Oh, Mother Russia
Dave Says:
I want to love Russia. I really do. It however, is stubbornly refusing to love me. In my formative years, tales would race around the playground of how one could become a millionaire by stuffing fifty pairs of jeans in your suitcase and jetting off to Moscow. There the luxury starved Ruskies would pay ten times your wholesale price for a chance to dress like you. Throw in a Beatles cassette and they would treat you like a tsar (when they liked the tsar that is). Well, now the Ruskies don’t need my jeans and I can’t help but think they’re treating me like the tsar when they didn’t like him. Short of me and my family being taken into the basement, shot and then disposed of down a well, our Russian hosts couldn’t be more icy.
The problem starts before you even get here. Just asking to come in is not a welcoming process. The visa application is long, expensive and filled with such bureaucratic twaddle. Supporting documentation for a visa application consists of: official letters of invitation from government registered and approved tour agencies, proof of hotel (government approved) reservations and payment, proof of health insurance and if, like us, you are applying outside your home country, you need proof that you are a legal resident of the country from which you are applying. Oh and then you pay a $120 visa application fee which is basically just a tourist tax to sit on top of all the fees you paid to a fictitious tour agency to generate all the fictitious paperwork required.
Russia is not altogether alone when it comes to tricky visa applications but unlike those other countries, the troubles don’t end when you actually cross the border. In Russia, the government must know of your whereabouts at all times. The migration card given to you on entry must be stamped by a government official or government registered hotel within three days of you turning up in a new city. This process also costs money. The hotels charge you even if they are officially registered and if they’re not, because they’re a hostel or homestay, they will charge you for the service of going down to the government office on your behalf. Of course you pay them because the office could be miles away, closed for lunch or other ‘technical breaks’ and, for a system designed exclusively to track foreign visitors, none of the forms are in English nor is there an English speaking clerk (at least that’s what we were told when we questioned the $15 registration fee). Failure to register your visa or displaying unaccounted for gaps in your paperwork will cost you a fine of up to $80 when you leave the country or, if you’re unlucky enough to be stopped by an over-zealous cop looking to make up his fine quota, this could happen on any street corner.
Once you’re all official it’s time to go site-seeing. And boy, what sites there are to see. We think. We wouldn’t really know because our budget won’t stretch further than one site a day. The Russians have been taking lessons from the Indians and are double pricing for tourist activities. Double pricing is tourist speak and means there is one price for the Russians and one for the foreigners. For example, one of the best museums in the world charges $4 for Russians and $15 for us. Everyone does it and not one attraction is less than $10 for us and is sometimes as low as $1 for the locals. In India, this is annoying but understandable. The average wage there is pennies but here in Russia where their standard and cost of living is comparable to the rest of Europe, we are finding it a bitter pill to swallow. We could easily spend $50 a day just on museums and the such like, but without them, there’s not a great deal to do.
But that’s OK. As everyone says about everywhere they go: “…and the people were just so lovely.” Not so in Russia. There’s been a few exceptions but generally they have been most unhelpful, miserable and not even happy when they have gotten our money from us. English is hardly ever spoken to us even by the young people in the tourist industry although we know they have rudimentary English skills. It’s not that we need it (most countries we’ve visited are not English speaking) but it can save confusion and time if we have at least a couple of words in common. Instead, the Russians, like the French, seem to want to make us work for our dinner and then shout at us for whatever procedural infractions we may have caused. They do have a word for ‘thank you’ but never appear to use it. I have now stopped using it too. It was my only word in Russian, but now I’ve struck myself mute. Now, I know that they have a reputation for being a stoic bunch, even the guidebook says it, but it’s been three weeks of non-stop miserable interactions with the local people and it’s wearing really thin.
It may very well be that we’re both tired. European civilization is just a few short days away, our home country a few weeks away and home, home, home a couple of months distant but in sight. We’ve been on the road for 19 months and we should be careful not to let our fatigue ruin what should be an enlightening experience. But then I look around and notice others also experiencing the same Russia as us and that makes me feel sorry not for ourselves or other tourists but for the Russians. If the Russian government doesn’t make it easier for tourists and businesses to come here then they won’t, and currently they don’t. They’re all going to China and India instead where the young people are all becoming amazingly proficient in English, tax breaks are being offered for foreign investment and tourist infrastructures are being built. This mighty nation of Russia, the largest country in the world with an amazing landscape, bountiful natural resources and a hearty constitution will find itself at the bottom of the heap. The G8 conference was in Japan last week and I believe in the not-to-distant future the G8 may be become the G9 with India and China replacing Russia. Admittedly, it’s a long stretch to correlate tourism with global power but I’m of the opinion that the way a country treats its international tourists reflects how they wish to portray themselves to the world; either with the open arms of economic (if not cultural) integration or the crossed arms of isolationist suspicion. Those two attitudes when applied towards tourism have exactly mirrored our personal experiences of each country we’ve visited with those we read in the New York Time’s International section.
It is a sad day when I have to write a blog entry that isn’t quirky and light hearted towards the country I’m visiting. We are all different and the acceptance of those differences is what makes traveling hard but fun. Perhaps the Russian psyche has worn off on me. So, as one of Russia’s famous 19th century poets, Alexander Blok, once cheerfully said, “She did devour me, lousy snuffling dear Mother Russia, like a sow devouring her piglet.”
July 18th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Wow, I think this is your first truly 100% negative writing in all of your travels. When Sarah said that St. Petersburg was one of the most beautiful cities you’ve ever seen, I just assumed that meant your experience in Russia was wonderful. Now that I think about that, why would I think one necessarily equals the other? Anyway I’m glad you’re out of there!
July 18th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Wow, I’m sorry you had such a lousy experience there. As Nancy said, I think this is the very first totally negative, lacking in humor, blogs you’ve posted. I too, am glad that you are out of there.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Yikes…more like Cinderella-esque Stepmother Russia. I must admit I’d imagined a country shaped by dour gulag-scarred existentialists, but this is an eye opener. There’s a fine line between stoicism and assholishness and there’s no doubt where those in the Russian tourism industry stand. Hopefully this just feels like a blip in an otherwise incredible 19 months. Next stop: Anywhere.