Summer in St. Petersburg: Moscow: 2 Days as a Tourist, 3 days as a Бизнесмен (Biznessman)

After a nice night of sleeping on a futon only to be wakened by my friend’s crying baby (rest of the family, Mike, Katya, and Max are pictured immediately below), I left to go try my luck to see Lenin’s Mausoleum.

There was of course a demonstration going on near the Kremlin, but I got into the line just in time. Lenin was pretty freaky. He’s just lying there, and his hands have been laying for so long on his black straight jacket that they’ve left these little white cloudy imprints on the suit. There were about 6 guards in the room and the security was pretty high. For the first time I was forced to pay the foreigner rate for a bag check since you’re not allowed to bring anything into the Mausoleum with you.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the three separate buildings of the Pushkin Museum of Art: The Dutch collection, French and other European, and the private collections. I loved the private collections museum of course because it was almost all Russian art. I took some pictures which I’ll post at a link below. I then walked along the Arbat (open-air market) and successfully bargained for two Ohio State Buckeyes (2002 and 2006) Matryushkas, only to realize I didn’t have enough cash to buy them. Sucks to be the people I wanted to buy them for since I didn’t make it back there. You might have to settle for chocolate (or Vodka shots). I had some wonderful Italian Food for dinner and got to bed pretty late.

My days of “work” in this city were not too pleasurable. After a full day of meetings I wrote up my notes and tried to get as much sleep as I could. We accomplished a lot, and I have a wealth of new information and contacts to bring back to work, but let’s just say my suit is a crumpled, dirty, smelly mess. Business meetings in Russia are pretty convivial. Most people we met were very casual, and all had a requisite secretary to offer us Chai (Tea) or Coffee. At the investment banks we of course had Evian (retailing for about 8 dollars at a restaurant). One of them even had a cigar room, but we were unfortunately not invited to partake.

Trying to take the metro in this city is pretty easy. The trains come pretty quickly, but it is just hot. To complicate matters yesterday, there were peat fires in the northern part of the city that created an entire layer of smog and gave people respiration problems. One of their weather agencies actually encouraged people (especially children) to stay inside, and in 2002 about 600 people died over the course of the summer from the smoke. That’s why Russians have their Dachas.