I probably would have posted before now, except that I temporarily lost control of my domain name and I could not get to my website, no thanks to Registerfly. In case you don’t know, that’s the domain name registration company where I (and a lot of other people) have registered domain names, and it seems that they have had a complete meltdown. Here’s a link, for those that are really curious:
http://public.icann.org/issues/registerfly/review
Anyway, enough about that. For those that don’t know, I am on a “round the world” trip, visiting a number of customers and accomplishing a number of jobs, all in the same trip.
Stop #1 was Sakhalin Island in Russia, actually fairly near Alaska. Stop #2 (where I am now) is Barcelona, Spain. Stop #3 is Teesside, England for a training class, and Stop #4 is Bontang, Indonesia. I left home on May 4, and I’m not really sure when I’ll be returning home. This is not normal, in case you were wondering. I don’t usually have this many things to do all in one trip. But that’s the way it happened this time.
I would like to tell you about my experiences in Russia; it was my first time there, and I really enjoyed it. I won’t bother with any apologies, but this is in my usual style–lots of details. (You don’t have to read it!) So here we go….
Moscow
It took me two overnight flights to get to Sakhalin Island, one to get to Moscow, the second to go all the way across Russia to Sakhalin Island. It would have been a little bit shorter to go the other way (west instead of east), and I would have probably gone through Japan or Korea, but there were only flights on certain days if I went that way. Going the other way gave me more flexibility and fit my travel plans better.
After I found out that I was going to Russia, I asked around to see if we had any Christian contacts in Moscow, and it turned out that we did. On the night before I left, I was able to establish contact with Ilya, a friend of a friend of a friend. It turned out that he was in Amsterdam the week before and was returning to Moscow on the same day I was arriving. I was arriving in the morning at one airport in Moscow, and I needed to leave from another airport in Moscow in the evening. It turned out that he had left his car at the airport, and he said that if I waited for him to arrive, he would be glad to take me to the other airport. I was very grateful for this. We arranged to meet in a restaurant on the 5th floor of the airport.
I found the restaurant without any difficulty and went in and sat down. I was not terribly hungry, since I had had something to eat on the plane, and since it was about 2:00 a.m. where I came from, my stomach wasn’t really sure that it was time for another meal. They gave me a menu, and I looked it over. Then something caught my eye… caviar. After hearing about it for years (it’s always referred to in American culture as a food for the rich), I thought… perhaps this is my time to try caviar! It was about the same price as a glass of juice, so I ordered both! In the photo you can see what it looks like. To me it tasted just like smoked salmon. This is red caviar; I was told that black caviar is much more expensive.
So I dined on caviar and sipped my juice and waited for Ilya. He came in a couple hours after I did, and it gave me time to get some stuff done on the computer that I didn’t have time to do before I left. I was thankful that I didn’t feel too sleepy. I had been able to rest on the plane enough to keep me going.
Ilya arrived and walked strait over to me–I guess it’s not hard to spot an American in Moscow. We went out to his car and headed off. He wanted to show me around a little, so we went straight into downtown Moscow. He pointed out the first McDonalds, and we saw examples of Stalin era architecture. We were trying to get to the Kremlin, but it was difficult, as it seemed every way we went was blocked off in preparation for a parade and festivities on the upcoming holiday. At one point a bicycle race whizzed by–I almost missed it!
Finally, we made it to the Kremlin. Not bad for only being in Moscow for a few hours! We saw a few more interesting sights.
I didn’t know that the Soviet Union had a space shuttle that actually flew. When the economy collapsed, they had to kill the program.
I think it was quite kind of Ilya to give me a guided Moscow tour.
I’m sure there’s a lot more to see in Moscow, but that was about all I had time for.
After the tour through downtown Moscow, he picked up his wife. They are both doctors. Ilya works in private industry, and she is working as a neurologist. It was interesting to hear a little about the medical field in Russia.
We finally reached the other airport, where it was time to catch my second overnight flight.
Sakhalin Island
Sakhalin Island is not a small island, so you really don’t even know you’re on an island. A driver from the company picked me up, along with someone else that was on the same flight. Actually we were surprised to see each other on the bus, because we had sat on the same row in the airplane, but had not really talked! He is a Philippino working at the Russian embassy. He came to hand carry ballots for the Philippinos working on the site so that they could vote in the election back home!
It was about an hour by bus to the site, and after a while the pavement ended, and it was a bumpy road. First I went to the office on site so they could give me a quick orientation, the key to my room in the camp, etc., then they took me to the camp. The camp is a very large collection of prefabricated structures; if all are the same as the one I was in, each one has two dwellings, each consisting of a bedroom and bathroom. As you can see from the photo, the room is simple, but adequate. I was told that there are over 6,000 people in the camp. The only major problem for me was that there was no Internet access (or telephone) in the camp, so it hindered things a bit for me.
The ride to my room was the last individual ride I got until it was time to leave the site.
Here is the daily routine: You walk to the cafeteria in the morning and have breakfast. The last bus runs from in front of the cafeteria to the site office at 7:45 a.m., so you are on site before 8:00. You work until about 12:00 then take the bus back to the cafeteria. The last bus returns from the cafeteria at 1:15 p.m. Then, of course, you work for the afternoon. The last bus returns to the cafeteria at 8:40 p.m., in time to get you to the cafeteria before 9:00 p.m. when it closes. (I would usually stay at the office in order to do email or other Internet work, so often times I would end up taking the 8:20 or 8:40 bus.) The front of the cafeteria is the only drop off/pick up point; you have to walk from there to whatever part of the camp you are staying in. (This is a breeze if it’s just you, but if you’re carrying a backpack and a very heavy briefcase… it tends to give you some exercise. Also, if the weather is bad, it gets more exciting.) This routine basically assures that you will get 3 meals a day, on a fairly regimented schedule.