Give Taxidermy a Chance

Every Russian museum follows the same template: exhibit on heroism of locals during the 'Great War' (WWII), some local photos of settlers with hats and moustaches, out here in the east you get a few artifacts from original inhabitants (eg the Aino here on Sakhalin Island) and a full room devoted to the careful artistry of taxidermy.

I've seen enough stuffed tigers and bears to feed busloads of kids going to museums like these. But nothing compared to this one in Vladivostok. It's supposed to be of a Siberian Tiger attacking a Siberian bear, teeth exposed, looks of rage, between two animals that once lived in the area (a central street in Vlad is called Tiger Hill -- apparently they were there before the housing blocks came). I didn't want to pay the $2 or so fee to use my camera in the museum, but the guard noticed me looking at it intently and suggested 'go ahead, photograph...' I did.

I mentioned it to some locals which prompted a Beatles-or-Stones type conversation about who would when the fight. 'Tiger is quicker. Tiger would win.' 'But what if the bear was bigger? It could let the tiger exhaust itself.' 'Tiger claws not as deep as bears.' 'Yeah but bear can't spin in circles to keep up with tiger.' 'Tiger!' 'Tiger!' 'Yes, tiger.'

I always felt they looked like they were dancing.

Vladivostok Looking Ahead?

'What do you think of Vladivostok?'

I hear this question a lot. I've begun my nearly two month trip across Russia's Far East with two weeks in Vladivostok, so I should have an answer. Its name means 'to rule the East,' but it was only meant as a menacing threat to its neighbors from a military sense. The town was closed for most of the Soviet period -- no Russians, no foreigners could get in. Though resources and trade potential loom still, it's had a bumpy start towards the free market. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was run by corrupt local politicians, locals tell me, who took the new autonomy from the Moscow for their own means. After Moscow grew stronger the past eight years with Putin in power, and now Medvedev, some locals tell me 'it's better -- we don't know what to do with freedom, me neither.'

A lot of talk circulates about Putin's last push as president to bring the APEC summit here in 2012, a plan that involves a supposed Moscow commitment of $6 billion in investment -- to clean the polluted port waters, add a new sewage systems, some roads, some hotels, an entertainment complex ('like Russia Vegas,' one person told me) and, most importantly, a Golden Gate-style bridge to nearby Russky Island, which was a military island solely until recently. When I visited it three years ago, many locals -- including travel agents -- said I couldn't go. I did, and I could, it seemed.

Few locals believe all this. A Korean owner of a British pastry shop said 'Frankly I think if APEC comes all the countries will forget Vladivostok once they go home.' Other note that bridges take eight years to build. One enthusiastic boat guy, who collects mud for spa and fishes shrimp and takes tourists on fishing tours -- and who looks like Morrissey a bit -- says 'I saw bridges made in South Korea -- it takes them five years. I don't think it can be done.'

Walking around Vladivostok's streets it's easy to confuse it with another post-Soviet city. People don't mind trash and debris or graffitti on the streets, some of which have been widened, cutting down trees to do it. The main square is covered in asphalt. The new promenade along Sportivnaya Harbor was made with gray stones -- a poor color choice in an already gray city. When the city built a small pond with a lotus flower and fish on the main ped strip Fokina, someone stole the fish, and filled the pond with emptied beer bottles. 'Usually in summer, people take the flowers out of other garden areas to grow some cabbages.' It can look a little grim.

But getting a view of the scene, from the $1 ferry to Russky Island and back, from atop a San Francisco-style hill reached by a 20-cent funicular train, or by busing to the south point of Vlad and standing on a lookout overlooking the bay, you can see the potential. Few cities have more attractive landscape.

Anyway I like it.

Photo of the Antique Automobile Museum, a collection of Soviet cars and motorcycles:

This Man Is Very Drunk

 

FINALLY, A DRUNK GUY... WITH GRAPES

Rewards in Russia depend not on plans or actual destinations like an art museum or pretty pretty mountain. But the random occurences where you don't know what's happening, where you're going, why you're doing it, or if you should.

The Trans-Siberian runs some 9500 kilometres from Moscow to Vladivostok, crossing seven times zones along the way. During the Soviet Union, though, it finished here in Nakhodka, an international port town with an enviable bay lined with shipyards and loading docks, and facing a far off pair of mountains named Brother and Sister. During the '70s, the Soviets lopped off the head of the Brother -- mining it; a 'sad day' says one local -- but taller Sister stands untouched. I took a local bus out to see if it could be climbed -- it could, but not by me -- when a very drunk man found a new friend: me.

Walking back to find a bus stop, at least 2km away, he ran up to me, then padded his shorts looking for a phone. He pulled out some keys. 'That's not a phone,' I added helpfully in bad Russian. 'Wait... You wait... here.' He ran off. I did wait for a couple minutes, but thought - as clouds gathered - I'd best move on. I kept an eye back, and 90m down I saw him coming finally. I lazily, guiltily, went back. He had grapes.

Gray-bearded Nikolai wreaked of vodka too, and had two (apparently recently) severed fingers from the hand holding the grapes. His middle and ring finger were stubs, with blackened ends and exposed stitches. He handed me grapes and I took them. 'Eat!' I nibbled, and he yelled out, 'No! Like this.' He put six or seven, along with the vine, into his mouth and chomped.

I apologized that I spoke Russian poorly. I studied it 16, no 17, years ago. '16 Years! 17 Years!' He stopped, holding out his arms dramatically. 'Russian language.... everything...' he said pointing around. 'It is heart!'

His sister and niece pulled soberly up in a car and, when Nikolai opened the door, I dutifully got in. They took me to a bus stop down the road, the women laughing at the drunken rants.

As I got out, Nikolai offered 'it is better to walk and talk.'

Vladivostok Cat Walk

Some say the '70s were the Soviet hippie decade -- when rock music first made its appearance, along with long hair and whatnot -- and looking around the streets of Vladivostok, or listening to tunes playing in any of many cafes, you'd wonder if the 2000s is their '80s. Forgotten songs by Bon Jovi, Journey and Mr Mister are blasted in Italian-run pizzerias, reminding me of how earnest, and shameless, and over-the-top in the wrongest ways, that decade was. By the '90s, we learned some subtley, or at least that it might not be such a bad thing to dress up like we were eternally raking leaves -- in used clothes, beaten-up clothes, whatever.

There's a lot of status made by the pants and top you're wearing in Russia. There's the saying here that in Russia 'you're greeted by what you wear, then judged for your mind.' I met an ethnic Korean manager of Vladivostok's hottest club OKNO -- which refers to the full window that overlooks the bay as well as the idea that it's 'OK' or 'No,' meaning do what you want, or don't. It's $120 to get in. But that includes all you want to drink. From 10pm to 4am. The manager, wearing a 1000 euro pair of Dolce & Gabbana pants he bought in Italy, said, 'It's a club for priveleged people. Though sometimes people come with their last rubles, wanting to seem like they live a luxurious life, even if they don't.' He made his way up from nothing. 'I had $6000 six years ago, started an advertising company, now this.' He says most Russians are 'too lazy' to work for what they want. He bought a Bentley a week ago. 'Right now it's a great car, next week it'll be good, in four weeks, I'll forget about it.'

That sounds bad, but he's really not. He was genuinely interested when I mentioned how 'suits' is often a derogatory term in the US, and that we dress more like Soviets than they do. 'This shirt I'm wearing,' I said motioning to a button-up shirt I wear on every research trip, 'cost me $5 at a used store ten years ago.'

Vladivostok's setting -- on Twin Peaks' style hills, overlooking a bay named after Istanbul's Golden Horn -- is gorgeous, but the scenes on the streets aren't. Small parks are overrun with knee-high weeds. Even central plazas are laid in concrete, adding to the gray. But the cracked sidewalks are practically a catwalk. Whenever I speak to someone, they're friendly, but sometimes I feel like I'm back in a high-school hallway, ashamed not to be wearing Tommy H.

Aeroflot Debut

FLYING TO RUSSIA
I'll be updating Russia's Far East for Lonely Planet over the next two months. Typically the fun started before getting there...

I've flown all across Russia, but had never taken an Aeroflot flight until Tuesday. My debut in the orange-and-blue, as their design on the inside of the jets goes, went smooth to Moscow, an eight-hour flight, but then went haywire. After busing to a nearby terminal, I waited in the middle of three lines to check in for the next leg (Moscow to Vladivostok, seven time zones east). A family butted in front of me just as it became my turn, then the luggage ticket machine broke as I stepped up. The clerk didn't say a word. Text messaging on her phone. After a couple minutes I asked, 'not work?' in Russian, and she frowned and pointed to the long lines to the left and right. Nothing more. I'd wait anyway. Within a couple minutes, a gray-haired guy, though, was playing with the machine, opening up the inside and pulling out a spool that looked something like a device you'd see in shop class in 1980s Oklahoma public schools. After five or so minutes, she started printing out the luggage tickets on her neighbors machine. On we went.

The flight was delayed, at first, for four hours. 'We are fixing plane.' I was impressed in how they handled it though. Within 10 minutes, we had 540 ruble vouchers, which I and a fellow stranded passenger from Vladivostok, mistakenly took it to a potato bar, which didn't accept them. Eventually we spent the 540 rubles -- over $21 -- on chocolate, beer and hot tea, paying for the potato. Sat next to the smoking area of the airport. An simple stand where a cluster of men and women blew smoke into the open waiting hall.

The flight was delayed another five hours. 'Flight will leave at 4am. Still trying to fix plane.' Still, Aeroflot came through. Within 15 minutes, we were all put onto a bus and taken to a nearby hotel for four hours' of sleep. Classic communist-era hotel but redone (ie Michael Scott-sized flat-screen TV on wall). They bunked two per room, regardless if you knew them. Two twin beds uneasily side by side. I got a Russian guy who came in later; 'a-lo?' he said, waking me up. At 4am the hotel called everyone -- my Russian bunkmate didn't notice, and I had to practically yell. 'Give me minute.' I did.

When the wheels hit the Vladivostok runway nine hours later, everyone clapped. On the way back I think I'll get the Aeroflot t-shirt they offer. Twenty-five euro. Anyone need one?