Impressions from Russia, 1996

by Frans Dijkstra

In summer 1996 Lineke (my wife) and I for the first time visited Russia. Our experience with Eastern Europe was so far limited to Eastern Germany and Poland (summer 1989, just before the 'Wende') and Czechoslowakia (summer 1991). This time we visited Moscow, Petersburg and the Russian country side. This report is a diary of our trip. I hope, that it is interesting for other readers. By clicking on a (blue-marked) and underlined word, you get a picture. Pictures are not bigger than 10 to 35 K, so downloading should not take too much time. I highly appreciate reactions. Mail me at "f.y.dijkstra@planet.nl"

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The Red Square with the Uspjensky Cathedral

Monday, 29 July. Our plane from Austrian Airlines arrives exactly on schedule in Moscow. We wait an hour for the passport control. A severe lady intentionally takes two full minutes for examining every passport. Than the customs. I read that we have to declare art products, manuscripts and stamps. Well, I have some packages of Dutch stamps with me, as a gift for some people whom we want to meet. Stupidly enough I decide to obey the rules, and declare the stamps. With this obeying attitude I greatly confuse the custom officer, who does not understand a word of English. She takes my passport, the stamps and goes to her superior in the office. After some minutes she returns, and tells me in Russian to wait. I do not understand her, and ask her to show the word in the dictionary, but she cannot find it. Then she repeats the instruction in German. We have to wait for the superior of her superior to make the decision about the import of some Dutch stamps. Five minutes later the super custom officer arrives, and she needs only two seconds to decide. It is the first Russian sentence which I understand: ‘kanjesnjo’, which means 'Yes, of course!'.

The driver from Russia Travel is waiting for us. Without saying a word he brings us to our host family Bayda in the Ulitsa Krasnoproletarskaya. A nice apartment in a big building. Very nice people, Lena and Sergei. They live with their children in one room, and let three other rooms to the guests. Apart from us, there is an American tourist, and a Canadian scientist, who studies Russian. As far as necessary he can interpret between us and the Bayda family. But this is hardly necessary, because Lena and Sergei speak reasonably English.

We get our afternoon tea, rest for some time, and go out to examine the environment, and to get our first culture shock: street life in Moscow. Traders who sell flowers, drinks, foods, newspapers, books. Old ladies, with one bucket of berries, standing the whole day to sell a small amount of it. We change some dollars to roubles and buy a bunch of red roses for Lena. Late in the evening we have dinner with the family and the other guests.

Tuesday, July 30. Today we have a guide, Nastya Mitrofaniva, who picks us up at the host family. Very luxury! We make our first metro-trip. As real tourists we must see the obligatory points: the Kremlin with the cathedrals, the Tsar-gun, the Tsar-bell, the Red Square with the urns of the Soviet-leaders and the Mausoleum of Lenin.

It is forbidden to take cameras into the vicinity of Mr. Lenin, so we have to put our camera into a special camera-depot, 500 meters from the Mausoleum (suppose, he would see it!). In the Mausoleum we must keep walking: it is not allowed to stand, nor to speak. Mr. Lenin resembles a pale wax figure wearing a black suit, lying in a bed with his hands on his breast. There is not a long line of people waiting in front of the Mausoleum: the old times are gone forever! When we try to go back to the camera-depot, the Red Square is closed. We have to walk half an hour, around the whole Kremlin, before we can pick up our camera. On this occasion we learn a property of Russian guides: they never get tired, they never need to drink, and they never want to eat. We are not yet trained so much in city walking - it is the first whole day of our holidays. So we do get tired, and we do need to eat and drink. At two o'clock we ask her to advise us about a restaurant, and say good-bye to her; she does not want to be invited to eat with us!

We lunch at McDonald's, and in the afternoon we visit the GUM, an abbreviation for the 'State Universal Shop', a big department store, where they sell 'everything', as it is told. Then we take the metro and return to our host address.

Wednesday, July 31. Also this day we have a guide: Nadya (left on the picture), a nice middle-aged lady, who speaks Dutch. She is educated as a teacher of German language, but does not practice this profession. Instead she has been a German speaking guide until the former State Travel Agency 'Intourist' offered her to learn Dutch, especially for guiding Dutch tourists. She brings us - by metro, and walking - to the Pushkin Museum, where we admire Trojan art. We see a lens, polished from crystal, with a magnification of +2. Those old Greeks; they already had lenses! Why did mankind have to wait two more millennia before the telescope and the microscope were invented? The moons of Jupiter and microbes could have been discovered by Pythagoras and Archimedes… But let's not try to rewrite history! After the Trojan arts we see lots of Dutch and Flemish paintings, and French impressionists. Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet, Van Gogh. After a simple lunch in the museum restaurant - our guide Nadya only wants a cup of coffee - we go to the Novodevichy Cloister.

A beautiful cathedral, with many icons and wall paintings. Golden domes. We light candles - Lineke for the living people, Nadya and I for the dead people, and then we go to the cemetery of the cloister, where many famous artists, scientists and politicians are buried. We see the graves of Gromiko, Chrustsjow, Shostakowich, Prokofjev and Iljoesjin (the aeroplane constructor).

On the cemetery it starts raining, and it keeps raining the rest of the day. We spend several hours lying on our bed. I read a novel, 'The Moscow connection', by Robin Moore.

Thursday, August 1. Our first day without a guide. Without any trouble we find our way through the metro labyrinth. It is a very efficient transport system. Trains are running every 2 minutes. Digital displays above the tunnel tubes show the number of seconds after the last train departed. We descend by long moving staircases. At the end of every staircase a lady is sitting in a small cabin, the whole day looking at the chairs.

We visit the Arbat Street, a very old quarter of Moscow. A nice street without motor traffic, old houses, many artists and selling people. And many reminiscences to famous authors and poets. The Russians greatly admire the past, and are proud of their artists. We visit the Puskin house, where Alexander Pushkin lived during some years. We are the only visitors, and the attendants are happy that they have the opportunity to explain something about Pushkin. Unfortunately we do not understand much of their Russian.

We lunch in New Arbat, in a restaurant at a broad avenue in Soviet style, with glorious modern buildings at both sides.

After lunch we walk to the river, and take a boat trip to the Kremlin. We see the Redeemer Church, which was destroyed by Stalin in the thirties, and is now being reconstructed. The Orthodox Church has some power again, and is able to finance the reconstruction without any support from the state. The golden domes have been paid by some Russian banks.

After the boat trip we admire the Uspjensky Cathedral, and walk across the Red Square. In the evening we visit a real Russian circus. A flashing performance with amazing tricks!

Friday, August 2. We visit the former 'Exhibition of the Economic Achievements'. The Russian equivalent of this propagandistic name is too bad to pronounce, even for Russian tongues. They simply call it by the abbreviation BDHX, which indeed is much better to pronounce (it sounds like be-de-en-che). In this enormous park the achievements of Soviet economy and technology were shown to the people. Huge pavilions, built in ancient Greek style, contained exhibitions of agricultural successes, technological achievements, space research etc. Large fountains seem to remind of the glorious times of the great tsars.

Unfortunately the BDHX did not survive the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the market economy of the new Russia it bankrupted. The pretentious exhibition halls have been transformed into market places for western high tech products. Commercial posters of Akai, Sony, IBM, Microsoft substitute the former songs of praise on the achievements of communism. The Russians seem to be able to buy these products. Not all, but at least a significant number of people can afford it. In the metro we see many people carrying large boxes with television apparatuses, video recorders, and computers. Are they the new rich people of Russia? We do not know. Rich people exist in this most liberal state of the world - or should we say: in this state where the government kept so little influence on economic life, that a small number of people can enrich themselves, while most others become poorer and poorer? We see expensive modern cars in the streets, we see people with portable telephones meeting each other in expensive restaurants. But we also see many beggars. It is the wrong time to be a disabled person or to be dependant of a state pension in the former Soviet Union! Lenin's statue is still present in this park, but only a little bit of his inheritance is left here.

Before the entrance of the BDHX-park is a huge monument for the Heroes of the Cosmos. A curved needle, 110 meters high, with a model of a rocket in top. In the park there are also some remainders of the exhibition on space exploration. Some real rockets remind of the glorious past. The great exhibition hall has been transformed into a night club, however.

As we do not need new high tech products, we do not spend too much time in the BDHX, and we go out to visit the television tower, in the vicinity of the park. There is a restaurant at a level of 337 meters. We take the elevator - it needs only 20 seconds to get there. It is not very simple to get tickets to this elevator. Foreigners have to buy it in a special office, where they have to show passport and visa, and are interrogated about the purpose of the visit to the tower, host address in Moscow, and so on. Military men examine our luggage. The metal detector beeps, and Lineke has to open the bag; we may keep our binocular with us!

The restaurant is moving around the tower in 10 minutes. Splendid sight, with Moscow below us. With the binocular we can see the Kremlin. The waiter does not understand any other language than Russian. The result of my conversation: I suppose to have ordered one beer and one mineral water. We get two beer and two mineral water. Beer in big glasses, so I can do my best, because Lineke does not drink beer. Fortunately it is a very good, dark beer. The main dish is 'beefsteak in a Georgian way'. It is some kind of soup, with two pieces of steak floating in it, plus mushrooms and an egg. Strange prices: the desert costs 20,787 roubles; we think, that this is the exact equivalent of $ 4. The price list seems to be recalculated in roubles every day, with the actual rate of exchange.

We go by trolley-bus to the metro station, and return home. After delivering Lineke, I myself go out again to visit the 'Museum of the Revolution', a large collection of manuscripts, newspapers, photographs, flags, and objects of the heroes of the revolution. The printing-press which printed the first editions of the Pravda. There are two more visitors in the museum, and at least ten attendants. This museum must go bankrupt soon.

In the evening we have the farewell party of the American guest. He opens a large bottle of champagne, and half a litre of vodka. I do not drink much; I tried vodka earlier in Poland! Sergej, our host likes it very much. He drinks vodka in the typical Russian way: a whole glass at a draught.

Saturday, August 3. We visit Sergiev Posad, formerly called Zagorsk, a town north of Moscow, with the famous monastery of Saint Sergius. We go by metro to the Yaraslavsky Railway Station, and buy two tickets to Sergiev Posad, a very simple transaction, for which we need only 4 words of Russian, and some luck to ask this question at the right ticket-window. It is a one and a half hour lasting trip in a hot and overcrowded wagon. Salesmen try to go through the wagons to sell newspapers and other small products. There is also a singer. The train stops many times, and in most stations there is no indication at all of the name of the station. I ask the other passengers how many stops there will be before Sergiev Posad, a sentence which I literally learned in my Russian course. It is really simple to speak Russian!

In Serviev Posad we have to walk in the right direction. There are no signs at all. The Russian tourist places have no facilities for foreign tourists who want to organise their excursions themselves. Fortunately our American friend from the host address already told us how to walk to the monastery.

In the vicinity of the monastery there are tens of saleswomen who try to sell us icons, that is to say: imitations of icons. Real icons are not sold, and if so, it is not allowed to bring them out of the country. Several beggars ask for a gift. When I give one dollar to one of them, she is very happy. Five others immediately stretch their hands to me. Fortunately I took many one dollar notes with me, so I can treat them all in the same way.

At the entrance of the monastery we have to deposit our camera, or pay 25,000 roubles for a photo-permit ($ 5). We do the latter. We ask for a guide, a young English speaking lady, who studied linguistics at the University of Moscow. It turns out to be a good move, that we asked for a guide. We see the interior of some churches, which are closed for tourists without a guide.

Saint Sergius, who is honoured in the Orthodox Church, is supposed to have been visited by Mary when he was here in Sergiev Posad. On the place where he saw Mary, a spring was dug, and a chapel built. Here one can tap holy water, which has been blessed by Saint Sergius. Many brides do so, after their marriage is contracted in one of the churches in the monastery. Almost all tourists do so. And we do so. We take the water with us to Holland, and give it to the priest in the catholic church where I play the organ.

We walk around in the monastery. An old lady speaks to me. The few words I understand are 'children' and 'eat'. Although it seems improbable to me, that this old grandmother is concerned about food for her children, I give her a dollar. She makes the sign of the cross, goes down on her knees, and prays. Some minutes later, she brings another old woman to me, who also has a story with sorrow and concern. She also gets a dollar. If I were rich enough, every beggar in Russia could get one dollar from me. But I am afraid, that there are millions of beggars in Russia, which is far above my budget. I must leave some tasks for Mr. Yeltsin!

I want to have at least one picture of a monk. From a fairly large distance I take a picture of a monk, standing near a door of a church. He immediately comes to me. After a first sentence in Russian, which I do not understand, he says in fairly good English 'When you took a picture, I was in the line of your camera, is that right?'. I admit 'Yes, that is right'. 'Then I would like to have a copy of the picture' is his question, and he gives me his address, novice Igor Masals. Well, of course he may get a copy!

On returning to our host address, there is a big shower in Moscow. We do not keep our feet dry, when leaving the metro station. There are new guests: a couple from New Zealand. We can hardly understand their accent.

Sunday, August 4. Today we leave Moscow. Our travel agency 'Russia Travel' takes again care of everything. We do not have to think in advance. They do! At the moment when it is necessary, there are new instructions from 'Russia Travel'. A guide, Dimitrij Cobiev, comes to pick us up from the host address. He is a linguistic student (English and Chinese) at the university of Moscow. He brings us by metro to the bus station Moscow South West, where we get the bus to Kaluga, a province town, 180 km south of Moscow. The trip lasts 3 hours. According to his instructions Dimitrij has to bring us from the bus station in Kaluga to the cinema, and wait there for a taxi with a sign 'Krasnij Gorodok'. No more instructions! Just 'wait'. And well, we wait half an hour, untill a man speaks to me 'Krasnij Gorodok?'. Now I see, that the same man already spoke to me half an hour ago. I thought, he was a salesman, and I had answered 'Njet'. He belongs to the taxi, which has been parked around the corner of the street. Twenty minutes later, we arrive in the village Krasnij Gorodok. It belongs to a Kolchoz, a collective farm from the Soviet time. Small farms with one cow, some other cattle, chickens, geese, and a vegetable garden. These are the private properties. The large scale agriculture is done collectively: growing cereals, ensiling of grass.

Our host family, Yura and Nadya Proshinoj, greets us very kindly. Nadya shows us our room, and asks in Russian 'husband and wife?', which Dimitrij considerately translates as 'are you together?'. Now we are allowed to sleep in one room!

It is already too late for Dimitrij to return to Moscow. He is allowed to stay overnight, and will take the bus very early on the next day. After dinner we have very interesting discussions with him about the Russian universities and politics, and we kindly say goodbye.

Monday, August 5. A very quiet day, after the tiring days in Moscow. In the morning we go out into the forests in the neighbourhood. This village is located in a hilly landscape. Land which is not used for agriculture, is covered by forests, where we can walk very nicely. There is a small river floating through the forest, and several small bridges (primitive constructions from old railway steel) and fordable places. We spend several hours in the forest, and in the afternoon we ask Nadya for a place to sit in the garden. We gather raspberries, and read books.

Nadia and I understand each other in Russian conversations on a basic level.

'At what time do you want to eat?'.

'At six o'clock please'.

'Do you want mushrooms at lunch to-morrow?'

'Yes, please, very nice'

'Do you have children?'

'We have a daughter who is 23 years old, and another one, who is 19; the elder studies in the university, and the younger works with flowers'.

Tuesday, August 6. In the morning we walk again in the forest, and through the culture land of the kolchoz. At lunch we get the promised mushrooms: in a soup, and fried with potatoes. The son of Nadya and Yura collected the mushrooms yesterday in the forest. Most of them belong to Boletus species, and Nadia also showed me some Lycoperdon specimens. By the way, we saw many people in the forest, who were gathering mushrooms. They seem to collect all boletes without any botanical determination.

In the afternoon, our hostess brings us to an open spot in the forest. We have to hack wood and she makes a flat fire, to prepare shashlik. We stay there for hours, and eat shashlik (made from goose meat), and apples.

Wednesday, August 7. Nadya accompanies us to Kaluga, where we visit the Tsjolkowsky Museum. It is a bus trip of 30 minutes to Kaluga. The museum contains a very interesting exhibition about the Russian space exploration, and a planetarium. I can understand most of it. 'The first fully automatic moon station, that brought moon dust back to earth'. 'The first man-made vehicle with moved on the moon surface'. Etc., etc. Very interesting, but a bit one-sided. Not a word about the USA space trips. The only reminiscence to the Americans is a moon globe, with red spots for the Russian hits like Luna, Lunochod, and blue spots for the American hits, like Apollo 11, Surveyor. Not any explanation about what Apollo 11 did on the moon. Outside the museum is a real Russian space rocket.

We return to Krasnij Gorodok by bus. The last 5 km we have to walk to reach the village. We meet a flock of cows, coming from the village.

I talk to Nadya about our return trip to Moscow, the day after tomorrow. We do not know how to do that, and Nadya does not know either. Of course we can go to Kaluga, and find a bus to Moscow, but will the travel agency organise anything? I tell her, that I want to phone to Moscow. In the village there is no telephone, and so we should have to go to Kaluga by bus, just for making one phone call. I try to explain her, that I do not like to make a bus trip, for only that purpose, but my Russian is not good enough to express such a subtle thought. In the evening we get the solution, when a telegram arrives from Moscow with new instructions for Nadya. She is supposed to bring us by taxi to Kaluga, and put us on an express bus to Moscow.

Thursday, August 8. In the morning Nadya again accompanies us to Kaluga, where we visit some cathedrals. The most beautiful cathedral is closed, but she finds someone with the key, and we are allowed to go in. It is good to have a guide, when you want to see the most interesting places in Russia! There is only one thing which I miss in Russian cathedrals, no two things: seats and an organ. People always stand during the whole service, and all music is unaccompanied vocal. One of the ladies, whom I understand fairly well, asks: 'Are you also Orthodox?'. My answer: 'No, protestant', and she asks 'Do you also have icons in your churches?'. 'No, we do not have icons.' In the afternoon we once more walk in the fields and the forests around Krasnij Gorodok. We meet cows and sheep, crossing the river in the forest.

Friday, August 9. In the morning we explore the forests for the last time. We lunch early, at eleven. It is our farewell party, with wine and vodka. During lunch we see the inauguration of Mr. Yeltsin by television. It is a secular ceremony. Plans to have a very religious ceremony with a dominant role for the orthodox patriarch have been abandoned. Although communism is over, the modern Russia is not yet a religious state! Nevertheless the patriarch speaks 10 minutes, the president of the parliament 5 minutes, and Mr. Yeltsin 3 minutes. The trend is clear…

After lunch our good Nadya accompanies us to Kaluga by taxi, where she delivers us to a bus, which is waiting at the railway station. After a very emotional farewell from Nadya, we leave for Moscow. At five o'clock in the afternoon we are back at our first host family in the Krasnoproletarskaya Street. We speak about Sergej's profession. He is a technical scientist, developing automatic operating systems, an expertise which is badly paid in Russia!

The driver from the travel agency picks us up from the host address at ten o'clock, and at eleven we are sitting in the express train to Saint Petersburg. We sleep reasonably well.

Saturday, August 10. Our express train arrives exactly on schedule. On the platform, there is a man waiting with a sign 'DIJKSTRA'. It is our guide for Saint Petersburg. His name is Sacha, and he speaks Dutch. My first impression is, that his Dutch is perfect, and during ten minutes I am in doubt whether he is a native speaker. He speaks the Haarlem-accent, in a student-like way. Later on, small mistakes with the idiom and with the stress show that he is a foreigner who studied Dutch. He grew up in the neighbourhood of Petersburg, and he studied Dutch at the university. He spent many months in the Netherlands, learning the language and exploring the country.

He brings us by car to the Sovietskaya hotel. It is a large hotel, 15 floors high. We go to our room, shower, shave, and put on fresh cloths. We do not yet know, but we are lucky: this is only day with supply of hot water in our room. From our room we have a splendid sight at Saint Petersburg. At 10 o'clock Sacha is waiting for us, and we start a city walk through this very impressing city. We visit the Peter and Paul's fortress, where the political enemies of Peter the Great were tortured and executed, including Peter's son. We visit the Aurora, the battle-ship, from which in 1917 the guns were fired to start the communist revolution. Or, like Sacha expresses it: 'here you see the gun, which made us unhappy during 75 years!'. Saint Petersburg is a city with a dramatic history: much more than Moscow.

Sacha resembles our guides in Moscow in that he never becomes tired. But he differs in that he does need to eat and drink! After a good lunch in Café Antwerpen (Petersburg is a more western city than Moscow!), where we taste sturgeon, we continue our city walk to the Njewsky Prospect. This is the main street, comparable to the Champs Elysées in Paris. He shows us the biggest book shop, the best food shop, churches, cathedrals, bridges and canals. In some aspects Saint Petersburg resembles Amsterdam.

By 3 o'clock, very dark clouds cover the sky. We rapidly go back to our hotel, just before a heavy shower starts. Very impressed, but also very tired, we rest until dinner, which we enjoy in our hotel.

Sunday, August 11. We visit the Newsky-monastery. Our guide Sacha advises to attend the mass and we do so. In our feeling it is a strange ritual liturgy. The priests continuously point to the altar; they hardly direct themselves to the community. There is a professional choir, singing beautifully. The priests form a sextet, which also sings very well.

We stay 20 minutes, while I try to taste the atmosphere of the orthodox service. On leaving the church I buy a Russian Bible, printed in 1995 by the Russian Bible Association, and freely sold for 25,000 roubles ($ 5). If Lenin or Stalin would have seen me … Many things have changed in Russia!

After the church we visit the cemetery. Many famous composers are buried here: Tsjaikowsky, Mousorgsky, Rubinstein, Glazounow.

In the afternoon we visit the Hermitage, the largest arts museum of Russia, and one of the largest in the world. Many paintings of Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso and many others. We walk across the Palace Square, an enormous square with a huge pillar in the middle. This pillar is made of one piece of marble. It stands upright and is not tied to the earth. It just stands stable by its own weight.

In the afternoon we eat reasonable in a bistro, and than visit a ballet performance in the Alexandresky Theather. Beautiful dance, accompanied by uninteresting music by unimportant composers. It is not the right season for top performances: the musicians also have holidays.

Monday, August 12. Our first day in Saint Petersburg without a guide. The metro-system resembles much that in Moscow, but there is one disadvantage: there are only four lines and the distances between the stations are so large that we have to walk much. The walk from our hotel to the nearest station lasts a quarter of an hour. Most points of interest in the centre of the town can be reached by walking 30 minutes; so it seems more convenient to walk all the way. Today we try another way: the tram. There are several lines of trams coming to our hotel. The railways for the trams are in an extremely bad condition, and we see the trams proceed very slowly through the curves in the roads. It is not easy to find out the routes of the trams, nor to find the place where they are supposed to stop. Several trams pass us without stopping; when there is finally a tram which does stop, we get in, but we cannot find out how to buy tickets, and after two stops, the tram goes into quite the wrong direction. We get out, and decide to walk the rest of the day.

We want to visit the Isaac's Cathedral. It is a huge building in the style of the St Paul's in London. Here one even tells, that it resembles the St Peter's in Rome, but that is a bit exaggerated. In the Stalin time this cathedral has been transformed into a museum, which it still is. Masses are only celebrated at Christmas and Easter.

In front of the church is an office, where they should sell tickets for the church ($1) and the tower ($0,50). However, foreigners can only buy tickets for the church, and they are advised to buy tickets for the tower in the church. There the tickets to the tower cost $ 3, six times as expensive! It would often be useful if I could speak Russian so well, that they do not think that I am a foreigner.

The cathedral is very impressing indeed. Large wall paintings, icons, mosaics, ceiling paintings and ornamented pillars.

Climbing the tower is disappointing: we are not allowed to go the highest platform, and the view from the middle platform is not too impressing, just above the roof of the church. In the afternoon we walk on the Newsky Prospekt, and buy some books in the biggest book shop, which is a special experience. First you have to ask for the book to examine it, than you say that you want the book, you get a piece of paper with the price, you have to go to the cash-desk to pay, than you show the receipt to the seller, and you get the book. It was told me, that formerly you had to wait a long time in the line for each of these actions. Nowadays, this problem is over (because not so many people can afford buying things?), and we get the books without waiting. On the second floor we want to buy a poster. Same procedure: examine, get the price, find the cash-desk, pay, get the poster. The Russians have a good feeling for procedures that keep people working! And nevertheless they have unemployment nowadays. Who made which mistake in this system?

In the evening we dine in a Russian restaurant at the Newsky Prospekt, where we reserved a table before. My Russian is better than the waiter's English or German, so I can impress Lineke with my knowledge of the language. Excellent food: crab salad, chicken bouillon and roasted sturgeon. No dessert. This is typical Russian, even not a fruit, or ice-cream.

Tuesday, August 13. As a good scientist, I want to visit at least one scientific museum. Petersburg seems to have several of that kind, but most information in travel books is not up to date. We try to find the Mendeliew-house, but unsuccessfully. At eleven we take a rapid wing-boat to the Peterhof, a summer palace of Peter the Great. Glamour, gold and glitter, unimaginably much. Many fountains. The weather is very good. We do not enter the palace: there are long lines of people waiting before the entrance. Instead we walk in the park, and have lunch. In the evening we dine in a simple bistro for a moderate price. Walking along the canals, we return to our hotel. I read a book: Neanderthal by John Darton.

Wednesday, August 14. Our last full day in Saint Petersburg. We visit the Trinity Cathedral, from which all the ornaments in the interior have been removed. It is again in use for religious purposes, and the community is busy in restoring the interior, because an orthodox cathedral without icons is impossible of course.

After visiting this cathedral we go by metro to the Finland Station. This is the station, where Mr. Lenin arrived in April 1917, when the new political freedom allowed him to return from his banishment. The locomotive of that train still stands at this station in a glass house. A Lenin-mosaic and a Lenin statue further remind of this historic event. By the way - these are almost the only remembrances to Mr. Lenin in this town, which bore his name during sixty years. Then we again take the metro, and make a long walk to the Smolny Convent, a former cloister, of which the cathedral has been redestined to a concert and exhibition hall. The other buildings house a faculty of the University. It is a very quiet place. Most tourists do not come closer than 50 metres, to make a picture of the cathedral, without entering the building, which is supposed to have lost its attractiveness. They are wrong: inside there is a very interesting exhibition of Russian tea pots.

We return by bus. Again, there is no clear route information, but the bus takes the right direction. We must buy tickets from the driver: only strips with 10 tickets (but unexpensive: $0.05 for one ticket). We have to stamp one ticket to make it valid. Now we see that many people buy one ticket from other passengers. And now I also understand, what many people in the street are selling. We thought that were selling lottery tickets. They did, but also bus tickets.

In the afternoon we buy some souvenirs. A CD with Russian church music, and of course the obligatory matroesjka (a series of dolls fitting into each other). We buy a political one, with Mr. Yeltsin, Gorbatsjow, Brezjnjew, Chrustjow, Stalin, Lenin and, last but not least, Nicolas the Second, the last tsar.

In the evening we dine in the same Russian restaurant as the day before yesterday. It is our last dinner in Russia, so we do not hesitate in our choice: caviar, meat soup, chicken and champagne. Not extremely expensive: just $ 60 for two. Lineke does not drink much, so I drink three quarter of the bottle of champagne. The Russian champagne contains less alcohol than the French, and that is why I think the evening in our hotel room, that I can still afford enjoying some vodka.

Thursday, August 18. I pay the price for yesterday's joyful champagne and vodka: at five o'clock I awake sweating, and I feel very sick. I know the phenomenon! As usual it does not last long. Before lunch I recover completely. Our guide Sacha picks us up from the hotel, and brings us to the airport. There is one striking difference between the offices of our travel agency in Moscow and Petersburg: in Moscow there was the invisible head quarter, continually concerned about us, sending drivers, guides, and telegrams to us, always in the right time, but we never knew exactly what the next step would be. Here there is only one guide, Sacha, who takes care of everything.

Before leaving Russia, we have time to visit the Catherina Palace in Pushkin, a small town outside Saint Petersburg, on the hills from where the German guns bombed Leningrad during more than a year in the second World War. In that year the Catherina Palace was destroyed largely. Nowadays it can be visited again, but they are still restoring it. We visit the interior of the palace, and walk in the park. At two o'clock we arrive at the airport, and change our remaining roubles back to dollars. This shows again an element of the past which has disappeared: we can freely exchange money. In the plane I read 'The ring' by Danielle Steel: a very stirring story, with too many improbable coincidences in the last 50 pages. Seemingly the author did not know how to get a happy ending in another way. At nine o'clock in the evening we arrive in our home in Zoetermeer.