Reflections of Traveling in Russia

I have been home this week, sick with bronchitis; in between sleeping and more sleeping, (and I love to sleep) I have had a lot of time to think about our trips to Russia and so I thought I would write not about the adoption in this post, but about my impressions of traveling 3 times to Russia.
When we travel I am one of those people who has to research everything, find out exactly where it is on a map, and plan out an itinerary for the whole trip. I can honestly say that traveling in Russian, no matter how much I researched or planned I was not prepared for effect the country on me.
5 years ago when we started talking about adoption we had no clue where we would go, but it turns out that Russia is a wonderful surprise in itself and I dream of going there again. I have traveled a lot since I married my military man. “Join the Navy and see the world” is not just for the sailors. Imagine having husband going overseas, so why not take advantage of this and buy yourself an airline ticket and meet him in a port. Sadly so many Navy wives don’t take advantage of this opportunity; maybe they don’t want to travel alone, or think it will cost too much, but how often can you go to Europe with you husband for the cost of one airline ticket. We took advantage of this and spent our honeymoon in France because right after we married Rich shipped out on a 6 month cruise; so I spent Christmas in Paris, Cannes, and Monte Carlo. Only about a dozen navy wives made the trek to France, and the ship had 5000 men on it.
Sorry about the little detour we just took; back to the topic of this post-traveling in Russia. Of course our plan is to do this again because the adoption is not yet complete, but even if it were, I do believe this is a country I would love to come back to, while France - well I just feel been there, done that.
Why Russia, is it because our future children are born there? Is it because the history and culture was so closed off the world for so long during the Soviets control. Or because it is a culture going through tremendous changes which makes each trip different and more interesting. I don't know, but I do know that I enjoyed every trip-the history, the culture, the sites, the wonderful people.
I love history, I even considered a history major in college; and what amazing architectural displays of Russian history to explore. To walk on the grounds of parks and buildings that were built before our own country was born, lands where Prince Yuri started building the Kremlin in 1147; to stand in front of the Tsarina's throne in the beautiful Cathedral Square Church and think that Catherine the Great could have stood in this very spot 400 years ago. The beauty of the cathedrals and churches. Many churches were destroyed during the Soviet era, but the ones that are still standing have undergone amazing restoration. The renovation of older buildings in Moscow and Irkutsk is astonishing as they are restoring by hand many of the decorative ornamentation.












(View of churches from our hotel in Moscow)








(Renovated building in Irkutsk)











(Old wood house in Irkutsk)






Here are two links to sites about Russian Architecture:
About: Architecture and Architecture in Russia

English is not language that a lot of people speak in Russia, but that didn't stop us from going out without a translator and making everyday an adventure. A lot of pantomiming can get you headed in the right direction, or not, but then we discovered places we had not read about, like the huge toy store in downtown Moscow, Detsky Mir. 3 stories and a full city block of toys. We bought some Russian DVDs for teaching English to children, and several books for the girls as mementos of their country.
Language also made riding the subway a challenge since none of the signs had English translations, but riding the subway is far faster than getting a cab driver who understands you and then getting through all the traffic that makes New York's rush hour look like everyday is a holiday. Getting a ticket is as easy as holding up the number of fingers for how many tickets you want, but figuring out which train is which and where to get off not so easy. We had to hold the maps up and try to compare the words on the signs to the words on the maps and then hope we were on the right line and getting off at the right stop. At one stop every one got off and we sat there for couple of minutes waiting to go to the next stop. A gentleman came on and shooed us off, turns out we were at the end of the line. So we ended up in a subway station we would not have seen and it was beautiful, with an incredible mosaic on the wall of the history of building the subway.