Back in the USSR
Wish I didn't have to use that title, but it works. No long long missive tonight - just quick observations...
-Managed to watch a few bits of Russian television. While cartoons have the English language audio track taken out before dubbing, live action shows just have Russian voices laid over the English voices. Very annoying trying to watch Scrubs and NewsRadio when you hear an English-language echo to everything. Also plenty of Spanish tele-novellas dubbed into Russian. Watched a few minutes of old black & white Russian movies - good stuff! Movie listings said that "1941" was going to be on tv - imagine my surprise when it WASN'T the Spielberg movie, but a Russian movie that was... um, not as funny. Also caught a few minutes of a Russian war drama set in Afghanistan.
-On the train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, among all the graffiti, someone had painted Bart Simpson and Bender. Matt Groening is apparently huge among the Russian tagger community.
-Moscow is just the way you'd think it'd be. Huge and monolithic. Red Square is more RED than you'd think, St. Basil's Cathedral is more EYE-POPPING than you'd think, Kremlin is OLDER than you'd think, and the rest of Moscow is more GRAY than you'd think. The drizzly rain made it feel just like the movies.
-Visited Gorky Park. Obligatory Martin Cruz Smith reference.
-At Gorky Park, they have the Russian Space Shuttle. It was intended to be their answer to America's shuttle program, but communism fell and they never had the money to finish it. So they put it in Gorky Park and turned it into a cheezy 4-d amusement park ride. It was kinda cool to look at, but kinda sad, too.
-Took the overnight train from Moscow to Kiev. On the way out, the Russian border people were very friendly. In contrast, the Ukranian border people were BIZARRE. The one spoke English and decided to grill me on my travel plans and demanding to see my train tickets out of the country. When she found out I was going to Lviv, she demanded to know, "WHO TOLD YOU TO VISIT LVIV?!?" I responded, "Uh, my friends told me it was kinda pretty there." They let us in the country, so I can't complain.
-Kiev is awesome. Smaller than Moscow, not as eye-catching as St. Petersburg, but a fun town.
-Ukrainians seem like Californians compared to Russians. There's more sun, so they're more laid-back, more smiley. I've said and heard the phrases, "Thank you" and "You're welcome" more in one day in Ukraine than I did all week in Russia.
-Chornobyl Museum. Wow. I thought it'd be kinda freaky to see Chornobyl, but now I don't want to. The museum highlights the human cost of what happened there. Now I can't think of Chornobyl without seeing all the faces of all the nuclear technicians, fire fighters, paramedics, police, pilots, miners, and innocent people who died from the radiation - and all the politicians who didn't lift a finger to help them.
-Chicken Kiev. I've eaten like three helpings of it. It's awesome here.
-Ukranian TV... Beverly Hills 90210 dubbed in Ukrainian, along with replays of NHL playoff games from 1995. Awesome.
-Managed to watch a few bits of Russian television. While cartoons have the English language audio track taken out before dubbing, live action shows just have Russian voices laid over the English voices. Very annoying trying to watch Scrubs and NewsRadio when you hear an English-language echo to everything. Also plenty of Spanish tele-novellas dubbed into Russian. Watched a few minutes of old black & white Russian movies - good stuff! Movie listings said that "1941" was going to be on tv - imagine my surprise when it WASN'T the Spielberg movie, but a Russian movie that was... um, not as funny. Also caught a few minutes of a Russian war drama set in Afghanistan.
-On the train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, among all the graffiti, someone had painted Bart Simpson and Bender. Matt Groening is apparently huge among the Russian tagger community.
-Moscow is just the way you'd think it'd be. Huge and monolithic. Red Square is more RED than you'd think, St. Basil's Cathedral is more EYE-POPPING than you'd think, Kremlin is OLDER than you'd think, and the rest of Moscow is more GRAY than you'd think. The drizzly rain made it feel just like the movies.
-Visited Gorky Park. Obligatory Martin Cruz Smith reference.
-At Gorky Park, they have the Russian Space Shuttle. It was intended to be their answer to America's shuttle program, but communism fell and they never had the money to finish it. So they put it in Gorky Park and turned it into a cheezy 4-d amusement park ride. It was kinda cool to look at, but kinda sad, too.
-Took the overnight train from Moscow to Kiev. On the way out, the Russian border people were very friendly. In contrast, the Ukranian border people were BIZARRE. The one spoke English and decided to grill me on my travel plans and demanding to see my train tickets out of the country. When she found out I was going to Lviv, she demanded to know, "WHO TOLD YOU TO VISIT LVIV?!?" I responded, "Uh, my friends told me it was kinda pretty there." They let us in the country, so I can't complain.
-Kiev is awesome. Smaller than Moscow, not as eye-catching as St. Petersburg, but a fun town.
-Ukrainians seem like Californians compared to Russians. There's more sun, so they're more laid-back, more smiley. I've said and heard the phrases, "Thank you" and "You're welcome" more in one day in Ukraine than I did all week in Russia.
-Chornobyl Museum. Wow. I thought it'd be kinda freaky to see Chornobyl, but now I don't want to. The museum highlights the human cost of what happened there. Now I can't think of Chornobyl without seeing all the faces of all the nuclear technicians, fire fighters, paramedics, police, pilots, miners, and innocent people who died from the radiation - and all the politicians who didn't lift a finger to help them.
-Chicken Kiev. I've eaten like three helpings of it. It's awesome here.
-Ukranian TV... Beverly Hills 90210 dubbed in Ukrainian, along with replays of NHL playoff games from 1995. Awesome.
posted by Eugene at 1:02 PM
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