Joseph Burke

Impressions of Modern Day Russia Part 1 Dispelling the many misconceptions about life in modern Russia

• September 30, 2003 •

This is Part One of Four

I had the opportunity to visit Russia in mid September 2003 for a software conference being held near Moscow in a small city called Chernogolovka. Several hundred Russian software developers attended the conference and a few dozen American and European business people like myself that work these developers. Since our own Rose City Software company does a lot of business with Russian developers, it made sense for me to attend this year. Three of our developers, Dmitry Ustyuzhanin, Konstantin Golovatsky and Alexander Khoroshev attended the conference and were very pleased to assist me in every element of this trip once I arrived by air to the Sheremet'evo airport in Moscow, a large modern gateway to Russia.

These young men spoke English pretty well. It's a good thing too, as few people you come across speak any English at all and communication is very difficult without translation available. Unlike European languages, few Russian words bear any resemblance whatever to their English counterparts.

And unless you know the Cyrillic alphabet, you cannot read a thing. No signs, menus, or packaging. It may as well be Chinese characters. Worse perhaps because sometimes the letters look like western letters but are entirely different so trying to pronounce something can often come out absolutely wrong. I've never felt so helpless as sitting down in a restaurant with a menu only in Cyrillic Russian and no one speaks any English.

A translator is highly recommended and for touring the cities, get an English speaking guide. An experienced one will cut through the 'red tape' for you (pun intended) and can make your touring far more enjoyable. We were able to rent a guide and car for 5 hours for a couple hundred dollars a day in St Petersburg... well worth the modest investment to get the most out of a few days stay.

Let me preface this brief chronicle of my impressions of Russia by saying that a great deal of the information I allude to is based on what I observed or was able to learn from our developers and guides. These have not been verified by any authority and as such, some of it may be in error. I apologize for any gross errors as they are the result of my ignorance of this very foreign land and not intentional.

Russia is a huge and mysterious country stretching all the way from the west side a short hop across the Gulf of Finland from that European country all the way to Mongolia in the east. It would take years to explore it all. This brief overview is intended to record my impressions of a country which is nothing at all like I had expected. The purpose is to dispel a lot of the gross misconceptions which exist among the American people as to what life in Russia is like. It is not intended to be any kind of exhaustive or authoritative view of the country now known as the Russian Federation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is simply a collection of impressions from an all too short stay in this interesting land. It is also not intended to be a travel guide... there are plenty of those available and I was not there long enough to be recommending places to visit.

I visited Moscow (pronounced Moss-koh) and St Petersburg and both cities are well worth seeing. Red Square in Moscow is memorable with the monolithic St Basel's Cathedral, the huge open square,

and of course the Kremlin (a vast museum and archive of Russian history and art) and the monuments.

But St Petersburg is the crown jewel. Former capital of the Soviet Union and various renamed to Petrograd in the early 20th century, renamed to Leningrad for most of the later 20th century, and finally back to the original St Petersburg in 1991, this fantastic city is home to some of the world's most beautiful architecture, palaces and museums you'll see anywhere.

The Hermitage in downtown St Petersburg which includes the fabled Winter Palace, and the magnificent reconstructed palaces of Peterhof and other surrounding towns are unforgettable. These former homes to Russian emperors from Peter the Great and later on to Catherine the Great, on down to Nicolas, last of the great emperors, are simply not to be missed.

Having travelled all over Europe and in various places in the Far East, I found St Petersburg to be among the grandest places I have ever visited. Having just a tantalizing taste for a few short days, my appetite is whetted to go back and stay for three months. Even then you could never take it all in. It's just an extraordinary place. Billed as the Venice of the North, one ride on the beautiful canals of this grand old city will change your perception forever of what a city should look like. We don't have cities in the US... we have collections of buildings connected by roads and managed by politicians. St Petersburg founded in 1703 and designed by the great and benevolent Emperor Peter the Great is a monument to all that a city can be in its design and execution. I hope Russia is able to successfully upgrade its infrastructure and transition into the western world on an equal footing so that more Americans and other western people will be able to visit and appreciate this incredible place!

Early fall was a good time to visit. The summer crowds of tourists are mostly gone, but the weather was lovely. Clear and sunny most of the time. I think we only had one rainy day, although it rained a couple nights and cleared up majestically during the day. Temperatures were in the 60's during the days and down in the 40's at night. Very pleasant weather all together. I'm told I was fortunate, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend you take my word for it, but I did indeed have lovely weather for my visit. I gather it gets pretty warm in mid summer and as cold as 30 below zero Fahrenheit in the depths of winter.

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Joseph Burke
Editor-in-Chief
InfiniSource.com

Next segment Travel in Russia series

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