Best of Russia
We visited Russia for a lot less days than initially planned due to misinformation regarding visa requirements. We were emailed twice by the Russian Embassy in Beijing that neither Salvadorians nor Colombian citizens needed a visa to travel into the country. However, when we went to the Russian Embassy in Ulaanbaatar to double check, we were told that Salvadorians require a tourist or transit visa. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to wait for a tourist visa and decided to request a transit visa instead. For this reason, we drastically changed our plans of exploring this country and stayed there for only 6 days.
During our visit, we enjoyed a 4 day journey on the Trans-Siberian train, from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow. The beautiful scenery of Siberia, the colorful wood houses, the infinite waters of the Baikal Lake, and the countless reminiscences of 365 days of traveling together, were without a doubt the best way to celebrate our first world trip anniversary! We completed 101 hours on the train while crossing 6,306 km of distance. For the first time we got to use both of our passports while passing immigration controls in the Mongolian and Russian borders. The anxiety of using a different passport at each border was erased by a process without complications. We felt so relieved to discover that this is an easy procedure and we are looking forward to continue using our dual citizenships to travel.
During our two days in Moscow, we were captivated by their impressive architecture, the uniqueness design of the Basil Cathedral, the elegance and details of the Orthodox churches around the city, the sculptures in honor of the workers and “normal” people, and the massive proportions of the Stalin style buildings. We tried to learn as much as possible about the country’s history and their Soviet Union times. We discovered that during the second half of the 19th century while countries in the West experienced the establishment of national democracies and capitalist economies, the USSR still had a autocratic bureaucratic monarchy. In the census of 1857, around 70 million people lived in the Russian Empire and 86% of the population were peasants while 1.5 % were aristocrats. The developing of new industries during the last decades of the 19th century was characterized by a miserable life and poor labor conditions. As a result, the activity of political opposition was growing and the emergence of the revolutionary political parties found support in peasants, students, and intellectuals. Military defeats from the war with Japan in 1904 and World War I in 1914 brought general political crisis and eventually the revolutionary upheavals of 1917.
Vladimir Lenin from the Bolshevik Party was without a doubt one of the more important socialist leaders of Russia. On the night of October 25, 1917 the armed workers lead by the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party (Bolshevik) took control of the government. A one-party political system was gradually establishing in the country. As a result, a Russian civil war between “Red” (Bolshevik defenders) and “White” (counter-revolutionaries) developed and didn’t end until 1919. In the 1920’s, internal conflict between the Communist Party members, regarding economic policy, created the expulsion of previous members and after the death of Lenin in 1924 the established regimen of I.V. Stalin was strengthened. At the end of the 1920’s, a new type of modernization began in the Soviet Union. Its goals were to support technological breakthroughs in all fields in order to strengthen their economy.
Rapid industrial development became only attainable through the collectivization of the peasants along with their natural resources. All strata of the population during the political regimen of 1930’s were repressed. At the same time a new ideal of public life and a program to educate people in the spirit of communist ideology was established. Aviators, polar-explorers, border guards, and farmers became the heroes of the new society. The Russian Orthodox Church was subjected to persecution and was looking for an opportunity to survive under the conditions of an atheistic state. After the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953, a fight for power between the top leaders of the country began. The congress made amendments in the ideological conception of the party. The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was replaced by the idea of the state of the whole people. The epoch of “the thaw” and “the stagnation” of the USSR were characterized as a fall in the economic reform and corruption in the highest echelons of power. All these factors confronted the country with the necessity of radical changes in the USSR, which were connected to the name of M.S. Gorbachev. On December 8, 1991 the termination of the USSR and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was declared.
Today, despite centuries of monarchy and communist dictatorship, the country has been ruled since 2000 by Vladimir Putin and has been predicted that he could remain president until 2024. Although Russia is now a democracy, the “Putinism,” as has being commonly called by some sectors of the country, made use of its power to change the constitution and stay longer in the government. To us, it seems almost impossible to believe that despite the subsequent struggles in history, people in Russia continue allowing one political party to have full control of the nation. Russian laws against homosexuality, for example, prove the lack of pluralism that their government continue facing and the challenges that they will have to overcome in order to become a progressive and liberal society.
Below are other great things we enjoyed about Russia:
Food and Drinks
Baltika Beer
Borsch: cabbage soup with beets
Roast Beef with Potatoes
Chicken Kiev and Buckwheat
Beets, Fish, and Potato “Lasagna”
Curd Fritters: “Russian Cheesecake”
Favorite Sights and Activities
Viewing the unique design of St. Basil’s Cathedral
Relaxing on the Trans-Siberian train
Learning about the communist era in the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia
People
Lee: from the USA, met on the Trans-Siberian train.
Arseniy and Julia: from Russia, originally met in Thailand and they hosted us in Moscow and educated us about their country.
Alec: from Russia, met on the train to Finland.
Native Words
Dacha = section of land for farming
