Rambling Rosa: Travelling in the Old U.S.S.R

Let me tell you about travelling in the former Soviet Union. You never know what you’re going to get. We’re talking propeller planes, over-crowded trains and hotel rooms that are so gaudy they would give Donald Trump’s plazas a run for their money. Driving is often out of the question, with the looming threat of having to bribe traffic cops and also the traffic preventing getting in or out of Moscow. At rush our, it can take three hours just to get across the city – and you have three hours of rush hour in the morning, another three at night. But train travel can mean being shoved in an archaic commuter train like a sardine while young Russian men drink large, luke-warm beers around you and everyone smokes between the train cars. Travelling here must be done strategically and must be well thought out before embarking on a trip. Things will go wrong. But if you are prepared for that you end up laughing and sometimes even being pleasantly surprised by a bad situation that turns itself around.

There are so many aspects of post-Soviet travel that I could elaborate on but this post is dedicated to the hotel rooms.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to explore one of the small towns that surround Moscow -- Vladimir. We knew it was not the quaintest of the Golden Ring cities surrounding Moscow but it has a lot of history and we wanted to see it nonetheless. As if to reward us for our adventurous spirit, the hotel we stayed in decided to upgrade our very inexpensive room when we checked in. We still think they might have had us confused with other Americans staying there -- maybe VIP, important Americans of some type -- because rare is an upgrade in Russia without greasing the palm of a hotel manager or security guard. Now that I have used the word “upgrade” you may be thinking about the time Hilton upgraded you to a suite just to be nice. Or some amazing room you once stayed in. Erase those images and think of the apartment of the nice old lady who lived alone down the street where you grew up. Or maybe think of the bathroom at your local Buca de Beppo. We have no idea why we were given the most extravagant room in the hotel but boy, did we ever appreciate the blue and white heart-shaped pillows, the smell of smoke that had been collecting for 30 years, and the drafty windows. I think the real draw was the balcony (which we sincerely liked) but it was 20 degrees so I don’t think we fully enjoyed it. Our room did occupy an entire floor of the hotel and from the outside you could see that we were actually in -- a turret of sorts. But regardless of how rough around the edges our room was, we really liked it for all of its kitchiness. It was one of the many unexpected moments that happen here a lot. Mother Russia can be cruel but every so often she sends us little reminders that it’s not so bad.

I had to pass on the photo evidence to this shrine to Soviet style. There will be more of these rooms in our future for sure and I won’t forget to document every last one of them. Please enjoy the photos.