Two additional posts were written by Brennan Hylla. He added them to his personal blog and they can be read here.

By Michael Martin

I thought that I should be the one to write about the “Russian Train” topic, because even though we all went to Moscow on an overnight train from Saint Petersburg, I was the only one also riding back to Saint Petersburg on a train, but this time, during the day. We did not talk much about trains during the course or over the trip, but still, I think that trains are interesting. We have trains in America of course, but I do not think that most people use them that much or think about them that much. I mean, people use the trains in America, but I think that they are a much smaller part of the story of how people get around there. We have a pretty good interstate road system that people use to drive themselves from one part of the country to another. Then of course there are planes which is how most people in America go from one part of the country to another.

In Russia, however, it is often cheaper and easier to go by train. For one thing, in the big cities like Saint Petersburg and Moscow at least, a lot of people do not have cars. Public transportation is good enough, and the roads are bad enough, that it just does not make any sense for most people to even own a car. So they are not driving between the cities so that they can bring their cars with them, like many people do in America. There is not a lot of difference in price between a plane ticket and a train ticket, but the train is the much more comfortable method of travel. The train may rock a bit, but so do planes and there is no turbulence on a train. There is also no ear popping from quick pressure changes. The overnight trains also have the added benefit of being able to lay down and get some proper sleep (depending on how loudly your cabin mates snore, sorry guys!), which can also be seen as saving one night’s accommodation. The train may take longer than a plane, but if you consider having to get to the airport early, checking in, possible delays, and this sort of thing, you will that the time basically evens out.

I found this website, https://www.seat61.com/Russia-trains.htm. According to its guide to “Moscow to Saint Petersburg by train,” Moscow to St Petersburg is the most popular route in Russia. Well we did the opposite, Saint Petersburg to Moscow. Probably still pretty popular. The beds and the dining car were a nice change of pace from the cramped seats of airplanes, or the huddled masses of people, not all of whom bathe on a regular basis, of the city metros. Speaking of bathing, the train had showers! I did not use it because it felt like too much of a hassle right before we were all about to walk around outside all day, but it is nice to have the option.

There were the other trains too, of course. First there was the trip to Masha’s dacha. This train was much simpler. It was not going anywhere overnight, our trip was about an hour, and it was pretty much straight to the point. The seats were not particularly comfortable, but they served their purpose, like the train itself. I was able to get a few pictures of Russian countryside. Then there was the train back to Saint Petersburg. It was somewhere between the other two in terms of comfort and general niceness. The seats were like airplane seats, but with a little more leg room. There was a bit of confusion boarding. I was told a seat number by the lady scanning passports, but someone else was in that seat. A few others were in the situation too, including an older lady who really looked like she needed to sit. We stood and waited for them to figure it out, and eventually they put us all in the next forward car, which actually looked a little bit nicer. I do not know if this disorganization is a Russian thing, or a company thing or what, but it felt a bit unprofessional. The train employees were great about it, and dealing with me not understanding them, but how do mistakes like that happen? I got a few pictures out the windows of that train also.

Some people say that riding the train in Russia is part of the “Russian experience.” I don’t know about that, but it is something a lot of Russians do, so maybe. I do not think there was anything in particular about the trains that influenced my perceptions of Russian culture. Perhaps just that it was another setting to interact with Russian people. The more I do that, the more I feel like even though there are unique aspects of Russian culture and people, just like there are with all cultures and people, they are not so very different, enigmatic, or mysterious.

By Michael Martin

The 22nd of May 2018. It was day 18 of our Russian study abroad trip. We went to see Vladimir Lenin. It was interesting to visit not only an important historical figure’s grave, but to see the person’s body, or what is left of it, preserved for the purpose (I have to assume) of allowing us, the visitors, the tourists, the students, and maybe even some Russian people, the opportunity to witness this great leader of Russia, just as he was when he was alive… or as close as possible. Such an attraction leaves one with many things to think about.

First, who was Vladimir Lenin? Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, he was a hugely influential figure in Russian history. He was the leader of Russian Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union. He and his ideas helped take Russia from a monarchy, to Communist superpower, to what it is today.

So why keep him preserved like that? No one else is afforded this honor, if you want to call it that. I have heard some people (not Russians) say that it is disrespectful to keep him like this. That they should just let him be buried already, leave his body alone, let him decompose and return to earth, and that sort of thing. I do not know the exact process, but to keep preserved like that somebody has to touch him. They have to manipulate his body, put stuff into it, maybe take things out, he is probably naked during some parts of the process. Many things have to be done that would normally be considered “defiling a dead body” in almost any other circumstance. If the idea is to honor a hero, is this really the way to do it?

There is another part of this that I do not think is discussed enough. Looking at him, I remember thinking that he did not look real. He looked like a wax dummy. A really well done wax dummy, but still, a wax dummy. A few other students said the same thing. I have seen dead bodies before, both in funerals and unfortunately, not in funerals. There is a similar thought looking at any deceased person, no matter how recent or how well preserved they are. So why go through all this trouble? Why not put him to rest, and make a wax dummy that people can see?

I have tried asking a few Russian people about their thoughts on the subject. There seems to be a mix of a little bit of nostalgia as a lot of older Russians do miss the Soviet Union, a little bit of “this is the way it is and has been,” (the Russians do seem to like their traditions), but mostly it seems as though most of the Russian people do not really even think about it at all.

Maybe it is just a draw for tourist revenue. Maybe it is a form of “honor” that I just do not understand. Earlier in the trip, I tried to argue that Russia is unique to the East and the West, and ended up with the conclusion that they are not so very different. But perhaps in this way they are, because this is just not something that people do in civilized society. I am not trying to say that Russians are uncivilized, but this practice of preserving and displaying Lenin’s body feels rather uncivilized.

There were no pictures allowed to be taken inside, but I took some pictures of the building outside, there is also a picture of Lenin from British newspaper, The Guardian, taken from this website: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/15/lenin-body-moscow-burying-news.

by Ryan McRowe

Known to Americans and Western Europe as the Russian theater of the Second World War, the Great Patriotic War was fought from June 22, 1941 with the launching of Operation Barbarossa until May 9, 1945 when Germany officially surrendered. The conflict pitted the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany and its allies in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Finland, and Italy. Battles in this theater were by far the largest and bloodiest of the entire war and even of the century, armies numbering sometimes in the millions would clash, often for months, and would leave hundreds of thousands of dead in their wake.

The war did not initially go well for the Soviets, in 1941 and 1942 the Germans pushed within a few miles of Moscow, besieged the second city of Leningrad, and eliminated whole Soviet armies. But with the intervention of Russia’s greatest natural barrier, winter, and a massive aid program from the United States and Britain the Soviets rallied. At the Battle of Moscow, the Germans were thrown back and the capital was saved, but it would be at Stalingrad from August 1942 to February 1943 that the Soviet Union got its first decisive victory, enveloping and destroying the entire 6^th Army of 350,000 of German and their allied troops, while costing the Soviets over 1.1 million soldiers and civilians. This would turn the tide of the war and the Germans would always be pushed back towards Europe from this point. Germany would rally in July 1943 for an attempt at a major foray to try and retake the initiative at the Battle of Kursk, in what would become the largest tank battle in history the Soviets, once again through massive causalities and force of will, defeated the Germans in their last offensive against the Soviets of the war.

Nowhere was Soviet resistance to the invasion, of shear resolve and commitment no matter the cost, better encapsulated than in the Siege of Leningrad. In what was one of the longest sieges in history and by far the bloodiest with nearly 3.5 million deaths, the Soviets held on through 900 days of vicious bombardments, starvation, and one of the coldest winters in living memory.

Overall the Great Patriotic War was the most brutal and vicious part of the Second World War, for both sides. The Soviet Union lost somewhere between 22 and 26 million people in the war to 5.5 million for Germany and its allies. What would probably be one of the most shocking aspects of the Soviet number was that, unlike for all the other major powers that fought from Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and America the vast majority of casualties where soldiers who died fighting, for the Soviet Union however possibly up to 60% of the dead were civilians who died from getting caught in the vicious and expansive battles, massacres, sieges, and starvation. Even Japan after an extensive carpet bombing campaign and two atomic bombs from American air forces did not reach the level of civilian casualties as the Soviet Union. The war left a massive imprint into the psyche of the people of the Soviet Union and its current successor states, particularly Russia. With a number like 26 million nearly every family lost at least one member and most people knew someone that was killed, perhaps strangely the loss of these people is remembered not with great bitterness or animosity towards Germany and its allies but as a sacrifice for their motherland, there is plenty of grief and sadness, but at the same time pride at what the loss achieved and bravery of their ancestors.

References:

https://russiapedia.rt.com/russian-history/the-great-patriotic-war/

Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery tour

Victory Day parade St. Petersburg

By Ryan McRowe

St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Tsar and Russia’s first emperor Peter the Great on swamp landed he seized from Sweden, and while a war raged to hold that land from the now indignant Swedes. This new city was to be one of Peter the Great’s first and greatest tangible achievements for his westernization reforms of his empire. Its position on the Baltic would give Russia one of its first war water ports with full access to much of Europe, and northern Europe (where Peter traveled and studied extensively) in particular. Construction of the city would be a monumental struggle that would cost thousands of lives and require levels of effort and manpower that had never been seen in Russia, the first in a long history of mass public works projects in Russia’s history. Sitting on a swamp as well as below sea level would prove a constant headache for the populace, floods were a regular occurrence for most of the city (one would even eventually kill its founder when Peter contracted pneumonia, from depending on the account, either rescuing people from his boat or falling off it accidentally). Floods would only cease being a threat to the city when the massive 16-mile St. Petersburg Dam was built, begun in 1979 and only finished in 2011. On top of this, the soggy soil was less than ideal for the kind of heavy stone construction that Peter mandated for his city, this would be remedied with the inserting of over twenty-five million pine logs into the ground to stabilize it. The tsars would call St. Petersburg their home and capital for over two hundred years after its founding, its central status fall with the imperial family during the Revolution, that started in the streets below the Winter Palace.

St. Petersburg, as the first center of power in Russia, was the center of Bolshevik activity prior to and in the early days of the Revolution. One of the first acts of the revolutionaries would be to relocate the center of power from the tsars’ creation of St. Petersburg back to Russia’s more organic first city of Moscow and as further spite to the tsars would rename the city Leningrad. Despite of its artificial inception, the city would prove more resilient than its founders and would survive the realignment as Russia’s second city. Early in the Soviet Era the city’s communist boss, and de facto mayor, Sergey Kirov, rose to great popularity, effectiveness, and admiration, his position becoming one of such prominence that he would be murdered, under suspicious circumstances, in what could quite easily be understood as an assassination ordered by Stalin. The city’s importance would again be brought to the fore when the Germans invested into a nearly three year siege of Leningrad in what would become one of the longest and deadliest sieges in history, leading to deaths of over three million people along with the destruction or looting of many priceless buildings and art. The siege would destroy a great deal of the city but due to a combination of Soviet determination and German sentimentality most of the greatest monuments and artifacts survived. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the freshly renamed city, once again St. Petersburg, gained a new prominence in also rechristened Russian Federation, as the literal cradle of power (once again) with the rise fall of President Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin. Putin’s ascent to the Russian presidency would see him bring in his “Petersburg Gang” from Prime Minister Medvedev to Federal Council Chairman Matviyenko to rule the country, which they do to this day.

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