Russia Part I: Arrival, Culture Shock

I spent the last week in Russia, taking the overnight train from Helsinki to Moscow on Sunday, spending 3 days there and then moving onto St Petersburg for another 3 days before heading back. This was a student trip and there were about 35 of us, and one guide. To be honest the whole experience of going to Russia was a bit overwhelming. It is by far the strangest, most different place I have ever visited, and I have been all over Europe. It was a place of massive contrasts, both in its people and the cities themselves.

The group meets at the station

A lot of us were actually quite nervous about going to Russia. Just look at some of the travel guides on the internet and you'll see why - racist and xenophobic attacks are on the rise, corruption has invaded every level of society, especially the police who are not to be trusted and have been known to extort money from foreigners and on the news you'll see things like Russia being ranked almost bottom in the world for press freedom. Right before we left a leading critic of the government was murdered in Moscow.

Don't let their smiles fool you. Unfortunately, nearly every uniformed Russian we met treated us with contempt.

Anyway, with all these worries pushed to the backs of our minds, we met at the station and I have to say I was becoming extremely excited. All I had read about Russia, how it seemed to be so different and far away and unwelcoming somehow made me even more interested in going. The visa alone was quite a hassle - you had to specify exactly where and when you are staying. There's no such thing as a standard tourist visa in Russia!

Nothing in Russia, even on the international trains, is in English.

I was going with seven others from my university and another five friends from Helsinki, so I knew quite a sizeable amount of the group already. After meeting our guide, Jukka, we boarded the 18.30 train. This was our first shock. Compared with Finnish trains it was very dated and quite obviously ex-Soviet. The Russian staff on bored spoke no English at all - the first indication that our time in Moscow was going to be quite difficult.

Relaxing in our cabin

We had a 14 hour overnight journey ahead of us. Although we had beds, most of us had no intention of sleeping at least until the early morning. I spent much of the time drinking beer and playing cards with the others. My first trip to the restaurant car was another major shock - the staff seemed to completely ignore my presence and it took 15 minutes to get served. The waiter kept walking into me as if I wasn't even there and didn't once utter 'sorry' or 'excuse me'. I would later begin to realise that this is quite normal behaviour for Russians.

A typical view from the train

The next shock came at the border. After the rather terrifying Russian border patrols had boarded the train, searched our cabin and taken our passports, we finally moved over into Russia itself. Apparently the Finland-Russia border is one of the most starkly contrasting in the world. Finland has the world's lowest corruption rating and one of the very highest standards of living. Russia, as you might have guessed, is the opposite. Even though it was dark, we could still see the enormous difference immediately after entering Russia. It was like night and day. Clean, respectable houses gave way to enormous, filthy factories belching smoke from massive towers. There were less street lights, the cars looked like they were decades old and the ride got a lot bumpier as we left Finnish tracks.

Our view immediately after leaving the station

We were awoken in the morning by a very loud Russian lady banging on our door and urging us to get up, despite being over 40 minutes from arrival. When we eventually did get there, tired, slightly hungover and confused, we headed out through the crowded station into the city. This was one of the most uncomfortable moments I've experienced. Everybody appeared to be wearing black. Everyone was wearing fur hats. Everyone was staring at us. We looked completely different and really stood out as foreigners. The Russians all had glazed looks on their faces. It was an incredibly depressing sight, combined with the grey bland look of the station square and compounded by the typically-dull Moscow weather. But things were about to get more interesting as we headed onto the metro...

Inside the Moscow metro for the first time

Our guide told us one thing before entering the metro - 'Be aggressive'. He was right. The Moscow metro is regarded as being one of the few ex-Soviet institutions still running as well as it ever did. It really is quite impressive - the stations are large and ornately designed, they are attractions in themselves. They also tend to be quite deep below ground, with many being designed for dual-use as nuclear shelters. It's fast and efficient and I must say that coming from London I was quite impressed with the sheer frequency of the trains - you rarely have to wait more than a minute. The problem is that it is very very crowded, sometimes with queues to get into the stations and then queues for the escalators and you really have to force your way onto trains as others don't seem to care if they get in your way.

Sights like this in a metro station remind you of where you are

We arrived at our stop, Ismailovsky Park, where our hotel was situated. If anything the area looked even more depressing than the earlier scene in central Moscow. Huge, bland concrete monstrosities stretched into the sky. It turned out one of those was our hotel. Originally built as the athletes village for the Moscow Olympics in the 1980s, the tower blocks had now been turned into a series of enormous hotels. We stopped to change our money into roubles, coming out with big piles of cash. Of course we were always worried about pick-pockets, so it was worrying to be carrying so much. We also had to carry our passports at all times (as police have a habit of checking) so it was quite a test to keep it safe, sticking out of my pocket in a crowded city for a week!

One of these was our hotel

We checked into the hotel and I was given a room on the 23rd floor. The hotel itself was quite pleasant on the inside and it was nice to have a TV in my room for a change. I had a look at BBC World for the first time in months and the main story was the dying Russian ex-KGB agent, a critic of the government, who had been poisoned in London. Nice!

The view from my hotel room.

After a quick rest it was time to head into the city for some sightseeing, which I'll write about later. I must say that while I have been very negative in this post, I think it was down to a mixture of paranoia and the shock of entering a very strange place. Things got a whole lot better, and while my first hour in Moscow is one of the most unnerving experiences I've had, by the end of the first day we had grown used to the 'charms' of Russia and were having a great time.

I'm heading to Lapland tonight and won't be back until next week, so stay tuned for more on my trip to Russia. It'll be much more upbeat, I promise!