Goodbye Russia
Thursday, November 6th, 2008From Olkhon Island it was another long 7 hour journey back into Irkutsk where we picked up our passports (complete with Mongolia visa!) and made use of the rest of the day which was an amazing 16 degrees (the warmest since Lithuania). I had a wander around the big food market where I picked up some vege’s for dinner. I really love shopping in markets, it’s so cool and such a great way to buy stuff, its like real life, all these people out buying food from the same old lady...it’s a fun time. There were lots of old babushka’s with tiny tables just selling a handful of goods, like a couple of tomatoes and a few bunches of herbs. I brought my vege’s off a friendly lady who even had a semi conversation with me about where I was from (in sign language of course). It was fun.
On the way out you could also get your photo taken with giant taxidermy bears….part of Russians strange obsession with bears. Back at the hostel there were loads more people around and we cooked dinner and hung out for a bit until bed. The next day was our last day in Russia before our train later that night, crazy to think how the month went by so fast and a little bit sad as after a month you kind of get a handle on how things work, although in Russia its pretty much impossible, but you do learn a few things, then it’s time to leave again, off to a new country with a whole new set of rules and customs. Of course it was freezing our last day, like glacier cold so didn’t get up to too much, just did a few jobs, did some train shopping and managed to track down some Russian dolls to buy (souvenirs basically don’t exist after Moscow).
Then we were packed up and headed off to the train station to meet up with Janinna, Juliet, Paulon, plus half our hostel and a whole lot more backpackers on the train. Actually the ‘train’ to UB was really only a carriage, about 70% westerners, the carriage got attached to lots of different trains over the course of the 36 hour train journey.
So it was time to leave Russia…I feel like I could write a whole book on thoughts about Russia and travelling there, perhaps one day I will. But for now here are a few thoughts….
Russian oddities
Fashion
Although the boys tend to disagree with me on this one, every single female traveler I have met has always pointed it out or thought the same. Basically most girls in Russian dress….well like prostitutes, OK maybe not most girls, and maybe not quite like prostitutes but leaning that way. Pretty much everyone wears high heeled boots, and not just normal boots like knee and thigh high patent shiny leather boots, with mini skirts. And jackets that are so shiny and tacky they could be made from plastic backs. Then there’s the fur which is rather practical for the weather but just all so tacky, I mean whole white fun coats are just not cool. So you see why guys like it, they can check out all the girls in their tight clothes. And I guess its not too bad for most of the girls who are all tall and thin and beautiful but problems really start when the above 40’s start to urmm…express themselves with tight, tight clothing. The further you get away from St P’s the less classy it is and more tacky. Its all just a bit strange and seems to be way to much effort for every day wear, I mean stiletto boots down to the grocery store??
Queues
Like many non-western countries, queuing is not something that is ingrained in society, Mc Donalds was apparently the first place to teach Thai’s how to queue and the Chinese have been getting lessons in the lead up to the Olympics. Russia seems to be trying to get crowds to queue but in fact have the worst queuing systems ever invented, I mean even in management science 101 I learned more about queuing. Its odd. Most queues form sideways, along the counter, which eventually runs out of space, or there is no queue and pushing. Or there is 3 different places to queue to get a tickets to give to someone to get some then to pay for it. Lots of time the queues are just set up badly leaving little room for people to actually wait, only opening one ticket window at a time or not setting it up so people can actually use all the ticket windows. And one people make it to the front of the queue because they have waited so long they will make sure they ask every question and make full use of the service making queuing a long drawn out process. Queuing is a surprisingly strange process in Russia
Old ladies
Pretty much old ladies or ‘babushkas’ rule Russia. Whatever they want, they get. You can always tell a babushka because of her stooped walk, angry face, with a head scarf and always carrying two plastic bags full of stuff. They push in front of you in every queue possible, push you out of the way to get pasty, steal your bed in the train or sleep all day on the bed you’re supposed to sit in. As you can tell by the end of Russia we no longer like old women
People love to take photos of themselves in Russia, particularly girls. Everywhere you go are groups of chicks posing for each other in photos. So you can kind of fit in as a tourist taking photos everywhere. Although it is a little weird, all these girls full on posing with these weird angry faces I guess trying to look ‘good’ or something. People also like to dress up and go do photo shoots of themselves in parks and things, in the typical cheesy style, twirling under leaves, leaning seductively against a tree…its all a bit weird. Wedding photos are even stranger as we arrived in the wedding month so every city from St P’s to Irkutsk had wedding parties having photos shoots in public spaces, the groom never really having anything to do with it, always just stuck in the photo as an afterthought while the bride is always in her element. Its all strange
Other bizarre things are the useless traffic management system, a strange tendency to continue building ugly cold war apartment blocks while over half the city still has unfinished buildings…and well about a million other things. Russia is definitely an interesting place to travel in and while it was hard I did really enjoy it and keen to fight the visa bureaucracy once more
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