Farewell to Piter and what else can we blame Russia for today? I'm heading to Moscow on an overnight train tonight, where my general plan is to wander around spending as little money as possible before getting on another overnight train to Ukraine, thank JEBUS. The only Moscow-related tourist trap I really care about is, of course, paying a visit to my man Lenin, so I think the day-long visit will be more than enough.

I can't express how happy I am to be leaving behind my current hostel forever and ever and ever. For the last several nights I've been the lone female in an enormous mixed-gender dorm room, which means I've been sharing the space with NINE gangly, obnoxious, late-arriving, smelly, robustly-snoring louts. The shitheel Australian who has been occupying my upper bunk for days and days is particularly unpleasant, and thrashes around all night like a beached goddamn whale. The fucking place is just a zoo; everyone stays up late into the night playing shitty songs on their shitty guitars and burning their shitty, shitty, shitty home-cooked meals. Most distressingly, there is ONE bathroom (as in, one toilet) and ONE shower for the whole floor, which I would estimate is currently home to, oh, 40 people? Conservatively? And one of the dudes in my room--I think it's the buddy of the lout in my top bunk--has the most toxic-smelling sleeping bag I have ever encountered; it literally has been attracting flies. The whole scene is like a Hampshire rafting trip gone horribly awry. It's just awful. Awful, awful, awful. I desperately want to get on the train, where I can actually get some sleep. Also: I am very much looking forward to escaping Piter's homicidal mosquitoes, which are seriously going to do me in if I don't get out of here soon.

Apart from the World's Worst Hostel, Russia's list of logistical grievances and psychological assaults large and small continues to accumulate. I finally was able to talk about some of my more fundamental problems with Brad, who actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to this insane place, and I feel a great deal better about the uniquely ridiculous psychosocial amalgam of profound insecurity, self-loathing, cultural superiority, and intrigued disgust that this country has stirred so completely and disturbingly within me. But I've also realized in the past week or so that the social and political institutions of the place are so fundamentally fucked up that I am not convinced anymore they are even sociologically interesting. If political scientists are in the business of pursuing and producing knowledge about the world that is not absurdly and uselessly specific to a particular time and place (which, full disclosure, happens to be the view of political science that I thoroughly embrace), where exactly does contemporary Russia get us? Sure, it's a (mostly) rhetorical question that I only ask because I'm so utterly frustrated with and alienated from and pissed off at this awful, awful place, but...still. Pretty distressing shit to even contemplate.

Let's be clear: I've been to plenty of depressing and unpleasant shitholes around this planet of ours, and I've been plenty of places where I am linguistically and culturally inept on any number of dimensions. I've repeatedly sought out uncomfortable experiences in weird and fucked up places, because I've always been totally convinced that such experiences make essential contributions to both my self-clarity and self-knowledge as a human being and to my basic perspective and intellectual capacity as a scholar. After Russia, I'm not so sure about either of those things anymore. I'm not so sure, in fact, that I'll ever be able to articulate all of the various ways in which this country is thoroughly fucking with my head.  ¶ 2:57 AM

  When good cities go bad... So, I'm back in byoootiful downtown St. Petersburg. I'll be here for the better part of the next week before getting on another Long Train Ride and heading to Moscow and points south (still not Georgia though, sorry to disappoint.) Today was pretty much one clusterfuck after another, though. Among other bureaucratic delights, I spent another fascinating 45 minutes of my life waiting in line at the central train ticket office in town, since an allegedly friendly, English-speaking travel agency proved completely elusive (my guidebook said it was at #3, 8th Sovetskaya St.; the internets tell me now it's actually #28, 3rd Sovetskaya St.) I spent my entire morning wandering around looking for this non-existent place, asking random passers-by if they knew of it (even the English speakers didn't!), and I finally sucked it up and walked back to the ticket office.

The ticket office is...suboptimal, because I speak barely enough Russian to function on the most minimal, basic, survival-level, and obviously none of the surly women who work the ticket windows speak English. Also, they don't have much tolerance for me and my shitty stammering caveman Russian, even when I've written down train numbers and times and everything--in Cyrillic--ahead of time. But I figured, hell, I've gotten myself to Murmansk and Lovozero and back, so why not a somewhat complicated international ticket with a stopover in Moscow?

There were, of course, problems. There's the whole endless wait thing to begin with, because fuck if I know what all these people in line are fucking doing at the window, but each of them takes about twenty minutes a piece. Also, if you don't read the tiny card in the window that tells you when the agent takes her breaks and lunch, it's very likely that you'll wind up waiting half an hour just to have her close her window on you. (I learned this the hard way buying my ticket to Murmansk). Plus Russians have well-established--and utterly infuriating--queueing rules, and invariably when you are one person from the window, some old lady spontaneously reappears to reclaim her place in line, after cooling her heels on a nearby bench.

Once I finally got up there today, I first had to convince them that the Moscow train to Ukraine does not pass through Belarus (which is why I'm doing this whole Moscow routine to begin with). After consulting with each other, they ultimately agreed, but then still didn't want to issue me a ticket because I don't have a Ukrainian visa. Which, as a US resident, I assuredly do not need--unlike this insane country! I finally got the overpriced thing squared away, but seats on the overnight train I wanted to Moscow were evidently sold out, and I hadn't written down specific backup trains, and I do not trust my Russian nearly enough to negotiate an alternative on the fly--at least not without mightily pissing off the five thousand people in line behind me. Sooo, long story short, I'm currently in possession of a ticket from Moscow to Odessa, but not from SP to Moscow. But there are approximately a bazillion trains an hour between Moscow and SP, so I'm not terribly worried about it.

I next realized that after traipsing around international destinations since the first of the month, my shitty, useless bank decided to put a hold on my account (even though I told them I would be here!) This is something they will not clear up over the tubes, they demand a phone call. Sooo, I went and waited in line for-fucking-ever at the phone center, letting the old ladies cut in front of me at the last minute as always, and when I finally got to the window ~45 minutes later and stammered out my request in shitty Russian, the surly woman shook her head and gave the international gesture for "that's the other window, dumbass." I was so fucking livid as I took my place at the back of the OTHER line that two girls ahead of me let me go in front of them--an unheard of kindness in this godforsaken country.

Of course, once I finally got in the booth with my little access code, the number wouldn't go through anyway; I must have dialed and re-dialed 50 times. (It turned out that the online Bank of America agent had given me a bogus number. Not, just, like, off by a digit, but one that has not been in service for years.) I finally gave up and went back to make such a scene back at the window that the woman actually gave me a partial refund (also totally unheard of!), and I staggered out into the cruel, cruel rain with no real plan and a lot of angst. In the end I wound up walking into the Radisson on Nevsky and essentially throwing myself at their English-speaking mercy, and miraculously the lovely woman working there either took great pity on me or was afraid of what I might do to her, and let me make an international phone call from the front desk. After all of the fucking hold time, it was, like, a 30 second conversation to clear everything up. I HATE Bank of Fucking America. I, however, love the Radisson on Nevsky, and am writing that woman a very nice letter for her file.

Oh, and because of the B of A hold? The paypal transaction I had previously sent to my new landlord with my first/last/security triggered security alerts on both of our accounts, which I am also not able to clear up without receiving a phone call to verify my location. Not sure what, if anything, I can do about that before I get back--paypal is of course being utterly useless about it, and just sending me form responses that basically say "we care about your security. Answer your telephone."

I also discovered yesterday that the shitty hostel I stayed in my first time in Piter only completed my registration for three days--not even the full time I stayed with them! So, um, I've been wandering around the country unregistered all this time. I knew I was taking my chances in Murmansk, but what the hell--it was only a few days. But when I checked into the new (awful, dreadful, honestly not sure how I'm going to survive the next couple of days) hostel yesterday, they were all, pay up for a renewed St. Petersburg registration, bitch. I kind of hate this stupid fucking country.

Blaming it on Petersburg is hardly fair, of course--if all of this shit had to go down somewhere in Russia, I'm glad it was here. Although between the two girls in line at the phone center, the halfway decent employee of the phone center, and the wonderful woman at the Radisson, I've probably used up all of my Russian kindness-karma for all time.

It's 10:30am. I survived another night in the world's worst hostel. I think it's time for breakfast. And possibly a beer.  ¶ 11:33 PM

  Murmansk.... ....um. What can I say. A 28 hour train ride trapped in a compartment with an offensively racist, Saakashvili-impersonating, but otherwise entirely charming 12 year-old, his hapless mother, and their incredibly stinky food, and all I get to show for it is a slightly--but only slightly!--more Soviet version of Fairbanks.

I mean, seriously now:



The best part of the trip (other than the highly entertaining 12 year old, who spoke about as much English as I speak Russian, which is always so awesome) was seeing the freight trains along the same route, most of which are still sporting prominent "CCCP" branding and giant raised red stars. I can't explain how happy this made me, as our own train crept at an astonishingly slow pace toward the Arctic circle. (When the kid and his mom got off in their tiny town to visit Grandma, my guidebook told me we were 200km from Murmansk...which turned out to be a 5.5 hour trip on this train.) Other than that? Yeah. The entire Kola looks like fucking Fairbanks. And my hotel is too expensive for fucking Fairbanks. But it has free dial-up, so what is there to complain about, really?

Next stop, Lovozero! One of my contacts there wants to give me a tour of a reindeer slaughterhouse.  ¶ 12:20 PM

  re: the war thing Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a small map:



I'm taking a 28 hour train ride due north from St. Petersburg tonight to Murmansk-- which you'll find there up at the top of Russia, right next to Finland--and then from there to this random little place. All of this is directly away from Georgia.

All is well. Piter is truly gorgeous and fabulous, if a little exhausting because I've been trying to take in too much at once and logging a few too many miles a day. I'll come back through for another few days after my Arctic adventure, to do things like the Hermitage and the Russian Museum and a few other things I haven't had the time or stamina for this time around. For now, a few small observations over the past few days:

1. Veganism? Essentially impossible here, at least without a kitchen. Avoiding large and obvious chunks of meat seems as doable as anywhere else, at least.
2. Russian women are insane, and I do not understand them.
3. A shocking amount of my crappy high-school Russian is coming back to me.
4. A shocking amount of it is not, and my verbal comprehension in particular is just absolute shit.
5. God fucking bless Tapatio, and God bless Brad for giving me one of his precious, precious bottles.
6. Baltika #8? Not nearly as terrible as I expected.

That is all. Next stop, Murmansk!  ¶ 12:18 AM

  Craptacular I've been in Russia for less than 24 hours, and Putin goes and declares war on Georgia. Somewhat less than ideal.  ¶ 8:17 AM