I think I would love jetlag if I were looking to stay up all night for a few days. I couldn’t fall asleep until 6 (Boo 12 mg of melatonin not doing a darn thing), and then needed to be up by 11 to eat and go to the metro.
Nevsky Prospekt is glorious. This is where Sergei walked me around. Sites like the Cathedral of Spilt Blood, The Stroganoff’s “personal” cathedral, Paul the 1st fortress were a few places we visited. Oh Paul the 1st… Those bastards smothered him with a pillow and beat his head in. The public was told he had heart problems. He had a closed casket funeral to hide obvious damages to his noggin. Incredible architecture that I’m sure I’ll be able to describe better once my Architecture course begins.
Most of the rulers following Peter The Great were women, which is something I found fascinating. Why in the United States are we so afraid of women leading cities and states when examples exist of incredible leaders. No wonder no one was aloud into Russia ..They didn’t want outsiders stealing their great ideas. No but really. We hate on Communism without even knowing where it originated within Russia. A world where you did what you were good at (medicine, painting, dancing, etc), and that career you had was supported by the government. Sure it was idealistic, and did succeed in many ways, but like all governments, it also had its flaws. Those flaws happen to be the only thing we talk about though. I mean a valid point would be that the goals originally being striven for have since gone way off track in the past 15 years. Sergei keeps telling me this is a big time for change… Ah what a tremendous time to be in the USSR.
Lunchtime arrived…so we got pies. So yummy and Sergei made me try and order myself. Ah…so good. I’m so bad. I don’t care. I’m pretty sure one of them had cheese in it because my stomach is going crazy. Being vegan for 6 months (whoot whoot!!) and then introducing dairy back into the diet can wreak havoc on your innards. I love that word. Anywho, we talked about politics and the media’s incredible influence on a public’s knowledge of things. It was fascinating talking about how the knowledge Russians obtain from newspapers comes pretty much just from papers written in Russian. This leaves them with an extremely biased view of things unless they can read other languages and look at other papers from around the world. I brought up the New York Times. Though it is an incredible paper, who reads it? The intellectuals or those working to make ends meat? The ones who can de-code their crazy flowery wording? Conservatives or Liberals? It definitely has its own biases that you might not recognize unless you did your research (Thanks Doreen). Sergei wouldn’t have thought twice about NYTimes having biased articles because it is so well known around the world and therefore “should be” an impartial view. Think again Sergei!!
We walked back to Dom Knigi (House of books) and I waited for Rachel. I don’t think Rachel and I have ever really had a conversation until this afternoon. She leaves next Monday for a month. She’s trekking to the other side of Russia and back. What a brave young lass.
I’m getting better at the Metro. This trip involved going to a different station so I had my thinking cap on. So epic. But in all honesty, someone who can’t read Russian could totally get around. They color code everything J
:):):)
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