The border of Europe and Asia lies along the Ural mountains, dividing Russia into two continents. I have always considered Russia to be Europe as all Russians I know are Caucasians and so are the Russians I have seen on the news. Russia has played a key role in shaping European history and politics in the last century. Russia has participated in all major cultural European events. Blame it on Lonely Planet and all guide books which classify Russia as Eastern Europe. However, when I talked to many Russians, I often heard the phrase “going to Europe.” “But you’re in Europe,” I said. “No, we are not,” they replied. Perhaps Russians see Europe not only on geographical term but also on political and economical level. For them, I think, Europe means the European Union.
Sorry Hollywood but Anastasia was dead.
She died along with her parents, Tsar Nicolas II, Tsarina Alexandria and her four other siblings Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Alexi. The Romanov spent their final days in Yekaterinburg before meeting their gruesome end in the hands of the Bolsheviks who feared the White Army would rescue the former royal family and used it as the pretext to fight against the Red Army. The entire family was shot and stabbed by bayonets. Their bodies were carried away and dumped them in the mine shaft outside Yekaterinburg.
The children of the Tsar
Many of my friends and travel guides had warned me about the stiff prices in Moscow, but somehow I failed to prepare for it because I could not associate any Russian city to the same level of priciness of Scandinavia. Right before my trip to Russia, I spent 3 weeks in the Caucasus Georgia and Armenia where prices were very low. In my budget plan, I put down about 8 euro per day for food in Moscow and less elsewhere. A Russian friend of mine took one look of my budget and dismissed with “What do plan to eat there? Bread?”; I increased my food budget to 10 euro per day and off I flew away..to the most expensive city in Europe.
Navigating and understanding a large city of more than 10 million was like chewing a piece of leather. Moscow has more people than the entire Czech Republic where I even got lost in my own back yard. My first day in Moscow was a complete nightmare. With an 18-kg backpack not adjusted very well, I felt the entire load on my neck and shoulder. A wind blow could tip me over. In this condition, I had to find my way in the maze of Moscow’ underground while deciphering Cyrillic.
No-one else can describe train traveling more beautiful than Paul Theroux. His book ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘, which traced the author’s train journey from London to India, uncovered a desire long buried ever since I first saw a passing train when living in Ho Chi Minh City. Like many Vietnamese, I never rode the train. It was not a common type of transport unless we needed to travel over very long distance. But Vietnamese did not travel much if not at all. If we did, we preferred motorbikes, buses, mini-vans and airplanes. Trains and rail tracks were often associated with negativity. Whenever I read about it on the news, I found only train crashes and people getting killed trying to cross over unguarded tracks.
15.7.2012 I arrived in Moscow, Russia, which effectively ended my travel project to see all 50 countries in Europe.
Anything about Europe will be tagged under the tag 50europe.
Phew! Now I swear off doing anything quantitatively for a while. What’s next?
It’s the beginning of the Trans-Siberia and beyond.
No other country in Europe, except Albania, did I hear many disheartening comments like Georgia. “People are a little strange.” “Men there are like monkeys; They will rape you.” “How about you have a kid, wait until he grows a few years then you can go.” To be fair, Georgia, as we know it–thanks to the media–isn’t a sunny beach resort where tourists go to get a tan or a cosmopolitan capital lined up with coffee bars and restaurants. It isn’t a peaceful village where cows roam on green pasture, nor it is a place where one escape to the cottage in the summer. Georgia, as we know it, is the South Ossetia four years ago with vivid images of tanks, flying rockets, and bombed buildings. When I found out the mountainous area I wanted to visit, Kazbegi and Svaneti, located in proximity with the problematic autonomous Abkhazia and Chechnya, I seriously wondered about the environment surrounding this country.
I went to Khankhali House to have dumplings. As I was waiting for my food, a group of three in their early 50s asked if they could share my table. The waitress brought the dumpling on a small plate, a fork and walked off. I asked for a knife. “NO.” It wasn’t the waitress who refused me but one of the men. I looked at them, pointed to my dumplings indicating that I needed to cut. “Spoon?” “NO. NO. NO.” They vehemently confronted me. One of the men removed the fork from my hand, stuck it to one of my dumplings at the top where the sag tied up, flipped it over, held it with one hand, blew to cool it down, took a bite and sucked the juice. “See? Do it.”
Christian Ronaldo is hot (OK I admit it.) The perfect-haired lover-boy is always seen in tight jeans, clean-shaven legs, occasionally dressed in pink and sometimes with flowers on his hairs. He is by all accounts the metrosexual icon of modern football. Adored by young football fans around the world and worshiped by many in his native country Portugal. It came as no surprise when the most recognizable face I saw in Lisbon was who else than the Ronaldo on many ads and posters.
I had never sampled so much new food in just one day let alone one sitting. Usually, it took an entire trip to get down only a few dishes.
Dan, my host, took me to lunch and ordered a tableful of Georgian dishes. I was still under the Central European time; that means I had lunch at 10 o’clock in the morning. I ate so much I almost fell asleep in the car after and had to pinch myself to stay awake and chit chat with Dan.
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
