Lately we have been enjoying the bounty of the May and June holidays here in Russia. The bounty stems more from the number of days surrounding the holidays that are somehow deemed non-working days as well rather than the actual holidays themselves. For example, if a holiday happens to fall on a Thursday workplaces are then closed on Fridays as well in order to "bridge" the holiday to the weekend. To be honest it seems that most workplaces wrap things up on Tuesday afternoon considering it just plain rude to expect anyone to have to work on Wednesday the prelude day to the holiday. Mondays following holidays then allow for slow re-entry into the work week. For someone (Erik) who actually has a finite amount of time in which to accomplish something with a Russian state institution these holidays might be maddening, but for someone (Me) who has a lot of free time and likes parades the holidays are a welcome event and a chance to get out of Moscow.
The most recent set of holidays was in celebration of День России (Russia Day) during which we were supposed to celebrate the sovereignty of the Russian Federation. We chose to do this by traveling to Kazan the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. Tatarstan named for the Tatar people who are the descendants of the Golden Horde (the Mongol khanate that once ruled Russia) is an ethnically mixed region of Tatars who are mainly muslim, and ethnic Russians. For me it was a chance to see something besides Moscow and St. Petersburg and the other familiar tourist sites and it was a chance to take the train!
I generally love all forms of transportation; trains, planes, subways, trolleys, and buses so I was excited to settle in for 15 hours of train travel in Russia. I have romantic 19th century notions of trains and was looking forward to the overnight journey. We prepared for the journey by buying all forms of food and beverage that can be constituted or reconstituted by adding hot water (this being the only thing available on the train since our train did not have a dining car)--tea, dehydrated mashed potatoes, & cup-of-noodles. Then of course there was the vodka which is a staple of Russian train travel. Erik and I and our two friends got a sleeping car for four which is a cozy little compartment with two beds on either side stacked like bunk beds and a table in-between. All was lovely except that it was 85 degrees outside and you cannot open the windows in the compartments. We weren't able to figure out why there was a prohibition on fresh air. We assume it was the Russian fear that fresh air is really something much more dangerous called a "draft" and if the draft gets you you'll become instantly sick even in 85 degree heat.
We had been warned by many of the Russians that we told that we were going to Kazan that the "Asian part" of Russia is very different than Moscow somehow implying that it was crazy and chaotic. It was indeed different it was very lovely. With a population of just over a million people Kazan was much more manageable and less unwieldy than Moscow and the people were downright friendly. None of this is to say that Moscow isn't an amazing city but after awhile in Moscow you begin to feel like all 14 million of its residents are sharing your metro car and with you and you feel like you've been chided by at least 10 million of it's residents for not doing something correctly. But it turns out you can escape them all for Kazan. I was ready to pack up and move to Kazan. Forget Russian language lessons, I'll learn Tatar. The city has a beautiful 16th century Kremlin with the mosque inside it reconstructed in the mid 1990's. Our love affair with Kazan continued with a cruise on the Volga river by far the biggest river I've ever seen and a trip to the spice market which brought back fond memories of Turkey for me. Best of all our hotel had a swimming pool and a sauna. However by the third day having realized that the entire local population was open-mouthed staring at us every time we spoke English to each other and we had eaten at the same Turkish restaurant on numerous occasions we realized that maybe we were ready for Moscow again where no one bats an eye at your foreigner status (for better or worse). After our 15 hour train ride home my need for train travel was satiated for quite awhile.
Click here for more pictures of our trip to Kazan
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