From Russia with Love

Moscow was just how I’ve always pictured it – hot and sunny with daylight from 5am until 10pm.

Well, that’s not what I expected, but it made for great touring weather.

Moscow is full of crazy architecture, and huge gaudy buildings. Some of the largest and most ornate are the Russian Orthodox cathedrals that occupy entire city blocks. There are also many large palaces, historical buildings, bridges, and statues from the pre-soviet era of Peter the Great and later the Romanov Czars. However, the largest and most self-indulgent structures were primarily Stalinist. That guy really loved himself from what I can gather, and his monstrous palaces – “Stalin’s Seven Candles” – illustrate the decadence of his rule in large-scale terms.

My favorite structure that was never actually built was a gigantic statue of Lenin. The plan was to make a statue so large that the main operations of the Soviet government would take place inside the statue's brain, and Lenin's outstretched hand would be a place for helicopters to take off and land. Absurd.

Each of the buildings and museums that we visited during our time in Moscow were painstakingly described in excruciating detail by our tour guides. Russian culture has had an interesting effect on their tour guide population. In America, we are very time oriented. Everything we do is on a schedule. In Europe everyone is very event oriented. Young Life doesn’t start at 7:47, it starts when it starts. Also, the soviet system has caused tour guides to be unmotivated in their jobs, just doing enough to get by, and doing their job with no opportunity for advancement. That wouldn’t be the worst thing, but some of the most loyal and ruthless communists were tour guides…that goes without saying. It seems that tour guides have conspired since the fall of the USSR to do everything they can to make Americans miserable. They accomplish this through mental attacks and focused telekinetic boredom. Thankfully a lot of the stuff the guides showed us was awesome - try as they may to ruin it – and just like the Miracle on Ice, the Americans persevered. We survived our tours.