Moscow

Today I got back to Moscow, Russia where I have worked and lived over a year. Some of my time in Russia was hard and sometimes not so bad.  One of the good things was working at an English-Russian-French kindergarten called P’tit Cref. Out of all my English teaching jobs this one was the best. You got to choose your hours and they never pushed you to do anything you didn’t want to do. They gave teachers really long vacations and paid on time. It was pretty great but the economy in Russia made my decision to stay so long kinda illogical.  Besides work… life in Russia was ok. It is nice to be in a harsh climate for a time to make you appreciate some of the sunny days and it's good to be around some grumpy Russians to keep you on your toes.

Basic info about going to Russia

If you just want to visit a place like Russia you will need to get a visa through a travel agency. There are plenty of places where you can find sponsors online or just contact a hotel. As long as you’re just visiting the economic collapse will definitely work in your favor, especially if you like to live it up. Hotels are trying to lure in customers and are lowering prices. It turns out Putin-led annexation isn't good for tourism. You will have to carry around your passport everywhere because there are “tourist police” looking out for illegal immigrants, especially in the metro.

Life in Russia

Life in Russia was a little bleak for me, especially with the economic collapse. I first went to Moscow because my girlfriend wanted to go, but I ended up staying after she moved to France. I’m not sure why. I didn’t end up making as much money as I thought I would due to the declining ruble. I ended up just working a lot and taking pictures.
I tried to be as active as possible to try to keep in shape for hiking the PCT later on. I ended up having to be a little creative, especially when it got really cold and slushy. I ran up and down the stairs in my 25 floor apartment building and using my suspension training system – similar to TRX but offbrand.

I also briefly volunteered with LAPA, an organization that runs a dog shelter a little outside of Moscow. The plight of dogs in Moscow is pretty miserable. There are dog hunters that go around poisoning and shooting dogs- even the ones on leashes being led by their owners. The situation is probably not as bad as in S. Korea, but LAPA is kept busy with it’s shelter with over 500 dogs. They constantly have to fundraise to help sick animals, buy food, and sterilize dogs. They also conduct outreach activities in local schools since animal sterilization is not very popular, especially for strays.

The cold isn’t as unbearable as I thought it would be, though the grey skies were a little depressing. I really appreciated when the sun came out. I also took vitamin D daily. The temperature rarely got below 10F, and below 0 only a couple of times. The real struggle was adapting to the Russian automatic heating systems in apartment buildings, the metro, business…everywhere really. It was impossible to know how to dress, you just need to wear tons of layers and strip down once you get to your destination. Sometimes there would be people who smelled like they never took of their coats, definitely smelled more than any other place I’ve been in.

Top 5 weirdest things about Russia

1.      Russians think that if you have a window open while you’re in the room, you’ll get sick. Don’t understand the basic law of thermodynamics.

2.      Russians always dress really warm, even when it’s not cold. So much sweating!! And so unnecessary.

3.      They don’t put bags on the ground, cause if you do, you’ll become poor. You will also become poor if you whistle indoors.

4.      If you finish a bottle of alcohol, you mustn't put the empty bottle on the table, only on the floor.

5.      Not too many Russians drink vodka, from what I can tell it’s mostly for special occasions. The everyday alcohol is beer, which does not taste that great. 

….and there are so many strange superstitions Russians believe in. And it’s not only the over 70 crowd. When you see a black cat, you can’t turn your back to it. If you forget something in your house and have to go back going backwards and then you have to do something with salt. There are so many I can’t keep them straight.

That’s my 2 rubles on Russia and will be the last blog about this country for a little while because on March 31^st 2015 I will be flying back to California to do my final preparations for the PCT and get on the trail.

Thank you for reading my blog AND a really big THANK YOU for buying my pictures. It makes me feel more at ease going on the trail with the capability of making a little money taking pictures and doing what I love.