For a real adventurous vacation you have to go to Russia. Don’t go to Africa. Don’t go to Timbuktu. Go to Russia . . . if you dare.

I had a very uneventful flight of about 16 hours from Fresno To Saint Petersburg. The total time (what with waiting at airports etc.) was about 20 hours. The most interesting thing was it spanned three days: from Thursday morning June 11 till Saturday morning June 13. In those 20 hours I got to see the sunrise and set three times. But that’s not what makes this trip exciting.

Olga, my sweetheart, met me at the airport with a driver. He only charges $7.00 per hour. Pretty cheap for a car and driver anywhere in the world. I was happy to pay him $20 to drive back and forth from Olga’s flat to pick me up. He also helps with the bags etc. Our driver, Vladim, is about 60 years old. This is about four years older than the average life expectancy of Russian men. He moves at the speed of an American man 75 years old. The women on the other hand seem to live much longer and are more spry.

The first thing that turns up is that the city has turned off the hot water to all the flats in this complex. There was a notice (posted after it was turned off) that there was to be no hot water until June 30. The notice was posted to the front entrance on a small piece of handwritten paper. Today is June 13. So it’s cold showers for me. You’d be surprised how much water you can save by taking cold showers. It takes me much less time to take a cold shower rather than a hot one. It’s interesting that the residents take it without complaint, sort of like the weather. Nothing can be done about it.

Well after one day of this I guess the commie bastards who schedule shortages decided that I was content taking cold showers so the next day they decided to turn off all the water, cold or hot. Olga said it was humiliating to have this happen. I thought it was neat. Sort of like camping out. You know, drink soda pop and brush your teeth with orange juice.

The water is only a formality here. It’s not like real water. You dasn’t drink it. Even in Mexico, the natives can drink the water because they build immunity to it. Here nobody drinks the water prior to boiling it.

OK so what, no big deal the cold water was only off for most of the day and night and there is no hot water at all. Unfortunately for me, I found out the water was off just after I took a mighty dump and pressed the flusher. I thought it was something I had done. I was embarrassed to tell Olga. She took it stoically, like Russians seem to do.

The next morning I got up at about six (Olga sleeps in as much as possible) and I tried the water tap. No hot water except a hiss of air. From the cold water tap, out came cold dark brown goo. I guessed it was rust but it took a half-hour of running the taps full tilt to clear the pipes. The tub filled with muddy water that was like chocolate syrup. It kind of freaked me out like the horror films you see. But no big deal I have seen this happen on a smaller scale before.

So we get out and go to the currency exchange to change some dollars into rubles. When we get there, there is a sign (hand printed) that proclaimed: "No more rubles". I guessed they had sold out and then closed shop and went home.

	Olga’s flat in on Leninski Prospect (Lenin Blvd.) which is a very wide street. If they took out the grass it would be six lanes in each direction. This street is typical in the outskirts of town. I’m surprised they didn’t rename the street after they disbanded the USSR to something more prosaic like Nicolas II Prospect. They have renamed everything else even the city name. The building in the background is typical of the apartment buildings in the area.
Olga is going to heat some water so that I can shampoo my hair. She refuses to let me do a cold shampoo because I might catch cold. Maybe I can get her to shampoo it for me. I’d like that.
	So anyway, on Sunday we go to a giant flea market except it’s called the electronic thieves market. They have every possible electronic gizmo in the world. It took me back to the days of my boyhood on Canal Street in New York City in the late forties where the sidewalk peddlers sold war surplus tubes (the things they used before silicon chips). Here they had actual vacuum tubes on sale. Every description and size. I was flabbergasted. I was excited and I had Olly take my picture in front of a vendor’s set up of tubes. But the interesting thing was that scattered among the stalls were CDROM sales booths. Each booth was selling Microsoft Windows 98, Final Release with Office ’97 and Corel Draw 8.0 and Adobe Photoshop 5.0. Some of this stuff isn’t even released for sale back home yet. Here they’re selling the complete set for 25 (000) rubles, or about $4.00. Now I’m not talking about an isolated booth. There were dozens of booths selling them. The other interesting thing was that these weren’t CD recordable copies, which are made one or two at a time. They were CD pressings which are expensive to do for the initial copy but very cheap in mass production. This means someone planned to sell many thousands of copies. Each vendor seemed to have a different combination of programs on his CD. I just dove in and bought everything in sight. I even picked up Autocad 14 ($3,500 American street price) for 25 rubles. They didn’t like it when I took a digital picture just to show it around. The neat thing is that they have modified the programs to automatically install without the serial numbers. I haven’t seen this trick done before because it takes so much work to do.
If Bill Gates could have gotten his eyes on these precious Microsoft object d’art being peddled for $4 he would have had a heart attack. The pie in the face was nothing compared to this indignation. He would probably lobby congress to start a war with the commies to get even. They had a guy there selling military optics stuff from WWII and night vision stuff as well. He had some really neat range finders. I would have bought all he had but it would take up all my spare luggage space to get it home. I was transported back into time to the late forties. All that beautiful military gear. Wow!
	Well we get back to the apartment building. The front entrance ground floor door is armored. It looks like a meat packing freezer walk in door. Guess what? The combination doesn’t work. It obviously has happened before. There are marks all over the door where people have vented their spleen on the panels in the past. Today is no exception. Ola has an emergency key that fits into a perfectly round hole. I have never seen a key like it before. It’s about eight inches long by 3/8 thick with a heavy thread on the end. Like a big long hollow drill bit. The drill bit isn’t happy either. The door doesn’t open. We look around. I tap on windowpanes on the ground floor to get someone to open the entrance door. Nobody answers my rapping. Yet, there are people obviously there. This is a scene from Kafke. There is a woman on the balcony just above our heads who is watering her plants. Olga asks her to give us some help and open the door. She ignores us and goes inside. I am furious at this slut for not helping. Ola says this is normal. Nobody helps anybody. Finally a man coming into the apartment spots the trouble. Some kid has stuffed paper in the emergency keyhole and you must use the drill key as an auger and bore through the trash to release the lock. We open the vault door and I examine the locking mechanism. It is a simple trip latch. It can be defeated by a coat hanger. So much for initial security. Ola explains that the lock on the vault has been out of commission for such a long time that nobody has ever had to use a key. Someone must have vexatiously fixed the lock which now keeps the residents out
Up stairs it’s a different situation. The front door reminds me of a solitary confinement cell door. It is massive steel with heavy-duty hinges. The bolts are double slide, reminiscent of a medieval castle drawbridge throw bolt. But that’s not all. Immediately after this door is yet another door, just as stout and also has multiple throw bolts with heavy keys. The keys themselves would do justice to the jail warder’s key ring. Many apartments have even another steel door before you can get to the entry portal itself. I’m impressed. This is an ordinary flat. Every other flat in the city has the same setup. I have been given multiple explanations for such strong security. It was to keep the KGB out or it is to protect against "hooligans." Hooligans is a word euphemistically applied to idlers and small time crooks carried over from Soviet times. Olly has a burglar alarm on her door. She explains that it rings directly to the police department. When she accidentally sets it off the cops get there within minutes. If it is a false alarm they collect a fine of about ten rubles ($1.50) on the spot, which probably goes directly into their favorite charity.

The accompanying pictures are not taken in a museum. They are taken on the Metro.

We arrive at a connecting point to change train lines. We step into another beautifully decorated station modeled in the baroque fashion all in polished and cut green granite. There is a very long hall hung with crystal chandeliers every few meters. There are rows and rows of elevator doors for the length of the hall with people standing in front of them. I expect that we are going to another level to catch the train. We enter one of the queues to go through the door. The doors open. To my amazement standing before me is the interior of a train perfectly aligned with the doors that have just opened and no discernable gap between the train and the station wall. Olga explains this called a closed station. There is absolutely no possible public access to the rail bed. This prevents any accidental or suicidal death by jumping or falling into the tracks. I’m impressed. I am reminded of the sight of a mangled man being extracted from the New York subway tracks when I was a schoolboy.

I content myself with taking home videos and photos. But I promise myself to return with the Minolta for the sole purpose of taking subway pictures.

What quirk of fortune has produced this Metro system in a city where the roads are full of potholes large enough to dislodge an automobile’s steering, where every building, excepting the historic landmarks, is defaced, dilapidated and strewn with graffiti? It dawns on me. It must be the winter, which wreaks havoc on the surface.

But enough of the Metro. We are scheduled to see an unusual show downtown. We are taking Olly’s daughter Alla with us. She is a charming and sagacious twelve-year-old. While I am in town, she is staying with her grand parents and we pick her up at their flat, which is in the next complex. When we arrive she is dressed in a silver lame skirt and blouse. It is impossible to tell that she is but a child except by the look of sweet innocence in her eye. Perhaps her outfit would cause a stir on the metro? I decide to take a cab to the theater.

In contrast to the orderliness of the Metro, the cab is a study in dysfunction. The cab is only one year old, a Volga with 120,000 kilometers on the odometer. I’m told a new Volga sells for about $7,500. The driver is six foot five and his knees come up above the steering wheel. We feel every pebble in the roadway and the potholes jar your teeth. All the car parts jiggle this way and that as we roll along. This is too good an opportunity to miss. I take out the video camera and take picture through the windshield of the jolting and pounding. I feel that the Volga must be a better car than I have given it credit for, to be able to take this punishment day after day. But soon I smell gas. I think it must be a smell from the locality we are passing through. Oops, I am wrong. Smoke springs up between the driver’s legs and quickly turns to flame. Unceremoniously he slams the car to a stop and bails out. We three follow suite, me with camera still racing. As soon as Olly and Ally are safely away, I go to the trunk and look for an extinguisher. All I find are several cans of gasoline. Bang, I slam the trunk lid shut. I run to the front to see how things are going. The driver has the hood open and flames are sprouting up from a burst fuel line and catching everything else on fire. Several motorists stop to offer assistance. Two extinguisher bottles are discharged into the flames. After each is discharged the flames spring up again. A new motorist appears carrying what appears to be a large road flare which he points at the fire from about six feet away. I am inclined to take the flare away from him as it could be very dangerous. But fortunately, I am busy with the camera and have no time to discuss the situation in a language nobody understands. He pulls a lanyard at the end of the flare. A loud explosion from the flare bursts forth and the fire is out! I am amazed. I have never seen this before. I didn’t have the presence of mind to find out where he purchased this marvelous device. I believe I could make some money selling them in America. On second thought, they would probably be outlawed as unsafe in the hands of children. I have done this trick with freon before but to use freon nowadays in America would be an invitation to jail. I ask Olga what is the appropriate thing to do in this situation. She tells me to give the driver half of the fare we negotiated for, or twenty (thousand) rubles. I feel sorry for the man because the almost new cab is a total ruin, so I pay the full fare, forty (thousand) rubles. Olly chides me for being extravagant. However I feel that the additional 20 rubles (about $3.00) was worth getting the exciting event on tape. I would have paid him more to recreate the event and allowing me to get a picture of all of us bailing out of the cab.

A short word on rubles. In the old days, the communists placed an artificial price on rubles and the tourists had to pay several dollars for a ruble. When the communists disappeared, the price jumped to five or six thousand rubles to the dollar. Six months ago I had stacks of one hundred thousand ruble notes in my pocket. Today they still exchange rubles at six thousand to the dollar but they don’t print the extra three zeros on the bills. It gets very confusing when you wish to purchase an expensive thing because the price tags may be written with or without the extra three zeros. In one case we were buying some trifling thing and I was about to present a 500 ruble note but fortunately Olly pointed out that I was giving out only a half ruble. It was the old currency. They use it interchangeably here.

Well finally, we arrive at the ballet. It just so happens that it is an all-male ballet. The first part was very artistic with scenarios that had no meaning for me. The men were naked except for a thread-thin g-string. They received wild applause and cadence clapping while I was nonplussed. I couldn’t understand the enthusiasm until the house lights went up at intermission and I found the audience was almost all women. I was one of a handful of men in the audience who, most likely, were also nonplussed.

The second half or the performance were (the same) men dressed in tutus and dancing as ballerinas. They could pass for a ballerina except there would be no pas de deux since there wouldn’t be any ballero strong enough to catch his partner. The dying swan was interesting. After the performance I remarked that some of the nicest legs in St. Petersburg were on the men at the ballet. This of course is not true. The women here are quite tall with long straight legs and they love to show them. If the skirts were any shorter there would be two more cheeks to be powdered when applying makeup. I have noticed several women in excess of six feet tall. Notably they were with shorter men.

	Earlier I accompanied Olly to work where she teaches English at the Russian Military Academy, the Russian equivalent of our West Point. Nearby is the American Consulate.  I stopped at the Consulate and found a long queue waiting to get in to apply for a visa to America. There were quite a few pretty women standing in line. There was a uniformed policeman with an American Flag patch on his shoulder tending the queue. I asked him for admission, in English, and he immediately snapped to attention and replied that it would not be necessary for me to enter the queue. He was quite polite and solicitous toward me but painfully rude to those in the queue. I was embarrassed that my country would treat the natives of their host county so poorly. My embarrassment quickly passed when I found that these young, good-looking policemen were Russian, speaking perfect English in the employ of the State Department. Inside I was escorted to United States Citizen Services where I was met by a young lady who positively treated the visa applicants with disdain and practically fawned over me. I had merely gone into the Consulate to get out of the rain but they treated me as a dignitary.
Olly treated me the Russian Circus. I have seen the circus acts on TV before but never in person. There is a permanent Circus here is StP. It has solid walls and a tent top. It makes for a rather spectacular theater without the usual tent poles in the center of the arena. Naturally the show was a smash. The performers were so well rehearsed that they were flawless. There was a really great magician named Kia who did some really neat tricks. I am pretty good at spotting how tricks are pulled off, but he did some amazing stuff that mystified me completely. He had twenty or so pretty women pop out of a canvas cabana the size of a beach tent. I had always heard about the dancing Russian bears and true to form there were several of them doing their stuff.
During the day we visited the Aurora. This is a naval cruiser that played an important part in the overthrow of Czar Nicolas II in 1917. It is moored in the Neva river which runs through StP. Naturally I was interested in her. Olly found a seaman who is attached to the Aurora and for a few rubles he took us trough the control center and wheelhouse which is closed to the public.
	The whole ship is polished and spick and span from top to bottom. The ship’s telegraph was still operating and we used it and pretended to be engaged in a giant sea battle. However the first captain of the Aurora, whose name now escapes me, was killed in action on the Aurora during the Russian Japanese war of 1898 which ended in defeat for the Russian navy. Aurora, as you may recall was the name of the princess in the Sleeping Beauty ballet.

As we leave the Aurora, an army of street vendors besiege us. They have every conceivable trinket in the world to sell and are willing bargainers. I load up with all their stuff and a stray peddler tentatively offers to sell war medals. He is too young to have been in the wars depicted on the medals. I am informed that he has bought the medals from down and out veterans and is now making a capitalist profit on their misfortune. I select two orders and four medals for thirty bucks, green money and tuck them into my tucker bag. Later I buy a book at a used bookstore on Sovietski memorabilia and find that the awards are genuine and rare.

Well here we are at the Maly watching Swan Lake. We come to the third act; the swans are dancing their hearts out, the prince is bouncing all over the stage, the white swan is radiant, the evil black swan is cavorting and suddenly they all stop dancing and a young girl appears from the orchestra pit and hands a bouquet of flowers to the prima ballerina. The show is abruptly over! The white swan doesn’t die! I am vindicated.

Olly is flabbergasted. What has happened? When will they continue with the rest of the show. There is a scattering of applause, then when the audience realizes it’s over, there is a thunderous ovation. A bouquet is now presented to the premo ballero. The swan lives! Olly has seen Swan Lake (as all Russians have) many, many times. This is her first experience seeing it in the American way. I have seen it both ways and I prefer the majesty and artistic effect of the white swan’s death throes. I silently hope this ending doesn’t become a tradition.

OK you say, see one ballet you’ve seen them all. No sir-ee. You don’t see Russian ballet. You feel it. There isn’t a bad seat in the house. There are four tiers of seats arranged as boxes attached to the walls with three or four rows of chairs in each tier. All the chairs are movable except on the orchestra floor. It’s sort of like sitting in your living room and watching the performance. The people in the seats next to us were Germans from Stuttgart. The father (or husband, I didn’t ask) was delighted with my digital camera.

The floors are beautifully done parquet in various woods polished and perfect. In contrast to the Pushkin Palace (named for the city, which is named for the author) and the Pavlovski Palace (also located in Puskin) we were not required to wear slippers when we walked on the floors. Olly knew every inch of the Hermitage and each of the exhibits were her personal friends. On the way out, the curator of the Hermitage spotted her and came over and gave her personal greeting to us. She inquired why Olly hadn’t taken advantage of having a free admission. The curator was obviously under the impression I had paid foreign admission. The price was so negligible that I wouldn’t have dreamed of wasting such a precious favor. It was obvious to me that Olly was more than a casual visitor to the Hermitage and has acted as a host for foreign dignitaries. I noticed in her photo albums, pictures of her taken with Subchuk (Mayor of StP.) and other notables.

An iterating note on the weather. If you don’t like the weather in St. Petersburg, just wait a few minutes. It will change. The second day of my trip the temperature was unbearable about 90 degrees and humid. It reminded me of St. Petersburg, Florida. Hours later it was about 45 degrees. One hour sunny the next, rainy. The natives carry umbrellas constantly, one never knows. We boarded the Metro in the sun and got off in the sun but the streets were flooded. We were informed that a hurricane had dumped a few inches while we were underground. I know it wasn’t a hurricane but I’m sure it felt like one. The winds were reported to be fifty miles per hour. Olly treats me as her prize pig. She cautiously steers me around puddles and mud patches. She helps me on and off the bus. She holds the elevator door for me. I feel positively infirm but it pleases me to have her give me deferential treatment. Now I know how it must be to be a woman in America. Here in Russia you see three women for every man in the street or on the Metro. Every office is manned (womanned?) by females. The customs office at the airport is all woman. Even in the American Consulate there are only women except for the marine guards (who are the only black people I saw on the whole trip) and the Russian hired guards. The whole country seems to have a surplus of women. It appears that the men (if there are any) stay at home and are treated as objects and drones. I am not sure I like this or not. Maybe it will grow on me. I am sure I can get used to it. Especially when my woman who takes care of me is beautiful. What scares me is that they are so officious. They seem to have been taught to obey authority, no matter how ridiculous or outlandish it may be. It takes all my coaxing to get Olly to bend the rules or to just j-walk. Yet they think nothing of copying Microsoft Windows 98 and selling it endlessly in public. An interesting contrast.

	Another view of the Church of the Spilt Blood taken from a canal that runs past the church.  St.P. (this is how the natives abbreviate St. Petersburg) is sort of like a Venice of the East except with wider, deeper, longer canals.  The onion domes are atypical of St.P. architecture.

We were scheduled to visit Olly’s dacha (a small country estate) outside StP. But the weather has foiled us and so we wandered around StP. finding interesting things and collecting my notes. Olly has had to go to the Military Institute on some business and I have a chance to catch up my writing.

We spend a little time shopping at the only second hand furniture store in town. The prices are outrageously high. A small rickety pine table with a Formica top sets her back sixty dollars. This is a considerable amount for her because she earns only $150 a month as a lecturer at the Military Academy. Being a teacher (actually a professor) she only works half a day and has summers off. It is hard to imagine a Ph.D. earning so little, but it is compensated by the low prices paid for the luxuries of the theater and public transportation.

I am unable to convince Olga to learn to drive. She is convinced that if she owned a car; someone would either steal it. vandalize it or it would be in an accident. After having traveled on the Metro, I am somewhat in agreement with her. St.P. probably doesn’t need automobiles. We travel across town on the Metro in less than half an hour and the same trip by taxi cab takes about an hour. The ride by cab involves much bouncing and bumping due to the ruts and potholes, which are profusely distributed in all the roadways. The smell of exhaust adds to the discomfort. Below ground the temperature seems to stay constant at about 70 and the air is surprisingly clean and fresh.

When the USSR dissolved and the Russian Federation was created, the apartments were privatized and the people who were living in them now owned them. As a sort of perverse measure of justice all rubles were now changed from USSR rubles to Federated rubles but any savings of more than 100 rubles were dishonored. Many Russians had saved their whole life and put the rubles in the mattress for their eventual funeral. Their life (death?) savings were gone, but now they owned their own apartment. This is a travesty because in the past they occupied their flat with life tenure and paid very little for this privilege. Today they pay a little bit more for the heat, electricity and phone than in the past. The average three room flat costs about $50 a month for these necessities. Today I heard on the radio that the Prime Minister Kiriemko (who was shoehorned into the job by Yeltsin) has announced a new austerity program. Wow, I thought things were pretty austere already.

There is a type of convenience store on the ground floor of Olly’s apartment complex. It’s open 24 hours a day. As with every establishment I’ve seen, it has an armed guard seated prominently reading a book or newspaper. This type of convince store (not the armed guard) seems to the exception rather than the rule. The store across the street seems to be more typical. Here there are small departments. Each department has a limited selection of its specialty, and it’s own cashier and on the opposite side of the store; sales clerks behind the counter, reminiscent of the general store of my youth but with many more clerks. The aggravating thing is that prior to purchasing the material you must pay for it. So the procedure runs like this: You view the merchandise and inquire of the sales clerk, the price. You write down the price on a scrap of paper. Then you walk over to that department’s cashier clerk and tell her what, and how much, you wish to purchase. You tell he how much because the products are often sold in bulk. You bring your own jar for a ladle of sour cream for instance. Then you go back to the sales clerk with the receipt. She hands the goods to you across the counter or dollops the goods into your jar. You don’t get a bag with it, you must bring your own. Everybody carries a plastic bag folded in their handbag or pocket. Then you go to the next department and shop some more. There may be four or five departments where this procedure is continued. You don’t shop the whole store at once because by the time you finish shopping and paying each department’s cashier, the item you wish to buy may have been sold to someone else. Now I know why the Russians take the plastic bags home with them when they visit America. The convenience store has plastic bags but they charge a thousand rubles for each or them.

So anyway, I express an interest in seeing all the subway stations and taking pictures of them with the 35 mm Minolta and Olly agrees to take me on the tour. It doesn’t take any coaxing, she is happy to entertain me. I love it. The walk from her flat to the metro is about five minutes but a trolley bus passes right by her flat and I swing aboard with her to the Metro station. The trolley bus is crowded and I have been warned by Olly to guard my stuff from pickpockets in crowds. I clutch the Minolta in a shopping bag so that nobody notices. We are standing in the doorway of the trolley bus crowded into a tight fit. Only one man stands between the door and me with Olly just behind me. Mindful of pickpockets I check my left side pocket where I have stored my digital camera in my fatigue jacket. It’s still there. The man between the door and me asks me if I intend to get off at the next stop. I answer "da." That was my mistake. Within a few seconds we arrive at the Metro stop and we disgorge from the bus, I check my side pocket. The camera is gone. The man who was standing in front of me is pushing his way into the center of the bus and the doors are closing. I realize that he has my digital camera. Olly is really upset. Probably with me as much as the man who picked my pocket. I explain it is only a piece of property, which can be replaced. She shows true pity. Not for my loss but for my foolishness in carrying something in an outside pocket. She is correct. She has warned me over and over not to carry anything in an outside pocket. It is a cheap lesson. Take Olly’s paranoia seriously. It seems there is a good reson to keep three locked doors between you and the Russian people that they call "hooligans."

It is an experience that I don’t wish to repeat but one that gains the thief no real reward. The camera will work only with the adapter, which I have in the flat and a computer. He got a camera that is totally worthless to him and I got a valuable lesson. Listen to Olly. This is her country. She knows her own country better than I do. Fortunately, I offloaded all the pictures from the camera before we set out and they are safely within this computer waiting to be displayed for you. The next time I decide to take my camera, I will drive in my T-34 tank.

	Undaunted, we go on our grand tour of the Metro stations. I am amazed at the diversity and condition of the platforms. There are fifty-five stations and I shoot about five rolls of film. When the film is developed I will post a web page with the various pictures on it. There are only a few stations that we don’t get out and shoot. There is another Russian rule that "no pictures are allowed to be taken in the Metro." I ignore this rule and Olly rolls her eyes at me. She figures I haven’t had enough trouble with the pickpocket, I am tempting the train KGB as well. Yes, she is right, again. At one platform, as I line up for a shot, the uniformed train station babushka KGB agent accosts me and tells me in perfect Russian. You are not allowed to take pictures. "Nyet!" I act typically Americanski stupid and nod. She goes away. The next station a young pretty KGB agent in a short tight uniform skirt tells me the same thing. I offer to take her picture, she indignantly says: "Nyet!" but she also goes away. I shoot my pictures from the open door of the train just before it pulls away. She ignores my insolence. By now they probably have broadcast an all points alert to all the KGB train agents, "be on the lookout for a CIA agent taking pictures of the trains." At least, that’s how I felt about it. This did not stop the intrepid Amerikanski photographer. Olly and her daughter, Alla, made believe they didn’t know me. I suppose they didn’t wish to spend the night in the Lubianka being interrogated about the clandestine pictures I was taking.
It was the Minolta 35 mm camera with the big 28 to 310 mm lens that gave me away. This thing weighs in at about five pounds and sticks out about a foot in front of me. I had been using the digital camera, which fits snugly in the palm of my hand and nobody paid attention. But that one is history. Ah, such is life in the big city.
	In a short time we leave for Moscow. I don’t think I’ll take any expensive cameras with me. After we leave Moscow I curse my luck for not having taken the video camera. I got some great shots of Yeltsin but no video.

The last time I went from St. Petersburg to Moscow by train I took a taxi from the Prebaltiskaya hotel to the train station and the walk from the curb to the train took ten minutes and the ride cost $30.00. This time we hopped onto the Metro, bag and baggage and got off right at the train depot a minute’s walk from our train. I was amazed at how easy it was. This time Olly purchased the tickets and the price was so low that I thought she got the wrong class of tickets. It turns out, just like ballet tickets, foreigners pay much more for tickets and pay for the extras as well. Foreigners pay for the linen on the bed as an extra, food is also an extra for foreigners. We left at 11:00 pm and arrived at 7:45 the next morning after sleeping the night away.

I met a man on the train by the name of Igor and an unpronounceable last name. We discussed politics into the night. He spoke no English and I spoke no Russian. Olga translated for us. We shared the common view that Russia is run by crooks, the same crooks that ran it before and called themselves communists. The more things change, the more they stay the same was our common opinion. After careful thought I realize that those people that are called Mafia or "New Russians" aren’t crooks at all. They are opportunists. They are the same people that were in control before peristroika, commissars and politburo members. They saw the change coming and grabbed the country’s natural resources when everything was privatized and now they are cashing in. The crime comes as a natural extension as they try to hang onto their newfound toys as the new cheap crooks try to wrest their share away from the old crooks.

We got off the train in Moscow and stepped directly into the Metro. Here there was another big surprise. Moscow, which has a population a little larger than St. Petersburg has a much larger subway system than St. Pete’s. In the fine Russian tradition of underground construction it has competed with it’s sister city and tried to outdo them. They have wonderful stations and appointments. Having spent an entire day photographing the subway stations is St. Petersburg, I decided it would take the entire trip to put Moscow’s stations on film and dropped the idea of a subway excursion. Olga probably thought I was crazy anyway and I didn’t want to confirm her suspicions.

Our rooms, on the ninth floor, overlook the Kremlin wall and we are able to look into the Kremlin itself. We visited the Kremlin and except for some beautifully restored churches and a magnificent cannon made by Ivan the Terrible not much was happening. That night there was a flurry of gunfire in the Kremlin and/or Red Square. There were bursts of automatic weapons fire and explosions here and there. In the morning all was calm and peaceful again. I never found out what it was about. The Kremlin is also called "The Armory" so it may have been rifle practice, at midnight.

Again Olga tried to walk me to death, but like the survivors of the Bataan death march, I grimly held on and marched along the highways and byways of Moscow keeping a stiff upper lip. Actually the exercise was good for me. After four days of Moscow I was able to walk a kilometer or two without suffering much more than sore feet.

The neatest monument to the new Moscow is the Stalin Pavilions. These are a very large collection of pavilions originally dedicated to the greatness of Russia. I can’t count how many there are but I notice one of them is numbered Pavilion No. 71. I’m certain there are at least that many. They are built on a grand scale, each larger and more magnificent than the last. There are great marble columns, granite staircases reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial, all of that and more. However, somewhere along the line, in de-communizing Russia, the baby was thrown out with the bath water. Inside these fabulous building are now housed an assortment of flea market sales booths. One building in particular saddened me severely.

As we entered this wonderful complex of mish mash creation there was a small tram train like the ones you see at the amusement parks. The pavilions take up a couple hundred acres and I wanted to climb aboard the tram. Before I was able to whisk Olly away, she was collared by a sharp-eyed pitchman that was offering free prizes. He had handed her a card with a scratch off face and he scratched it off for her without asking her whether or not she was interested. Guess what? Unbelievably, she had won the big prize! Amazing! What luck!

Olly had never seen this capitalist-pig routine before and may actually have thought there would be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Later she denied that she ever was suckered in at all.

This is the famous gilded statute depicting the women wearing the native costumes of
the countries that made up the former Soviet Union.  Roughly twice life size.  Awesome.

The pitch was aimed at families, naturally, so Olly fibbed and told him we were married. The pitchman took out a form and started filling it out asking every conceivable question of her. Olly was trapped. Being Russian, she was accustomed to supplying information and producing official documents when demanded by persons in authority. The pitchman adopted an air of authority, and Olly as a good Russian, began answering.

When I snapped to this ridiculous scenario, I injected myself. I blurted out in English: "Who are you? Where am I? What is this all about? Who is this woman? I just met her ten minutes ago. I’m leaving."

The pitchman realizing his predicament and, not wishing to waste anymore time on us, turned us over to a hefty woman who reminded me of the KGB women in the James Bond movies. I expected that her shoes had poison dipped knife blades in the tips that would spring out and catch us on our shins under the table if we didn’t fully cooperate.

This woman was the epitome of authoritative Russia. Her demeanor demanded immediate attention and respect. Poor dear Olga, she complied. The KGB bitch immediately dove into the high-pressure pitch. Finally we found out what they were selling: tour packages. The gimmick was that the tours they offered were accompanied by a credit card. The credit card was nifty. It was called a VISIT card. Naturally it was a gold card and looked exactly like a VISA card. The bitch sat across a table from us and waved the card around, tantalizing us with the thought of having our very own gold credit card, a prospect that few, if any, Russians would ever attain.  Naturally the card could only be used to purchase their tour package.

I reach for the card to examine it. The bitch snatches it away from me with her best KGB "better behave or else" look, and continues working on Olly. I grab for the pitch book in front of her. She freaks at me and looks around for a security guard that will throw me in the Lubianka. It dawns on her that she doesn’t work for the KGB anymore and there are no KGB guards available. She contents herself with placing the pitch book out of my reach. With a realization that I am having her on, she produces the coveted prize. She fills out the precious prize form, which grants a discount on Olly’s first tour using the miraculous gold VISIT credit card. Of course Olly must pay a small fee for processing her credit card application. Few Russians have credit cards and the temptation must have been great to grab for the bait. With a little urging from me, Olly declines the offer. The bitch turns to ice. Storm clouds cross her eyes. We are in deep trouble. Perhaps she really can summon the Cossacks or the Cheka and have us summarily executed? Thankfully, she relents and dismisses us through a small door at the end of the pavilion. We are free to go. We have been summarily dismissed to the nether regions, without grace or transportation. Purgatory or worse awaits us outside.

We have just escaped capitalist pig scam number seventy-three without damage. I try to explain the scam to Olly. She can’t understand the term "scam" or even that there was no real prize.

It hits me like a thunderclap. This is the way to make it big in Russia. I see from this little exhibition, that there is great money to be made in Russia from pyramid and Ponzi schemes where there are no laws against it, yet. Before the government snaps to and closes them down, a sharpie could do well. I realize that Amway will do wonderfully here in Russia, at least for the first clowns in the door. I also recognize that these clowns will eventually leave Russia bleeding from every pore. There simply isn’t any money available to even get the system started. How neat, how tragic. Russia will bend the pick of the slickest get-rich-quick scheme. My thoughts turn to how to do this trick on the World Wide Web so there doesn’t have to be the big investment of renting the Grecian Temple Pavilion and hiring the pitchmen. The possibilities are endless. But how to collect the money? Russians have no checking accounts or credit cards and almost no money. Hmm, just a minor glitch.

The sun comes out and the weather is beautiful. We stroll though the maze of Greek and Roman style pavilions, now jammed to the roof with sales booths. The beautiful exteriors are festooned with sales and advertising banners, which now abuse the eye. I am reminded of the midway at a gigantic carnival. One marble colossus located like a marble columned sideshow is selling Lincoln sport utility vehicles. There is not one, but many, on display. I wonder who can afford them? There are many people browsing them. Maybe Ford has long range plans for Russia? I remember the last foray Ford made to Russia in the 1930s. They got their ass kicked here in "workers paradise" and the people who came over to build a Ford plant were exiled never to return to America. I am curious to know whether history will repeat itself. I fear the answer maybe yes.

As we stroll along the boulevard of this carnival-like park we come across a man who has two pool tables out in the open. He offers to let us play a game for a few rubles. Olly accepts my challenge. I ask if she wishes to play straight pool, rotation or eight ball. She says no, we will play regulation pool. Here I am at a loss to describe just what happens. I suggest that we shoot for the rail to determine who breaks. Olly shrugs off this idea and perfunctorily breaks. I am amused and the pool table owner shrugs. Olly ignores the cue ball and proceeds to sink any ball in sight by hitting it with any other ball, regardless of color or number. She sinks them one at a time in succession without missing a stroke. I am aghast, the owner is astonished. We both break out laughing. She indiscriminately sinks the cue ball with a colored one, The table owner dutifully returns the cue ball to the table uproariously laughing all the while. She sinks the white ball again and again. The table is not set level and the balls roll crazily along the surface. It’s impossible to make a straight shot. The joke is on us. The table owner gets paid by the game not by the hour. Olly has cleaned the table in a minute or two. I kiss her on the nose and tell her that there are rules for playing pool. She says this is how they have played it at the dacha since childhood and there is no need to change the rules at this late date just to favor me.

We head back to St. Petersburg on the night train where Olly spills boiling hot water from the central hot water kettle on her hand. It is painful and there are tears in her eyes but she maintains a stiff upper lip. No demonstration, just resignation. I recall the woman who collected millions from MacDonalds just for spilling hot coffee on herself. Each car of the train has an individual conductor. After a bit of fussing I locate him and ask for the first aid kit. He is reluctant to part with it. He speaks English and I explain about the accident. The fault is purely with the railroad. They should expect the train to jerk while a passenger is getting hot water from the faucet. He is nonplussed. It happens all the time. He will not release the first aid kit unless I am a doctor. I tell him I am. We search through several cars to find the first aid kit and finally locate one. He perfunctorily gives it to me and dismisses the problem. Back in our compartment I dig through the kit. It is stocked with bottles of smelling salts and a bunch of rolled bandages made from cotton wadding. I tear a railway towel into strips and soak them in cold water and wrap her hand. Olly frets about the towel and probably wonders whether we will be prosecuted for destroying railroad property.

We arrive back at Olly’s mothers flat early the next morning. There is a small note stuck to the front entrance announcing that there will be no hot water from July 5 to the end of the month. We laugh at this and continue to Olga’s own flat where we find the same notice except that we will get no hot water starting July 1. Today is June 30. Oops, the smile is struck from our faces, we stop laughing. The tears of laughter turn to tears of sorrow. We spend the day shopping and visiting relatives and fooling with her computer. We loose track of the time and suddenly notice the hour. It’s slightly after midnight. We decide that we’d better take our last hot shower before there is no more hot water. Guess what? The hot water commissar has finally done something on time. Precisely at midnight, that commie bastard turned off the hot water. Again! Olly opens the tap and out rushes air. No hot water. Damn those commies, they have won the cold (water) war after all.

Olly is stoic. I am livid. But what the heck, when in Rome do as the commies do.

We run off to the country to visit Olly’s dacha. It seems everybody in Russia has a dacha. Her dacha was built about 30 to 35 years ago when she was a child and she loves it there. It is a cottage about the size of a small house. Her dacha is divided into four sections, each with it’s own summer kitchen and chimney. It sits on a plot of land of about an acre or so deep in the woods. Two families share the four sections of the house and land. It was originally set up for four families but two of the families sold their shares to the other two families who are related.  Each section (actually one quarter) is the size of an average size American living room. Everything is authentically rustic.  Olly’s father has planted a vegetable garden in about ten different places. There is no running water in the house but there is a water tap located in the side yard. I try the tap, water gushes forth. Olly explains that the water comes out only in the rainy weather. In the warm weather, when they really need it for the plants, it doesn’t run.

For more permanent water provision they have a covered well, complete with windlass. The water level is about 30 feet down. It is very quaint and rustic, but unlike our rustic cottages, the well is not decorative. It is used everyday when the dacha is occupied. There are mature birch trees everywhere. I carve mine and Olly’s initials into a large birch tree. I am scolded for ruining a beautiful tree. So much for rustic romance in Russia.

The toilet facilities are an outhouse. I am given a tour of this edifice. I foolishly vow, out loud, that I will not make use of this contraption for the short time I will be at the dacha. There is no seat, just a hole. I am told that to use the system you stand on the platform and squat over the hole. I have never done this before, even in the military. I’m sure I would make a big mess, what with my pants around my ankles and all. I am also told to be very careful because the board that you squat on is weak from age and nobody my size has ever used it before. This adds to my resolve not to use it.

The whole thing reminds me of my childhood where we would visit a cabin in the woods upstate New York on summer vacation. Very charming, very idyllic.

We take the train back to St. Petersburg. The train’s car is quite wide compared to American trains and is totally different from the one we took to go to Moscow. There is a constant parade of vendors streaming through the cars selling everything from soup to nuts. One man is selling paintbrushes. I am dumfounded, paintbrushes on a train? Another man is selling raincoats for 5 rubles each. A woman buys one. It seems to be a tradition that when you buy something from a train vendor, he also gives a little extra present. The woman asks what will be the present? He replies: "a kiss."

The raincoat peddler is a jolly man and he regales the passengers with his cries to sell his wares. He refuses to leave the car until he sells one more. It seems a good idea to have one and I signal the vendor to give me one. He speaks no English but he takes my five rubles and gives me a choice between blue and green. I tell him now it is time to get on with himself to the next car. He ignores me and the passengers are all looking, so I demand my present. I ask for the kiss, which I am sure will embarrass him into leaving. He rushes at me to kiss me and I fend him off, just barely. Everybody roars approval and he takes his leave.

More peddlers come and a man is selling electrostatic dusters. I have seen them advertised on TV for $19.95 but he was asking only 20 rubles for them. I bought two, one for Olly and one for me. His present to us was two dough balls made of a weird plastic that you could mold and stretch to any shape but you couldn’t tear it apart. It would stretch a certain distance and then stop. I tried to buy another dough ball from him but he wouldn’t sell it at any price.

		A liveried doorman at a posh restaurant in Red Square.
	I snap a few pictures of Alla in front of a shop window that would do justice to a fashion model. She loves it and I do too. She seems to have an innate sense of the dramatic pose and is able to strike it at the drop of a hat. It is difficult to believe that she is twelve.	Alla has informed mother that she intends to marry a poor man. This is a likely carryover from the good old communist indoctrination. I expect that this notion will change by the time she is old enough to get married.

The fateful moment arrives. Three weeks have passed. I must take my leave. Olly’s faithful cab driver arrives to takes us to the airport. This time she tells him she will only pay ten dollars for the trip there and back. He doesn’t complain at all. We end up at the Sp.B. Airport. The place is a mad house. There are queues hours long just to get into the baggage inspection area. We get into the queue and wait patiently. I go to cash some money for rubles to buy some refreshments and when I come back the man in front of Olly has managed to let about ten of his friends, bag and baggage in front of her. I explode and cause a scene. You guessed it, Germans again.

I am sad to leave Olly and her little family. I have grown close to them, but I look forward to getting home and a warm shower. Finally I board the Aeroflot (actually a Boeing 767) where I am seated alongside a young Russian girl. She turns out to be a geologist headed to Idaho to do some translating for a Japanese community in exchange for room and board.

Elena turns out to be pretty bright with a good command of English. We talk for the best part of eight hours. I apologize for the terrible way I must smell and explain that the hot water wasn’t working at Olga’s apartment. She tells me that there is no hot water anywhere in St. Petersburg. Her own flat, way across town hasn’t had hot water for the whole month either.

When we get to New York her ride doesn’t show up to meet her and I offer to introduce her to Kevin my son who has also traveled to Russia. Kevin lives in New York and would jump at the chance to meet this cutie. Unfortunately I am not able to reach Kevin and my matchmaking dies un-kindled.

I get home, turn on the shower, and step in. I stay there until the hot water stops coming out. I think it was forty-five minutes or so. I rest for a few hours and get back into the shower for another spin, all the while repeating "there’s no place like home."

I have been to Oz and survived.