entire family by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Because of its military significance (nuclear bombs are manufactured here), it was off limits to all tourists until 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So far, so good. The train accommodations on this special tourist train are a far cry from the train we took in 1993 when Andrew and his friend, Bronson, lead us and a dozen of our friends on a wild ride across Siberia. In those days every aspect of the experience was Spartan. The only things you could get in the dining room were vodka and dried fish. The food now is excellent and a marvel as to how they serve it so efficiently to forty or fifty people at one sitting. The cabins are small and compact but pleasant, and we have our own bathroom. So far the train has been on time and on schedule to the minute. I do not know what the non tourist Siberian train is like nowadays, but my guess is somewhat better than in 1993 but not a whole lot.

If there is any shortcoming about the tour so far it is that there is too much packed into each day. It is sort of like a cruise ship in that the train travels at night, you arrive at the next destination in the morning, spend all day touring a city and return to the train, which departs late afternoon or early evening. My walking app shows we are walking between five and seven miles a day and that is good, but it borders on being too much and sometimes comes awfully close to a forced march. We are exhausted at the end of the day. But so far it has been worth it, and we have learned and are learning a lot more about Russia. That we will be the subject of another blog.

May 9

Moscow

Tomorrow at nine we board a bus with about 25 passengers (mainly from the US, Germany, Israel and England) to take us on a day tour of Moscow and then to the station for the Siberian railroad. There is some uncertainty as to when or if we will be able to get WiFi connections while en route. So this may be the last post you get for awhile.

It would be nice if I could sum up easily the contradictions we see in Moscow. I can’t but will do the best I can. I think that it boils down to this: most people understand why the nationalism is happening. No one knows where it will end. For intellectuals, artists, business people and professionals this is very unsettling. For some it is terrifying.

Here is the “story line” as I see it:

1. Russia has a long history of being a powerful nation. This goes back to the czars and continued through the communist era. People suffered under both the czars and the communists, and the pain of losing 28 million people in World War II is beyond anything I can imagine. (Virtually all of the one million plus marchers had photographs of loved ones, usually multiple photographs.) It is mostly a sad history but also a proud one.
2. Many Russians believe the prestige and honor that goes with being a powerful nation was lost beginning in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union came apart at the seams.
3. While many have benefitted greatly from the transformation from a communist state to a (sort of) capitalistic one, the majority of Russians have not and are resentful of losing the social safety net they had in the past. Nowadays babushkas are on almost every corner pan handling. (I asked where the old men all were, and the answer was that they are dead. Hardly any men live past 60.) The human mind tends to forget the bad and remember the good. Nostalgia for the “good old days” that never existed under communism is prevalent among many average  Russians, so we are told.
4. Sanctions and lower oil prices have taken a toll not only on the poor but those struggling to break into the emerging middle class. Average Russians are feeling the pain. For reasons I can’t fathom most prices are outrageously high, so you get the idea that there is injustice. Sound a little like the US? Perhaps but if so, this country is the US on steroids.
5. Enter Vladimir Putin. Putin is popular with the average Russian (85% approval) for two reasons: first he brings stability because he is a strong man (and Russia has never demonstrated it can handle governance without a strong man), and second he is committed to bringing back at least some of Russia’s lost prestige and glory. The Crimea was the first step toward the “restoration of glory” agenda, The Ukraine is the second. The average Russian loves it.
6. To restore honor and glory, it helps if you have an enemy, something to distract people from thinking about how bad things are. Right now the US is enemy. Obama has been described by some in Russia as the new Hitler, mainly because of the sanctions (sound familiar? Just ask the Tea Party.) and the US the new fascist state.
7. The big question is where does this end. Witnessing the first military parade today—the goose stepping soldiers, the tanks, planes and missile launchers—you get the feeling that this might be a little like Germany in the 1930s. But while the big show of military might is abhorrent, I do not believe that the parallel is accurate. Putin is not a Hitler. The big question then is who is Putin and how far will he go? This is what has everyone biting their nails, both in Russia and in other countries. While extremes and excesses abound, Moscow has changed for the better by almost any standard. When we were here in 1993, there was nothing. What Putin needs to do is to rein in some of the excesses of rampant, cowboy capitalism but not return to a nostalgic past that was in reality a nightmare. He also must know that the West will not permit retaking the countries lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The stakes are high, no less than the survival of the planet. Just check out the ICBMs that everyone cheered about when they rolled by today. One of these goes off and it is over. Let’s hope he can maneuver this tricky minefield without everyone (both sides) getting blown up or innocent Russians getting harmed as scapegoats.

Now off to Siberia. Will keep writing and post when I can.

May 9

Moscow

The evening at the Bolshoi last night could not have been better. We walked from our hotel about two miles down the main avenue and reached the famous theater about a half hour early allowing us time to enjoy the warm evening and watch all the construction action on the plaza in front of the theater in preparation for the big day tomorrow—the 70^th anniversary of VE Day.

The ballet was “Don Quixote,” composed, and choreographed by Russians, premiering in 1867 at the Bolshoi. The program said this was “Don Quixote’s” 1,066^th performance at the Bolshoi. I have never experienced a ballet like this one, and we have seen a lot of good ones in Washington. The Bolshoi is, quite simply, the best in the world. There is a fine line separating great from the very best, but you know it when you see it, and we saw it last night.

Russians love their ballet . A packed house was standing, applauding and screaming “Bravo, bravo” for something like the twelfth curtain call when Embry and I started for the exit. What distinguished this audience from a Kennedy Center audience were the many families with children and the generally younger age of everyone present. I could not help thinking what extraordinary people these Russians are. They have produced the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov, Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich just to name a few. They are among the word’s best poets, writers, composers, artists, scientists, and intellectuals. In Moscow more statues (it seems) honor artists and intellectuals than army generals. And thankfully there is not one statue of Stalin anywhere or any other communist leader except Lenin (at least that I have seen). You can’t help thinking how much we have in common with them and how we are all humans, just trying to live our short lives as best we can.

Fast forward 12 hours. It is May 9, VE Day, marking the end of the European conflict in World War II and Russia’s victory over Germany in a war that cost the Russians 26 million lives. Described as the biggest Victory Parade ever, this parade has already shut down the city a couple of days ago for dress rehearsals.

I was eager to see the festivities and made my way to the hotel lobby around 10:00 am, the time for parade to start. I was immediately blocked by a gruff policeman. No one was allowed on streets except in front of the hotel where a few people were milling around with cameras though the main street was vacant except for police and armored vehicles parked along the side. I returned to the hotel to find the lobby packed with people staring at a TV screen which was showing thousands of troops marching in Red Square. When Putin came to the podium, the room of several hundred people, almost all Russian, became eerily quiet, listening to every word.

After the speech most rushed outside. Embry and I remained for a while for breakfast, but when we saw everyone looking up and snapping photos with cell phones, we rushed outside to join them. First there was a distant rumble, then seconds later a loud roar as a squadron of seven or eight fighter jets zoomed over at a low altitude. The crowd cheered wildly. Then another wave of jets and another and another. Each time a new group of airplanes passed over, people cheered and waved red, white and blue Russian flags.

Eventually the planes quit and it was time for the tanks, troop carriers, and long range missile carriers. You could hear a rumble from the streets in the distance, then a slow prolonged roar almost as loud as the jets. They appeared one after another for what must have been at least thirty minutes: massive brown machines with guns and missile launchers of varying shapes. Every time a war machine passed us, the crowd, which was now packed along side the barriers, cheered loudly and waved their flags. Soldiers smiled and waved back. On the loudspeakers blared a song, perhaps the Russian Anthem. People sang along, some holding their hats over their hearts.

I was still trying to figure out if I should be worried about all the guns, tanks and bombs when the big military machinery moved on and in the opposite direction came another parade, this one totally different—the parade of “common people.” The parade reached our hotel around 1:30 and at 5:00 pm it was still going about five miles away when we viewed it from our second hotel (where we are meeting up with our tour group for Siberia). In the early afternoon in front of the International Hotel the mood was boisterous and relaxed. All ages were represented. Almost everyone carried photographs of one or more relatives or loved ones lost in the war. Many carried flowers and flags—some Russia, some former Soviet Union. Every so often the voice on the loudspeaker would say something and a huge , almost deafening roar would go out, like you would hear in Yankee Stadium when someone hit a grand slam home run to win the World Series.

Four hours later when they reached our new hotel, they were worn out and exhausted, which figures because they had walked at least five miles and many of the walkers were quite old.

I asked several people what this day all meant and got mostly the same explanation—that this parade honors those who died in World War II but this time it is different. There are more people marching, estimated by many as well over a million, and this time Russia is making a statement to the world to be taken seriously. That is what the military stuff is all about. A very nice attendant who helped us with our baggage said this: “This is a great day for Russia. We are a proud people. We are showing the world we are back.”

No problem with that. The question for the day is what does “back” mean.” More on that to come.