Kostroma

Kostroma is a city to the north east of Moscow It is one of the "Golden Circle" cities so called due to their proximity to Moscow.
Alex's cousin has a nice apartment in Kostroma which he was nice enough to lend to us for the week. Kostroma was a great way to experience Russian living.

Moscow

July 18-23, 29?-Aug8

Made it to Moscow!

My friends met me at the train station and we headed out on the train to their home in the surrounding area just north of Moscow. There are lots of differences between Russian life and my experiences in Canada. The housing was one of the first things to hit me. On the outskirts of Moscow there are cozy large 5 story apartment complexes in the woods. It was pretty neat to walk across the road into nature and to a nearby lake to have a barbecue. The area my friends lived in was once designated as the housing for geologists. Despite living so close to nature many have a summer cottage a few miles further away where they have space for a garden and lawn.

It's very common to not buy a ticket for the commuter train. You can tell when the ticket-checkers are advancing down the train by the crowd of people ahead of them. They are good enough to keep their pace down so even grandmas can keep ahead of them. Longer distances reqire an end run however and with that you risk getting the doors shut in your face ... which seems to be fair game. If going all the way into Moscow you may need to climb down a locomotive to avoid the turnstiles.
Red Square was teeming with tourists.. great photo ops.

In Russia vodka is the poison of least expense and most effect. I risked losing face everytime I turned down a drink.. which was necessarily often. The first drink I turned down was at 8am on the train into Moscow. It was a nice gesture but I just couldn't handle a beer that early.

Pictures include me in front of the KGB headquarters as well as Red Square and monuments to the first man in space.

Back through Kiev..

July 16-17, 2009
Stopped in Kiev to pick up my passport with Russian visa and all.. success!
The hostel situation had changed dramatically. The owner of two hostels I had stayed at had broken up with his girlfriend and decided to leave Ukraine. It took him less time than the two weeks he had taken to move there! He drilled open his own safe and left in days back to London - hostels still going and since they were registered in a residents name (the girlfriend ) they might just continue to operate. Me, I was on my way to Moscow.

Lviv, Ukraine

July 9-15, 2009
Lviv was a nice surprise. "The Cosmonaut" hostel was a great place to stay. Despite genuine warnings in guidebooks and a recent incident the only 'police' hassles were done by a member of of the hostel staff dressed in a soviet era unifform. The bleary eyed guests lucky enough to be picked in this manner soon realized they were the butt of a good natured joke; but usually not until after they had produced their passports! The staff were excellent as were the fancy powerful space age shower capsules. There was a great crowd of travelers there as well as two very non-pc characters trawling for desperate eastern european women.

Kiev, Ukraine

June 29 - July 8, July 16-17, 2009
One night in a rented apartment before my Russian friends had to leave. We spent most of two days rushing around and saw a lot. Of course I stuck round a few more weeks ;) Michael had gone back to the Crimea but Alex and Masha went back to Moscow and got my invitation letter which I needed to apply for a visa fo Russia. The Russian consulars initially didn't like that I only had one blank page in my passport.After I mentioned that I had fought unsuccesfully with the Ukraine border guards to keep two pages clear they decided they could do it for me. This after saying it was impossible twice... which I considered might be a prelude to a bribe offer... which never happened. In the end they got creative and with my permission put my visa stamp on an 'observation' page in my passport which is supposed to be used by Canadian authoriries... but they won't possibly use it 'till I'm home and need a new passport anyways.
I had a mini adventure dealing with my hostel booking. I later found out that the German non-employee friend manager didn't have the password for the website booking - so after coming back from a night in their sister hostel due to a water main break, myself and another guy found our beds to be given away despite our luggage being left behind. This happened twice with no explanation at the time other than that internet bookings somehow took precendence over in-person bookings !?!?

Sevastapo, Ukraine - Russian Navy Port Panorama

One of many inlets with Russian Navy ships. Used to be only James Bond could get pictures like this... zoom in and spot the subs!

Sevastapol, Crimea, Ukraine

June 26 - 28, 2009
Sevastapol is very important to Russia as it is their Black Sea navy base. Now that Ukraine is independant the Russians continue to hold a long term lease for its use... at least for now. There are submarines as well as regular navy boats. The whole area used to be high security.
A surreal classic communist style statue dominates the coastline and commemorates the population who held out, most to their deaths against incoming nazis. We stayed in a train-station lady's apartment... she had initially scared us off at the train station but turned out to be a nice arrangement despite her stalking sales technique.
One of our field trips was out to a steep cliff area. We hiked down ( and later back up ) the busy trail by the church to the beach with multicoloured 'holy' pebbles complete with a cross out on a large rock I swam out to. The whole area is naturally beautiful.
Crimea itself has become a mainly Russian population and there are demonstrations aimed at seperation from Ukraine ( and it would appear, joining with Russia). There was a young Communist party music stage set up with a small crowd but I'm told there is little actual support for them.

Yalta in the Crimea, Ukraine

I think this was the first time I had been met on arrival at the train station. It was a nice feeling to be looking out the train window to see my Russian friends Alex and Masha and their friend Michael waiting to collect me. I thought it was odd that Masha was carrying a toilet seat! Turns out it was new. Still seemed odd. ;)

Yalta was great! We all shared an apartment rented at the cheap Russian-speaking rate ( memory had it at 4 x $8 U.S. a night )
We did some hiking for some great views. Even had an impromptu night swim in the black sea.

Odesa, Ukraine

June 16-18

Part of the distancing from Russia is the spelling of Odesa with one 's' or so I'm told.

My border crosssing into Ukraine was interesting. I had reserved my last two blank pages for a Russian Visa as per requirments. The Ukraine border agent took out my 'do not use' stickies - I motioned to get my passport back and put them back in while trying to indicate it was important... he took them back out, I put them back in and insisted on escorting him and my passport to the office where his superior officer (who spoke english) told me the first officer now wanted to stamp my face. I didn't ask for clarification. They explained no other pages in my passport had the requisite space to put an entry and exit stamp next to each other as was their policy. I asked them to make an exception and they offered to take a 60Euro bribe. I turned them down flatly and waited for them as they reconsidered. They decided they couldn't make an exception and it was then my decision (I had told them quite honestly that I might instead go back to Romania). I decided out loud that the Russians would probably make an exception once they heard that Ukraine "didn't want me to visit them". The Ukranians nicely put their stamps as close to the edge as they could on my second-last blank page. I walked back to the waiting bus where I was met with many surprised faces... they had assumed I wouldn't be joining them and I have to admit I pushed my luck.. a bit ;)

Odesa was great. Should've got to he beach area soon as there's more than the beach. Front Page Hostel was unmarked and I had to phone them
to come down and get me. It had gotten late and I was considering an overnight McDonalds campout if this, like the first hostel I tried to find didn't exist anymore (despite still being listed on hostelworld)!