Visitor center from the water

During our trip along the shore of Lake Baikal, two of our nights were spent at the quaint lake-side town of Tanhoi. Before arriving, few of the students knew anything about this small town of less than 1000 inhabitants. Personally, I had just assumed it would be a dinky little fishing village like several others that stand scattered across the vast shore of Baikal. During our short time spent in the town it was pleasantly surprising to learn that Tanhoi possesses a rich history and the town even played a critical role in the development of Siberia.

One of our days in Tanhoi was structured around visiting the Baikal Nature Reserve Visitor Center. Standing right on the water, the visitor center shined like a gem compared to the rest of the buildings in town. Once inside, I became instantly enthralled by the interactive exhibits about the local wildlife. A sprawling complex, I found myself entertained for hours by everything Baikal and only wished there was more to see on the ground-floor. For the entire period of time leading up to Baikal, we had heard and read about the diversity of wildlife in and around Baikal, but it was at the visitor center where the full magnitude of the biodiversity struck me.

After a few hours spent poking around, we were lead upstairs to be shown a film about the history of the town and what use to make Tanhoi so special. The film started off by showing us Tanhoi was brought to life with the arrival of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. For a short period of time, before the construction of the Circum-Baikal Railroad which ran across the length of the southern shore, the only way to continue travel along the Trans-Siberian Railroad was by way of ferry across Baikal. Tanhoi happened to be located at the eastern end of the shortest route across the lake and thus the ferry station was built. The film also talked in detail about the SS Baikal, a revolutionary ice-breaking train ferry that served as the main mode of transportation across the lake in months were the ice was permitting. Progressing chronologically, the film moved smoothly until it approached the time period of 1904-1905.

Taking a break from teaching, the film began to focus heavily upon the Russo-Japanese War fought between 1904 and 1905. Although the SS Baikal played a minor role in the transportation of troops and weapons to the front, the film only mentioned this briefly. Instead, the film talked about the outcome of the war and how it was in no way, shape, or form a defeat for Russia. The narrator informed us that entire Russian Naval Fleet was decimated by the Japanese Fleet in the first few engagements of the war and somehow still insisted that Russia suffered no definitive defeat. Suffering from internal conflicts and humiliating defeats on land and water, Russia opted for peace and a treaty was drafted at the end of 1905. The film perceived the peace treaty as unfavorable for the Japanese and highly favorable for the Russians and then proceeded to mention that just a few more months of war would have secured a Russian victory. The film concluded shortly after this morbid and somewhat hilarious tangent.

Stepping outside and taking a breath of the fresh mountain air allowed me to fully realize just how absurdly out of place the end of the film was. With much of the visitor center dedicated to learning about nature and wildlife, it bummed me out that such a message could reach out and penetrate a seemingly innocent place. The area around the visit center is that of sublime tranquility and the beautiful sights of the lake simply do not pair well with state sponsored misinformation.

Old dock of the SS Baikal

View of the Volga River from the train

I remember earlier in this term one of our professors jokingly described our trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad would be like sitting in jail for three days. We all laughed off what was clearly a joke but as the time flew by in Moscow and then in Siberia, I started to think more about that statement. Before the big ride, our group had spent some serious time on trains in Russia. With two overnight trips to Saint Petersburg, a handful of rides to Vladimir, and one ride to Murom, I thought of myself as a seasoned passenger of Russia’s railroads but right before we boarded our train in Irkutsk, I made a dire mistake. Instead of simply boarding the train and facing my inevitable fate, I foolishly did the math and realized we would be on the train for about 81 hours. I was not a happy man boarding the train in Irkutsk.

Much to my relief, I was lifted out of my grumpy mood almost instantly on the first night. Our coupe stayed up talking and cracking jokes for several hours after we boarded. Before falling asleep I began to think that this ride wouldn’t be so bad. Waking up the next day, I realized we were already about 1/10^th of the way into the journey. Not bad. Time flew by equally as fast for the rest of the day and soon enough we were about 1/5^th of the way there. Not even finished with the first full day of the train ride and concerns about the lengthy ride were quashed.

It was sometime in the afternoon during the second day of the ride that I noticed something peculiar while staring out the window of our coupe. For whatever reason, I had this idea in my head that the Trans-Siberian Railroad would be cutting through the pure, unadulterated wilderness of Siberia. Of course, there would be the big towns such as Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan etc. but otherwise I expected limited visible signs of human activity. This idea of mine was far from correct. Much of the journey was accompanied with the marks of humanity zooming by in the window whether that be in the form of power lines or small barns and towns. The Trans-Siberian Railroad brought life to Siberia in the early 20^th century and is still vital for much of the region’s survival. It makes perfect sense that life would be concentrated by the tracks, I had just never put the pieces together until I saw it in real life.

After my miniature epiphany, I found much of my day time being spent window watching. During our approach to Krasnoyarsk on the second day, I was taken back by the infrastructure directly adjacent to the train tracks. As is the case in certain big cities, including Moscow, travel further from the city center correlates with the amount of money present in that area. The ride into Krasnoyarsk was eye opening as the outskirts of the city produced some of the most depressing sights of my entire trip. For something that brings life to the towns in the countryside, the Railroad seemed to produce the opposite effect in larger cities. Decrepit brick buildings, overgrown plants and trees, and copious amounts of graffiti followed the tracks into the city and dissipated towards the center.

Similar sights could be seen on the journey out of Kazan, one of the largest cities in Russia. I was put into a somber mood as I watched the tiny wooden houses and overgrown yards became more abundant as the distance from Kazan’s center increased. I had visited several small towns before this train ride, yet I found myself moved more from the view on the train than by walking around a village in rural Russia. Before boarding, I thought I would be halfway to insanity on the third day and that could not have been farther from the truth. 70 hours into the trip and I had moved into an unexpected, but surely welcomed, introspective portion of my journey. The Trans-Siberian Railroad was the perfect place to reflect upon the ten weeks I had spent in Russia. Three days felt like a single afternoon on this magnificent journey across the longest railroad in the world. If you are ever blessed with the opportunity to ride on the Trans-Siberian, go for it. Hilarious experiences are accompanied by humbling ones as well as by the many smells formulated along the way.

My day started out just like any other day with class at MGU would; wake up, shower, grab a quick bite to eat, then walk over to the eleven-story building where are classes were. Having had breakfast with some of my fellow Carleton students, we all walked over to class together. It was our last day of class and as I strolled around campus for what would be one of the last times, I made sure to take as many deep breaths of the late spring air as I could. From grey to green, the complete transformation that MGU’s campus has undergone in the eight weeks we have spent here is astounding. I realize how much I am going to miss this beautiful campus as we approach our building.

Past the guard gate and we all take our usual pause as we stood in the middle of the lobby for a few moments. With our five classes each in different rooms and spread across three floors of this massive building, it takes a second to remember the correct floor and room number. We scrambled to the right set of elevators (half of them stop on odd floors and the other half stop on even) and piled in seven people. The elevator shot up to the sixth floor no problem, but then tragedy struck. One of the five Carleton students in the elevator thought it would be “funny” to prolong our journey and just as the doors were closing, he reached for the door open button and smacked it. Disaster. We had confused the elevator and instead of going up or opening the door, it decided to do neither and just sit there. A few seconds passed as we slowly began to realize the gravity of our situation.

We immediately hit the call button to try and receive some help from the lady who works with the broken elevators. It became apparent that we weren’t the first group of kids that this has happened to. A muffled reply and some random button smashing brought no success and soon we were heading into the fifth minute of our wait. The metal box we were confined in was becoming rather steamy. A tiny fan above the door seemed to be whirring but the effects couldn’t be felt by any of us. Conversation was started with the other elevator mates and we learned that the man who had quietly been standing in the corner was also an American. A pleasant surprise in a time of troubles.

Tenth minute. I begin to see sweat beads forming on one of my classmate’s forehead. The humidity is impossible to not notice at this point. I was managing the heat well at that point, no sweating yet but I was beginning to question if help was even on the way. Casually talking with one of the Carleton students, the Russian student in the other corner of the elevator bumped into the conversation to ask an interesting question. Myself and one other student were wearing shorts and she asked, in great English to add, if we wear shorts to class in America. We replied yes and the look on her face let me know she was taken back by our response. Inquiring further, she let us know that in Russia it is disrespectful to our professors if we wear shorts to class. Interesting. It was rare to see students walking about campus with shorts on, but we had no idea it was out of respect for their professors.

Twentieth minute and a glimmer of hope arrived. The electronic display flashed briefly and then showed two dashes as opposed to the six we had grown accustomed to. Someone was coming for our aid. Seconds later and we were shooting down the elevator shaft. As we came to the bottom floor, we could hear arguing right outside the metal door as it tried several times to creak open. When the door finally unlatched itself, we were greeted by an unexpected and rather hilarious scene. Our professor, who’s class we were now twenty minutes late to, was on the bottom floor yelling at the elevator repair man standing right around the corner. She was clearly not pleased with his performance and was letting the entire first floor know.

What a way to start the last day of class. Only being a bit sweaty afterwards, I walked away from the ordeal unscathed and picked up some useful and interesting cultural information. I would rate the experience an 8/10 overall, would recommend to future students from Carleton and around the world but only if you have an awesome professor who is willing to unleash her fiery wrath on the lazy elevator repair man.

Front facade of the palace

I never knew that I was much of a palace guy before our trip to Saint Petersburg. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I had never been to an actual palace before our day trip to the suburbs around Saint Petersburg where we managed to visit two in one day. Located about 15 miles from the city center in a small town called Tsarkoe Selo (that would be Tsar’s Village in English) sits one of the most impressive buildings I have ever had the privilege of visiting, Catherine’s Palace.

Front gates of the palace and a view of the courtyard

When German troops reached Leningrad in World War II, they intentionally destroyed the residence. Although the restoration work that has been done is beyond incredible, the palace lost some of its beauty on the exterior. Most of the gold plaster present on the facade used to be actual plated gold. It is still beautiful but had these pictures above been taken in 1940, there would be a hefty amount of more actual gold pictured.

One of two main staircases leading to the second floor

Entering the building, we were ushered up one of the main staircases to get to the more impressive second floor. The entire staircase and basically the rest of the room is all carved out of marble. Now I can’t say I am the biggest fan of all marble everything but it was still incredibly impressive. However, this staircase was just a stepping stone for what lay ahead.

First look at the Grand Hall

Nothing could really prepare me for the next room we entered. The Grand Hall is the largest building in the palace and takes up about 1,000 square meters and it spans the whole width of the building. Constructed of mirrors, gold plating, exotic woods, and a massive ceiling painting, this hall of mirrors may very well have been the most impressive room I have ever been in. Unfortunately, pictures will never be able to bring justice to the awe that this room emanated.

A good view of the gold plating and mirrors on the wall

Designed for balls and masquerades, all sides of the Grand Hall were built to impress. Mirrors were by no means cheap when the palace was initially built and, like the gold plating, added to the grandeur of the room. Walking around this room made me feel as if I had taken a step back into time, when the tacky Russian Baroque style of the late 18th century was back in fashion.

One of several dining rooms present in the palace

Proceeding through the palace, we moved into the first of many gilded rooms which are collectively known as the Golden Enfilade. Designed by Italian architect Rastrelli, these rooms (as well as the ballroom which is also his creation) are plated in gold and were built to impress. Paintings line the walls and expensive furniture litter every available inch in the several dining rooms that are part of this Golden Enfilade.

Creative decoration in the Golden Enfilade

Rastrelli helped work on other palaces and large buildings around St. Petersburg such as the Peterhof Palace, the Smolny Convent, and even the Winter Palace. We visited several of his other works during our time in Petersburg but pictured above is one of the coolest little features, at least to me, in one of his works. The green metallic material between the gold plating on the wall looking expensive and exotic upon first examination, but our tour guide assured us that we have some of this material laying around our house somewhere. Tin foil. At the time of construction, tin foil was relatively new technology but it was very cool seeing a cheap material being used as a beautiful decoration in a palace of all places.

Furnace with tiles painted in Dutch style

As the existence of St. Petersburg might tell you, Peter the Great was obsessed with all things European. He seldom left the country but upon returning from a trip to the Netherlands, Peter had a newfound interest in the way the Dutch decorated the tiles on their furnaces. Pictured above is just one of several Dutch furnaces that were scattered around the palace.

Back facade of the Palace

Proceeding out of the Golden Enfilade, we were led down the other main staircase where we popped outside and into the backyard of the palace. The flowers had not quite bloomed yet but the impressive landscaping stood out as well as a man-made pond. The backwards facing facade was just as impressive and the one on the front side and was our last view of the palace before we proceed onto the next palace of the day, the Peterhof Palace. Truly an amazing day and experience, it would be a crime to visit St. Petersburg and skip out on seeing either Catherine’s Palace or another similar work such as Peterhof Palace.

Murom’s coat of arms and a statue of Ilya Muromets in the background

How many college students get to say they taught English for a day at a college in Russia? I’m going to take a guess and say not many. When I first heard of the possibility to do such a thing, I hopped all over it. A group of us were soon headed for Murom, a town of about 100,000 people that is located to the south-east of Vladimir and to the south-west of Nizhny Novgorod. Unbeknownst to me before arriving, Murom has a rich history and is far more than just a small town on the east border of the Vladimir Oblast. With settlements dating back to the 9^th century, Murom is one of the oldest towns in Russia and holds the oldest monastery in the country after Ukraine established itself as a separate state in 1991.

After a four and half hour train ride from Moscow, we arrived at the Murom Station. We were immediately greeted by two of the professors who teach English at the Murom Institute and then driven to our next stop which was, in my opinion, a very pleasant surprise. Our initial plans had been to stay in a hostel neighboring the institute but due to lack of time, rooms were cleared out for us in the only student dormitory on campus. The atmosphere in the building was completely unlike that of the dorms in MGU. The whole building was bustling as kids ran all through the hallways with music audibly blasting on most floors. It was a welcomed change of pace.

The next day was when the fun happened. Working with the professors who greeted us the night before, we were to teach English for the day. We came prepared with a game or presentation using simpler English that would keep the students engaged. I elected to make a presentation about my home state, Texas, which displayed all sorts of aspects of the state from geography to the cuisine. My actual presentation lasted just over 5 minutes long, but I found myself behind the front desk answering questions for much longer than that. Both students and professors were enthralled. I received all sorts of questions asking about everything from the weather, especially the heat, as well as Texas food. It was a very rewarding experience and left me excited for the possibility of doing something like that again. After our presentations, we received a tour of the foreign language wing of the institute where we saw pictures previous students who had also came to teach in Murom. Previous Carleton trips to Russia had also sent students to the same institute in Murom and I am very fortunate to be one of the students that carried on the tradition.

Following the brief tour on campus, we were then given a student-led tour around town. Getting to spend all day with the students provided us an opportunity to get a peek into the life of younger people who live in smaller towns in Russia. A conversation about Moscow and St. Petersburg was started and met with the reply that “Those cities aren’t real Russia. This is real Russia.” I was familiar with this concept that Moscow and St. Petersburg are considered their own entities by Russians living in smaller towns but it was still jarring to hear it come out of someone’s mouth. I didn’t get the feeling that the students resented people from Moscow or St. Petersburg. Many of them said they actually visit quite often, yet it was clear that there exists some divide between the two groups of Russians. This conversation gave me something to chew on the rest of the day as I walked around “real Russia.” Returning to Moscow, I continued to think about the conversations I had in Murom. Currently I am not fully equipped to answer the question “What is real Russia?”, nor will I ever be, but seeing the differences firsthand between urban and rural Russia really makes you think.

Moscow’s grown since then, and the field was supposedly turned into an airfield that served as an aviation museum for a few years before it was shut down. Regardless, we wanted to see the field where the tragedy occurred. Sticking mostly to the areas around Red Square and the university, we hadn’t made it into the outer edges of the city yet and we decided this was a perfect opportunity to just that. It took two trains and a transfer above ground to get out to the station from which we could walk to the Khodynskoe Field, Dinamo. The station is named in honor of the team that plays in the stadium that looms over its exit. In the coming months, Dinamo’s stadium will host several World Cup matches and when we left the subway we were in the shadows of cranes that were doing work on the stadium.

The Petrovsky Palace is right near the station and we were content to just walk by it and see it from the outside. Compared to the vast amounts of concrete structures and the high-rise apartments littering the surrounding area, Petrovsky Palace was hard to miss.  A few strangers pointed us in the direction of Khodynskoe Field, giving us vaguely quizzical looks as they did. The walk there took us past another hotel and through a sports complex. Mostly maintained by CSKA, the Russian Army’s sports group (CSKA’s soccer stadium is also in the neighborhood), it wasn’t clear that it wasn’t an industrial park until a later visit to the same neighborhood for the IFSC Climbing World Cup, held on a monstrous turf field inside what resembled, from the outside, a warehouse.

When we arrived to where the field was supposed to be, according to our maps and a few notable buildings that we’d seen in photos of the field online, there was nothing but a new construction site and a huge mall next to a Metro station. In fact, the construction taking place where the field used to be is so new that Google Maps still shows the area as a park covered in green. Later on when we asked some people passing by about the construction taking place, they responded that the construction was only happening due to the World Cup. Although no games will be played at CSKA’s stadium, it was still deemed necessary to tear up a historic park and add onto the seemingly endless concrete jungle.

Hungry, we went into the mall and wound up four floors’ worth of escalators , ending up at a burger store in section dubbed “Trend Island.” We had been trying since we left Dinamo station to find a bite to eat, yet it seemed the only restaurants for a few kilometers were bundled up in the mall. Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones” played while we ate our burgers. Afterwards we trekked back downstairs and got on the train home.

For a city that was founded as long ago as Moscow was, it shifts temporally at a breakneck pace. The Kremlin has a ballet theater, massive and modern, sitting behind an ancient brick wall. Little bars sit in back alleys off of streets with glowing billboards that wouldn’t be out of place in Times Square. We’d seen those places and taken them as they were but there was something more surreally tangible about going a place that we’d read about in a relatively recently published book, that we’d seen on the internet, and seeing that it had been swallowed by the maw of Moscow’s growth.

Pictured above is the current state of the park.

Written by: Owen Yager and Calle Erich

The food on campus was one of, if not the biggest, concerns of mine before I left for Russia. Two years ago I had never had a salad in my entire life and now I eat them almost daily. I knew that Russians have a different idea for what dictates a salad, with their version usually containing beets, peas, mayonnaise, and other assorted ingredients that aren’t my favorite. The first time I walked into one of the several cafeterias on this city-esque campus, sure enough I was greeted by strange and colorful looking dishes labeled as salads. After some experimentation, I think I have come to realize that I might have been a little harsh on the beet salads before I got here because they are starting to grow on me. As for the carrot salads, a dish that I never imagined would’ve existed, they have become my new staple and I will definitely be experimenting with my own take on carrot salad when I get back to the United States. Main courses have been great so far with several choices of starch and protein provided at each meal as well as a few choices of soup. МГУ’s dining halls certainly have the upper hand over Carleton when it comes to breakfast. As an added bonus, the dining hall located closest to us never closes and provides a full meal well into the late night.

As for the food in and around Moscow, which I was less concerned about, all of my expectations have been surpassed. With all of the free time I have on my hands, I have been able to eat at several places that served classic Russian cuisine along with a few “cultural experiences” including a Russian take on an American burger joint as well as a traditional Mexican restaurant. Located in the tourist-geared state department store, ГУМ, is a delicious and reasonable priced restaurant called Stolovaya No. 57 which served Russian classics in the style of an old Soviet dining hall. As my professor has informed us, the food was not as edible in the dining halls that Stolovaya No. 57 looks to imitate. Having only tried a dishes of Georgian cuisine at assorted cafes, one of the most delicious pieces of food I have had so far was a cheese bread dish known as khachapuri. Georgian restaurants are plentiful in Moscow and a full meal at one is up next on my list of restaurants to dine at. Living in Texas, I have a slightly biased opinion on what I find to be good Mexican food but I must say that I have certainly had worse. Poncho Villa, the name of the place, needs to spicen up their salsa a bit and maybe add a couple of dishes to the menu but I certainly respect whoever had the idea of opening up a Mexican place in downtown Moscow.