I have settled back into life in good old Moscow again. It was tough, cause St. Petersburg was a pretty awesome place. It is like a completely different country. The people were different, the architecture was different, and life seemed to go a bit slower there. I really liked it a lot. I must say it is now on my top 10 coolest cities list.
My favorite places were the Hermitage and the Blockade Cemetery. I have never seen a museum like the Hermitage. Not only was the art collection wonderful, but the building itself was stunning. It had to have had one of the largest Rembrandt collections in the world. There was literally two rooms full of his work.
The Blockade cemetery was one of those "off the beaten track" types of places, but one that I think everyone who goes to Petersburg ought to see with their own eyes. This is the location where the citizens and soldiers who died during the 4 year German siege were piled into mass graves as they died. There are supposed to be at least a million people burried there. The suffering that that city endured during the war is inexplicable.
Though the museum there is rather modest, the small exhibit they have there tells the story well. It does help if you can read a little Russian (yes, this is one of the few sites in the city that does not have stuff written in English and Russian), but the pictures there tell a lot without knowing the words.
The other highlight of my trip was meeting with a good Russian friend of mine who did a master's exchange program in the States last year at my university. I hung out with him and his younger brother. Both of them are believers and fellowshiping with them was a great blessing.
For the next couple of weeks I will probably be in and out of Moscow. I will be going to the far western part of the country any week to do a favor for some dear friends of mine in the States. This should be an adventure. I will certainly report on the result of the trip.
Staying alive in the Wild Wild East, see ya.