scubatimo.be - Travels - Russia Moscow and Istra

Russia: Moscow and Istra

Saturday June 9, 2001: Departure from Belgium and arrival at Istra

The big day has arrived for Timo. A dream will come through as he leaves with Eef to Moscow. He is waiting for this to happen and waiting to go there for the last couple of years and now it’s his time to go to Russia. We have to leave at 13:00, but we all should gather at 10:30 at the airport building, close to the big monument in the hallway. We were going with a whole group of people, musicians, who rather went to Moscow to play music. We indeed arrive at 10:30 and there already are some people from the organization committee (Music union of Belgium). Antoine van den Eede is the responsible person here – you’ll notice his name later in the report. After a lot of fuzz about the instruments (they have to travel too) we can walk through customs control. Timo already has to explain some thing in Russian to the guy, who is loading the airplane. His first test how it is with the knowledge of his Russian. All is settled and we can go to buy some tax-free cigarettes and liquor. That’s nice. We check some things out and then need to board. We are on the airplane and we waiting for it to leave. One guy says: “There is a technical problem, we can’t leave yet.” Everybody started thinking, Jesus, with Aeroflot, that smells like trouble, but soon it is clear there is no issue and the plane can leave after half an hour. When we are on the normal altitude and cruising speed, the lights ‘no smoking’ are extinguished and we can light a cigarette. Who would have guessed that, that we still could smoke. It takes about 2 hours to fly there, so we make sure we are comfortable. Almost immediately they provide a meal and it is a nice meal: we have the choice between two warm dishes and then there are some cold things accompanying it: salad, melted cheese, normal cheese and a dessert. The service is very good. When we start to descend, we have a great view on different lakes, woods, rivers; it looks very promising. After a very good flight we land at Sjeremetevo, the airport just outside of Moscow. We receive a lot of SMS on the mobile phones: Kim Clijsters plays the final of Roland Garros today against Capriati – she lost the game in three sets. Then we need to queue: everybody needs to pass the passport control and the people there are not really in the mood to work: we need to wait for 45 minutes until all the 48 people have passed the control. Then we need to collect out luggage: surprisingly everything is on time. We have all luggage and everybody is happy. Many people did not expect this. Then we gather in the big en antique arrival hall of the airport. Then the second test comes, the meeting with our host: Roman Oleksius. Everything works out fine. When everyone has collected their luggage and all instruments have arrived well, we can get on the bus to Istra. Two buses wait, really old ones, you would not be driving this in Belgium. Dirty from the outside, greasy and filthy from the inside, but they drive and we can go. The time is already 18:00 now and it’s two hours later than in Belgium. We haven’t left the airport more than 10 minutes and we see only lakes and woods, very nice, surprising there is that many nature close to a big city. We slowly move and it starts to get dark. On the highway the people can perfectly drive 6 along each other, although there are only three lanes; two normal ones and an emergency lane. Even that one is fully used, there are even two cars on it. But then there a bigger problem, because there are works in progress and there is a traffic jam. The car are running overheated and they have to stop along the road and wait for the engine to cool down. At first there is only one, but the after driving 30 minutes there is one after the other. Cars packed with everything: living chicken, food, clothing,… After a three hour drive we arrive at the place where we‘re staying. It looks like a big park, it is very dark and we’re dropped in two different houses. Then the difficult part begins: dividing the rooms. There was an initial agreement, but that seemed to be more difficult than normally. First there were trouble in one building, because they did not want to do it as was previously agreed. That could be arranged rather quickly. After a while all rooms were taken there. But in the other building two people should stay in the same room (man and woman) and they did not know each other. Thanks to the diplomacy of Timo everything got settled finally after 2 hours. It is already 23:00. Timo hears via rumors that there will be something to eat in another block, but there are some people that don’t know this. Of which one is Eef. Timo goes out to knock on all the doors in both buildings: it seems that another 6 people were not informed. We then go out to search where the restaurant is and hope there is something left. We still receive something to eat, but the knifes and forks were dirty, the tables were not clean; everything was very dirty. Some people were already becoming rather angry. After diner a rehearsal needs to take place according to the Russian organizer with all the different countries of musicians together. Our group doesn’t want to: we have had a day that was way too exhausting, they want to go to bed. We stay for about half an hour and then indeed go to bed, because we’re very tired. It is 01:00.

Sunday June 10, 2001: Moscow and city square of Istra

We both slept very good the past night, but we are woken up very early, especially because a lot of things going on yesterday. We now have a good view on the quality of the rooms. The water from the sink and shower smell and with a bit of luck there is warm water. But it seems we’re very lucky: in the room of other people the plaster is coming from the ceiling and the walls. We also see now in what type of environment they have dropped us: a beautiful area where in the past young sportsmen were encamped to be fully concentrated on the education. For these young people and for that time this was very luxurious. We receive a good breakfast with dirty cutlery: they serve some strange king of porridge, that most don’t like; we don’t fancy this either, but we eat it. What are the plans for the first active day here? We try to receive some info from the Russians and immediately there is a visit scheduled to Moscow but after the rehearsal. We had to wait for the busses anyway, they were not yet there. We had to get up very very early and then wait until 10:00 before we can leave by bus. We go on the bus and with a mind full of expectations to Moscow. Will it not be disappointing? Will it be worth the visit? We drive on the highway to Moscow and drive into the centre of the city and see huge avenues, magnificent old buildings and new flats next to one another. The closer we get, the more we see beautiful architecture. We haven’t seen the Kremlin yet, but this beats everything already. We pass along arches, huge parks, beautiful building. After a ride of 1.5 hour we stop right next to the cathedral of saint Basil. WOW. Right away pictures are taken, because this is just great. Everybody knows this from TV, but if you see it real time this is something special. After enjoying this beautiful cathedral we walk through Moscow. We walk round the cathedral and arrive on the Red Square. Timo is very emotional; he is moved by the moment. We manage to get to Moscow. Wow again! The red Square is huge, in the distance there is the Museum for Modern Art, the golden domes of the Kremlin and right in front of us the GUM (Main Universal Store). We don’t have a lot of time now, so we need to make a choice: either we choose to see the Mausoleum that we can only visit now, or the Kremlin itself, that is open all the time. But because we will be going to Moscow itself only once this week, we prefer the Kremlin. Behind the GUM we walk on to a street with many bancs. It’s Sunday, so they’re all closed, but some smaller exchange offices are open, so everyone goes and exchanges USD into Ruble. That takes a while. Then we go to the grave of the Unknown Soldier to the entrance gate of the Kremlin. It is huge, enormous. The will be the ruling impression of Moscow and Russia in general: everything is big, huge, beautifully built and decorated, the more expensive the better. We have some bad luck at the entrance of the Kremlin. Suddenly a shower comes out of nowhere. It rains like heaven will be torn apart. It’s not very warm, it is not even 10 degrees. But Eef and I don’t bother about that: we want to see the Kremlin. Everybody enters under guidance of Tanja, a local interpreter, who took days off – she is teacher German and English – to guide us. So a guided walk with an interpreter, who is almost not understandable for us. Anyhow, I (and as a consequence also Eef) understand the most bits that are written in Russian. Through an enormous gate we enter en we visit different cathedrals, museums, … There are about 20 of those inside the Kremlin. We are torn away from a lot of spot, because our guide has a high tempo. Some person can’t even follow us. In one of the cathedrals many tsars and tsarinas are buried. We enjoy the tour and are there for about 2 hours – in the Kremlin only. It is very big, the area where it is located and the buildings themselves. The cathedrals, the towers, in short everything is just marvelous. We go out of the Kremlin and then the rain stops an bad weather stops. It still is cold, but it’s dry at least. We get some free time to do what we like ourselves. Some drink a Stella Artois in the Red Square. We got out to find some Culture. We walk through the centre, look at statues and we watch everything, because you don’t see things like this every day. According to what was said, we meet at the bus at 14:30. Right in front of the bus we sat down and looked at the cathedral for some ten more minutes. Only looking and loving the view. We leave with a delay of 10 minutes to the camp. It really looked like a camp, because you could not go in or go out freely. There was a guard, who screened everybody before they could enter; she was waiting in a house at the gate and that gate was closed with heavy chains. We arrive there at 16:00 and should get something to eat. I think not many people ate: there was mashed potatoes on the menu and fish, but it all was very greasy. On the potatoes a kind of fat was floating, and we could not identify where it came from. In the evening there was a meeting in the city square of Istra with a few other bands from Russia and a few singers from France and Germany. They celebrated the 250th birthday of the city and some events were organized today, tomorrow and the day after: here in the square and also away from Istra, close to Moscow. Apparently there was a big rehearsal today on the big town square and some people were receiving a tribute, veterans from – I don’t know which – war. The rehearsals are OK and we get some free time to walk around in Istra. There are some stand with lots of things for sale: from sweeties to vodka. Vodka and beer are very popular and some of the locals were pretty drunk. After this short intermezzo we return to the buildings and there was another rehearsal and we received food. After diner we all gather at the bar – because there was one – we drink some more and later in the evening we can go and watch the fireworks in Istra. We don’t join the group to the fireworks. It’s all been too exhausting today and we still have tomorrow and the day after. That way our second day here comes to an end. The speaking of Russian is starting to work out fine. I already understand everything better than the first day and they understand me better. It will all be OK.

Monday June 11, 2001: New Jerusalem and celebration in Istra

In the morning we again get up early, we get the same kind of food: you don’t need culinary reasons to go to Russia, but for so many other things you need to go. That statement will be proven when we visit the monastery of New Jerusalem. After breakfast we can leave for the monastery. It’s not really far away, so we don’t loose too much time on the road and that’s OK, because to Moscow we are in the bus for 1.5 hours. We are already there at 10:30 and can enter with the whole group. Then we divide into smaller groups: one for a translation in German, another for French. We join the group from Tanja, who speaks German. The first impression we have from Russia is typically Russian: everything is huge and everything is decorated as expensive as possible, even to the domes that are laid with gold leaf. So we now can enter. It is a monastery built by patriarch Nikon in 1656. it was constructed during a period of time of several years with the monastery in Jerusalem as model, hence the name New Jerusalem. It seems that, if you compare the ground plans they’re actually not completely alike, but that is more or less logic: the patriarch was not an architect, but did that job then. They even have a room, of which the Russians say that the grave of Jesus is there. And they actually believe that. The monastery was partially destroyed and rebuilt, but 1 thing will never be rebuilt. There was a clock-tower where 20 giant bells were located. Now only one clock is conserved in the garden around the monastery. Behind the monastery there also is a museum with things from the monastery itself, but also with general architecture and art, even with contemporary art. We check everything out very well and we return to our quarters with a whole bag of culture and knowledge. Then we need to have another rehearsal with all different groups together. They all have practiced the same pieces of music, but it is not easy to make sure a couple of hundred musicians, who speak different languages, to start simultaneously and play well together. In the end everything works out fine. Right after midday there is a parade with all groups, musicians and artists. Also we join in the parade and we even receive a place of honour, right in front of the group from Istra itself. We had a lot of success with the locals, maybe also because we are from Belgium. Those people probably never heard of Belgium. The parade stops at the city square of Istra, where all festivities are. There every group will give a separate concert. Everybody plays a piece of a local composer. For Belgium these are mainly Flemish, but they also do credit to Shostakovich and the audience loves this. But before it came to that, that was something else. From the start everybody had to stay in the heat. The colder it was yesterday, the hotter it is today. It must be around 30 degrees and we had to wait dressed for the concert, that’s not easy. At first the Belgians need to start at 15:00, then it becomes 16:00, then later at 16:30 and eventually they receive the chance to perform, after they have been up and off the stage for a few times. It is already starting to get dark and it’s almost 18:00. Then as last group the hosts come and thank all foreign groups. But the Belgian group doesn’t feel like it anymore, except for Antoine. So everybody shows little or no interest when they honor Antoine and that in itself is funny. Then we can do what we like. There was a stand with sates. That was very successful with everyone from the group. That was food and not like the food we’ve been having. Everybody returns with a full stomach at 20:00 to eat something in the camp, but nobody pays attention to it, because we’ve all had something already. The musicians play some more to practice for tomorrow. At 23:00 we go to sleep and a small minority goes and watches the fireworks. That was a festive end of the Fourth International Festival of the Wind-bands. They probably had a lot of fun, but we were very happy we could go to bed.

Tuesday June 12, 2001: Play music the whole day and a good end to the day

In the morning we get up early again. The weather was not looking too good today. From early in the morning it was very drizzly. The weather is really strange here. One day it is very hot and sunny, the next one it is awfully bad and such a day it will be today. After a brief rehearsal we get on the bus, to drive to the first location, where 5 bands will give a short concert. We drive to the direction of Moscow. We arrive in a big park – actually a huge one – and drive a few times around the park in circles; it seems like they don’t know where they need to be. The park has a huge arch and this serves ad a museum from the First World War and is the meeting point for the musicians. It rains the whole time and the Russian guys want to play in the rain, but the Belgians don’t like it. Of course not, the Russians don’t have expensive instruments and they don’t even own them, so they don’t mind the instruments get totally wet. Everybody from our group has their own instruments. Under the arch everybody gets a place. It’s dry here, but extremely cold; the wind blows here very hard. After about an hour everybody has set everything up correctly and then Roman decides to enter the hall of the arch and play inside. They receive the approval to do so, in our eyes this would not be possible in Belgium at all. We should try this in a museum in Belgium. But Russian people don’t have good organizational skills and they just do something. After a lot of time being lost, they manage everything. The concert is good, without an audience, but it sounds OK. Antoine then provides a lot of comments to me and I don’t like it at all, but I just leave him. The next stop is a different park, where a podium was erected for this special occasion for the musicians. There is also a group of children from Belarus; those little guys are being dragged everywhere and they just do what they’re being asked. Everybody starts to be a bit annoyed by lack of organization. Due to the time-loss in the bus and in the Poklonnij-Mountains, the time for lunch has already passed, but nobody reacts on this. Next to the podium there is a bungalow where you can eat something. We look like a pack of hungry wolves. Everything was sold within half an hour. And then all of a sudden I need to start a presentation for this concert and I’m think something like: don’t play with me. At first I need to do the presentation, then not, then I need to, then again not and now the last thing is I need to do it, without preparation, I’m not doing this. And then again the sates I ordered are almost ready. So I arrange Tanja and Roman will do the presentation and I can go and eat something, because there was not enough at the previous booth. The concert does not take long: it had stopped raining for a moment, but after three songs it started again and they don’t want to have wet instruments. Then it’s already 16:00. a few people have enough and start a complot against Antoine and Roman. They try to still go to Moscow and Timo plays a very important role here as ‘The negotiator’. Antoine has had it and gives up. Roman continues to argue with us; we still want to see Moscow another time. It would be a shame to only see the city for 2 hours if you’re there for 5 days. Besides there were two Belgian (father and son) who had overslept the first time and they did not see it at all. We thought it was not proper and after a long time negotiating and discussing Roman gave in. this was not OK for Antoine, but we did not care a bit. On the bus and to Moscow. The most people still want to eat something and check out the shops another time for a typical Russian gift for home. The deal is we can spend another two hours here in the city. We need to be back at 20:30 at the bus. Everybody goes to the Red Square and stays in that area. We also go there and to the GUM, we buy matroesjka for my grandmother and go to the other bank of the Moscow-river. Following small streets we see the building of the Ministry of foreign affairs. Great architecture and again unbelievably big. On the bridge Timo sees a church with green domes and he wants to see this. We go though a normal part of Moscow, that provides a different impression than the richer part on the other side. We discover some more churches – we think Moscow has a thousand, after every corner we see one – and come to the green domed church through small alleys. Not far away we se Mac Donalds and we go there and buy something. Normally we would never do this on vacation, but as we stated above, you don’t need to be in Russia for haute cuisine. Afterwards we return to the bus, because it starts to rain. Everybody is on the bus at 20:30 and I start counting if everybody is there. One women is not yet here. She went out by herself to China Town, but she lost track f time and she could not reach the subway on time. After about 20 minutes she shows and we can return to our camp. There is at this moment a big banquet for us with vodka, special snacks and special main dishes. This time it was really good, but nobody was hungry because they ate too much in Moscow. The only thing they did was drink and after dinner Antoine bought everybody a drink. That was the only good thing he did the entire trip. On all other occasions he made himself that unpopular because he did not bother about anybody, but still wanted to steel the show. With a feeling of contentment everybody goes to be. Not everybody, because there are some musicians who don’t want to give up and they say they want to spend the whole night and leave tomorrow. We just go to bed, because it’s an early rise at 05:00 in the morning.

Wednesday June 13, 2001: Departure from Moscow and arrival in Belgium

Bombardons, flourish of trumpets. Now it really looks like we’re in a camp, but the idea was to have everyone awake and this way it worked out. Everybody starts to pack, most of us already did this yesterday. We need to be at the airport at 07:30, because the plane leaves at 09:40. Some of our group run around in the area pretty drunk, we have to take them too. One of them was even sleeping in his own vomit and nobody could wake him up. Eventually he’s awake and someone gives him a new shirt. Then it becomes clear to everyone we’re in trouble, the drunk guy, Emiel went with some Russians to his room and later they see the wallet from Emiels roommate is stolen. Everyone makes conclusions that it were those Russian guys who did it and that a problem when you’re in Russia. Eventually we find the conductor has the wallet. He gave it to Mark the day before. He was lucky. All instruments are loaded onto the buses and all people too and we can leave to the airport. At 08:00 we arrive there – with a big delay – at the airport building. We say goodbye to Roman and leave to Belgium. Emiel – the drunk one – starts to complain like hell because he does not find his airplane ticket anymore; he must have lost if somewhere. Antoine comes to me and commands me: Emiel has lost his ticket, arrange it so he can fly with us. That is not my task and I don’ take that responsibility. I think it’s too dangerous. Roman is then trying to arrange something and he receives a duplicate of Emiels ticket and pays 150 USD. He can fly back home now. But all problems are not yet solved. I need to make sure the luggage gets onto the plane without too many problems. The large parts need to be shipped separately. Everything is checked thoroughly, but time is coming we need to get our flight. Emiel does not find his little saxophone. Make sure you find it. I’m not supposed to watch everybody’s things; they are all old enough. Eventually that is OK too. I’m the first one to reach luggage control and I’m talking to the stewardess. She’s giving us a hard time and she thinks all instruments need to be unpacked and checked before they can let through. We have a little discussion and some Dollars open a lot of gates in Russia. We give her a couple of 100 BEF and she then says all Belgians can go through with a luggage check, this is bribery, but it helps. Everybody can go trough the check-in, but then we still have passport control. At 09:30 there are still 10 persons to wait from our group at the check. In our queue there are 7 and in the other one 3. it takes about 5 minutes per person and in that scenario we will not make our flight. So I go to the counter first and start to argue a bit with the person; they need to move on because we need to catch our flight within 10 minutes. Suddenly the queue we were in is going on very fast and everybody comes through at the same time. We still need to wait for the other three, but they are also on time. In the meantime Antoine is already on the airplane. Eef was still before Timo and bought some cigarettes and liquor in the duty free shops. There is already a last call for the flight from Moscow to Brussels and we rush to the gate. As last ones Eef and Timo arrive on board. Before we can say or do something, we depart. There is plenty of free spaces on the plane, so everyone lays down and tries to sleep. Timo enjoys the sight and tries to rest some time too. The food on board is now much better. Our stomachs have adapted to eating little things or nothing at all. Around noon we arrive in Brussels and the weather is very bad. It’s always like this in Belgium: it’s always raining when you return from a far destination. We say goodbye to our fellow travelers, who first need to wait for their instruments and we see everything has come trough without damage and that is wonderful. Mom Betty and dad Maurits are waiting and we can eat and drink very good at home. We’re tires from traveling, but we experienced one of the most splendid things in our travel-career. It really is something we will have to do again, but then with people we like. We surely will. With Eef, Linda and Roeland or someone.