Bitenc

Muddy waters of Omsk

Matic Bitenc — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:06:18 +0000

This blog has been a bit stagnant lately, as the travails of travel have prevented me from updating it. As you can imagine, charging a phone can be difficult in a nomadic ger (large circular tent) nested in the vast Mongolian expanses. Now, on a train from Ulanbataar to the Chinese city of Jinan I can once more continue where I have left off.

24., 25. July, Omsk
The hotel we have awoken in that early afternoon was special. Special not in a way you would find an especially beautiful sunset special, not even in a way a drooling mentally retared person is special, but special like a greenish and occasionally wiggling infection of your genitals is special. The latter was probably readily available in the bathrooms of the aformentioned institution. These were a rusty and peculiar affair. For example, the toilet was quite a large room with poor outside insulation, which must be especially fun in the harsh Siberian winter. It contained two toilet bowls placed next to each other without any kind of separation. Good for bonding and toilet humour.
Walls of the hotel were last painted when Nikita Khruscev was still in power and it showed. Furniture was old and squiggly. When I tried to pick up a chair my fingers and brains where overwhelmed by a sticky sensation, memory of which I cannot lose to this day, though not for lack of trying.
Still we have always expected to end up in a place like this somewhere along the way, so the hotel really had a nice adventureous feeling to it and we accepted the conditions in good humour. Everything wasn’t that bad as well. On the flipside, sheets were reasonably clean, the receptionists were friendly and we had our own room for about 10€ per night, which is incredibly cheap for Russian circumstances. There was also a shower with hot water, even though there was only one for all the four floors of the hotel.
Half rested and a bit hungover we went on to explore the city of Omsk. The neighbourhood really wasn’t glamourous, although it did contain the building of a permanently built circus, around which children were constantly riding horses. Permanently built circuses might not be common where I come from, but they can be found in every major city in Russia and Mongolia.
Omsk itself was nothing special. The odd Lenin statue, Hare Khrishna chanting group by the muddy river, a pleasant sandy beach by the muddy river, people sometimes less pleasantly bathing in the muddy polluted river. People dying of cancer, wondering why it happened to them. Probably near the muddy river as well. The river is called Om, if you wondered. Get it? Om->Omsk. Pure genius.
There was also the street of Josip Broz Tito, next to it a cinema/shopping mall monstrosity that made me think of establishing an International Criminal Court for Architects for crimes against usability and good taste.
There was also a curious statue of a man climbing from a sewer, I curiously witnessed a Russian wedding, where the bride and the groom curiously wear crowns and curiously, there was even some good coffee to be found. Coffee in Russia is mostly a sad “just add water” instant thing going by the name of “tri u jednom”. When you do find proper coffee it’s mostly really good and the coffee shops are full of posters describing the origins of the coffee you’re drinking along with diplomas from baristas competitions. It’s priced appropriately, or inappropriately, depending on how you look at it. An average cup of Joe at a place like that will set you back between 80 руб and 120 руб. Keep in mind that 80 руб is about 2 €.
The history of the town is a bit more interesting, it was closed to foreigners in the time of the Soviet Union due to it’s weapon factories and the related secrecy and paranoia. Even before it was a capital of Russia, but another Russia, White Russia. When the Bolsheviks took over in 1918, a Siberian general with a bunch of troops stood up to them and founded an independent White Russia loyal to the czarist principles. To their aid came Czechoslovakian troops who were helping in the first World War effort, but were unfavorable to the Bolsheviks and unable to return home. They ruled over Siberia until 1920 when they were decisively beaten. Interesting story though, look it up on Wikipedia.
We gave up on Omsk earlier than general Kolchevik though and having thoroughly exhausted the “minimalist” sightseeing resources of Omsk, we decided that adding an extra letter to the city name might do the trick and headed on to Tomsk.

Prelude to sleeplessness

Matic Bitenc — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:59:07 +0000

Although Yekaterinburg does not have many tourist attractions, they do have a war museum. That sounded really interesting to me, but not so much to the girls so we parted our ways. I went to play with guns and they with Barbies so to speak.
The war museum primarily deals with the second world war and is a classical war museum, especially similar to other such museums built under totalitarian regimes. Why? Well if I knew nothing about WWII before, I would assume it started with the entire Russia somewhere behind the Urals. From there they orchestrated a brilliant victory and soon overtook Berlin, naturally with plenty of suffering and heroism on their side. I’m not disputing the latter, but there’s no mention of e.g. Molotov-Ribbentropf pact, Warsaw massacre, with the early German victories only mentioned in passing from the perspective of hero-cities. “Gorod heroj” is a title given to cities that suffered the most, like Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kiev… While that bias was to be expected, the museum is still a decent display of weaponry and other equipment, including some armoured vehicles and mobile rocket launchers parked outside the rapidly decaying and with Soviet symbols ornamented building. But as always in Russia, only a naive fool on crack would expect any explanations to be written in a language other than Russian.
There’s a square accross the street where I witnessed a wedding celebration on bicycles. The bride and the groom were sitting on a bike, as well as most of the entourage. Judging by a local news camera crew and an interview just going on with the happy couple, I assumed that’s not a common type of wedding in Russia. I certainly hope on-bike childbirth isn’t an emerging trend as well.
Just behind them was a monument with a much more somber tone. A monument of a broken down soldier, sitting on the grond in despair with a rifle on his side. It’s a reminder of the ten year war and the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. Parallels with the current situation there draw themselves. Once again history repeats itself as farse.
Passing by a local photo shop to inquire about a camera, I headed towards the lake to see what the girls were up to. They tend to get their share of admirers and they were talking to two young Russians when I arrived. Though a bit inebriated, they were great fun and very interesting interlocutors. Together they were a MC/DJ team, or so they claimed, in local night clubs. We even got a freestyle rap performance which I plan to put on YouTube later. One of them was wearing a sailor’s cap and shirt, which I assumed was a joke. But that was just my prejudice, since I come from Slovenia, where sailors on the street are not a common occurrence. He really was a sailor in the Black sea fleet of the Russian military and told some personal accounts of the war with Georgia. Due to the language barrier the stories were sadly a bit short on details. With some of my prodding I did manage to get some political views out of them. Basically they were very patriotic, even nationalistic, while taking great pride in Russia’s army and size. Not unusual, but disheartening to me, a fervent globalist. They knew little of other geopolitical factors and largely based their opinion of countries on those two factors. When I told them Slovenia has one really small war ship and a 35 meter one now on order from Russia, they couldn’t believe me. “How can such a country be in NATO?” they wondered. When we told them about our 2 million population, they immediately assumed we were under the complete control of the USA, which they still perceive as their arch nemesis. European Union, they never heard of. We later returned to more casual conversations and exchanged Skype usernames at the end.
With stomachs growling we dreamt of Serbian meat deliciousness. Luckily, just such a restaurant wasn’t far. Serbskii Dvorik is a lovely traditionally Serbian decorated restaurant. A bit on the expensive side, but the owner quickly offer us the “business lunch” option (about 6€ for a 3 course meal) when he saw we were of more student pocket depth. The owner was really friendly and it felt good to speak in the much more familiar Serbian instead of performing linguistic acrobatics in Russian. When we saw quite a collection of Slovenian wines on sale and Arsen Dedić and Tereza Kesovija started playing from the speakers the Yugo-nostalgic atmosphere was complete. We even got a delicious free desert and tea on the account of it. For me, the beef tongue with radish and the home made ice cream were most memorable. We were also surprised to hear that there were 8 Serbian restaurants operating in the city, some even importing all their fish from the Adriatic. Serbian fish restaurants, a bit ironic, but anyway…
As I went for some more rare camera hunting, this time successful, the hour of departure was fast approaching. Soon we were frantically searching for our wagon when we heard a familiar sound. “Slovenci?” was the question and it turned out a young Slovenian couple was in the coupe right next to ours. We got along quickly with Peter and Lana and had a lively debate over beers in the train restaurant. When that closed we moved back to the hall to wait for our cranky Russian roommate to move out at the next station. Just then a really wasted, but enormously fun Scotsman came past and we started a series of absurd conversations that would take a literary genius to describe properly. Our cranky roommate did move out at the next station and some booze we bought moved in. We also got a much nicer Russian for a roommate. Pyotr was a middle aged gentleman, didn’t speak any English but he didn’t mind our partying at all, even though it was in full swing by then. He got on with the flow as more and more people came, Scottish kilts were on display, explained and much was debated in a total language mish-mash. Soon more Russians, a Polish guy came and even our incredibly patient young Siberian stewardess finished her shift and joined us, out of uniform this time. All was undoubtedly accompanied by plenty of chicken and vodka. When we arrived at the station in Omsk in the morning we were exhausted since we haven’t slept a wink and emmm… didn’t throw our money in the wind. We said our goodbyes since most, including the Slovenians, continued their journey onwards with the train.
In Omsk Pyotr again turned out to be an extremely nice guy and he and his friend escorted us on the tram to a really budget-friendly place to sleep. The place officially didn’t accept foreigners, but he negotiated that for us, before leaving to do his work in Omsk as a horse race supervisor.
The hotel really was something else, but we couldn’t find the words for it until we got some much needed sleep.

Yekaterinburg – From Romanovs, past Lenin to beer

Matic Bitenc — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:04:48 +0000

22. July, Yekaterinburg – Some of you may have heard of Yekaterinburg under it’s previous name, Svedrlovsk. Svderlovsk was a renowned Bolshevik and after the October revolution the city got to bear his name. After the 1991 transition, it was again swiftly changed back in honor of Catherine the Great. Pick your preferences yourself.
The first sight we visited there has a similar historical significance, it was the place where the Romanov family where shot. If the Romanov name seems unfamiliar, Nikolaj Romanov, tsar of Russia, might ring more bells. His bells rang out long ago though, in a local engineer’s house after the 1918 revolution. The house is long gone, replaced by a cathedral built in 2000. The church and tsarist sympathies go hand in hand in Russia for obvious historical reasons. I wouldn’t loose much sleep over the demise of the Russian monarchy, but it would be hard to argue that the Bolsheviks that came after were any better. It’s one failed ideology after another for the Russians and their apetite for them does not seem to be drying out lately. One party rule seems quite a popular concept here, and I’m not thinking of the kind of party you would find in uvala Zrče. They both seem to inspire drunkeness though, one with power, the other with alcohol. Or is it both? Jelcin springs to mind…
Nevertheless, Russia still seems quite different today, with new, glass clad skyscrapers rising up in the tidy center of Yekaterinburg. 1.3 million of inhabitants is no small number either and is bound to grow as it seems.
We enjoyed the day more leisurely this time, laying on the grass right next to the lake occupying the centre of the city, observing passers by and generally not giving a shit about the lack of more classical tourist attractions. The usual batch of photos of the everpresent Lenin statues sufficed, along with some unlenin-like cruises through the shopping mall. All your ideology, all in one place, now with 20% discount for members of the communist party.
One needs a good sip of beer after all those idiosyncracies and the Tinkoff brewery was the place to do just that. Unfiltered white beer, exactly what the doctor perscribed. Sadly, we couldn’t get the beer on perscription alone. Russia might need a health reform as well.

Gone with the wind

Matic Bitenc — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:29:19 +0000

20., 21. July – Moscow was fun, but it was time to move on, go east. We took the metro to the Jaroslawski train station, had our breakfast at a local buffet and purchased some food for the long ride ahead. One of the benefits of Russia is cheap caviar, so I stocked up with a full jar of its black variety for not much more than an euro. While waiting at the shop an akward chat developed with a customer and the security guard. At first they were unsure about the whereabouts of Slovenia, but they soon remembered the football match with Russia and briskly left, somewhat dismayed.
The next 31 hours were spent on a train from Moscow to Yekaterinburg. One would think this is where the story ends, that there wouldn’t be much to write about. One would be wrong. One has much to learn about Russian train travel. Who is this rethoric one I speak of? I don’t know. Ask him, or her. Whatever.
First, we came to the train on the platform, gave the stewardess (yes, they’re called the same on trains) our tickets and she blurted out our seat numbers. We muddled along to our coupe, where there was already a middle aged and, due to the heat, topless gentleman. He spoke only Russian, but seemed rather nice. We proceeded to unpack our belongings, make our beds. After a few minutes, another three topless gentleman came, politely asking if we were all going to stay here and asking for our tickets. They said they were all traveling together and that this was their coupe. After another glance at our tickets we realised our, and the stewardesses’ mistake, then moved two coupes forward.
We repeated the settling process and mentally prepared for a day and a half of relative boredom. But it was not to be. Our previous acquaintances soon invited us over to their coupe for some drinks. It turned out to not be only drinks, as an entire corpse of a baked chicken lay on the train table. The table was almost comicly small when put in perspective with the chicken and accompaniyng vegetables. We tried it reservedly, but the main focus of the feast was elswhere. Vodka. Their Praznichnaya variety went down really easy, as if it did not contain all that alcohol. Naturally we still had to seal the deal with a few sips of beer. As the often repeated and useful Russian saying goes: “Drinking vodka without beer is like throwing money into the wind.” And we couldn’t act so wastefully, could we?
A debate soon developed, although a bit hampered by differing languages. Jasmina’s and Maja’s knowledge of Russian came in handy, as ususal I struggled through with the few words I know and my improvised Serbo-Croatian with Dolenjska accent which, when put together, can sound surprisingly like Russian.
As you might have gathered by now, the guys were really friendly and talkative, a fact in no doubt emphasised by the dashingness of my female cotravelers. During the small talk we found out that they were construction workers from Belgrad, a Russian town near the border with Ukraine on their way to Perm for a month-long job. When, much later, our limited vocabulaires left us with little more to disscus, we retired to our quarters for a few rounds of cards and observing of the shanty lumber towns and berch forests we were passing by.
Surprisingly time went by quickly. Before we knew it, it was already the evening of our second day on the train and we’ve arrived at our destination – Yekaterinburg. It was quite late, we didn’t have a place booked, so we took a taxi to a nearby hotel that was in the Lonely Planet guide. It turned out to cost a lot more than we would have liked it to and the energetic and business savy taxi driver offered to call around for other offers while he kept repeating he has a brilliant memory. That extra service of course increased the price of our taxi ride to about 10€. When I tried to haggle my response was met with a non-threatening “I called hotel, I now control situation”, the ususal “I have a brilliant memory, you know” and the slightly racist “I work for good price, I am no nigro”. In the end he came through, quickly got us a good and much cheaper hotel and even waited to see that we got our room keys. So I suppose he well earned his fee.
Afterwards we did a quick midnight walk around our part of the city of Yekaterinburg, which used to be known as Svedrlovsk. What more it had to offer would have to wait until the following day.

Moscow of leaders and artists

Matic Bitenc — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:46:45 +0000

Moscow, 19. July – Got up, got the train tickets to Yekaterinburg, got food at Subway (plenty of those in Russia). Checked out an interestingly and uniquely Soviet styled skyscraper, housing a Hilton hotel these days, decided what we already knew, too expensive.
Basic errands thus accomplished we followed the Moskvaaa, doooown to Gorky paaaark, listening to the wiiiinds of chaaaange… Sorry, I got carried away by The Scorpions… Parents reading this, DO NOT BE ALARMED! Scorpions are a band.
In the northern part of Gorky park are a bunch of satues of Soviet leaders, deposited here after 1990 when people of Moscow didn’t want their former oppresors/leaders displayed publicly anyomore. Nice, but not as many of them as I expected. There are also some satues of a more artistic nature and a reeeeaaaly giant one of Peter the Great, setting sail on the shores of Moskva river.
The rest of Gorky park is full of amusements such as roller coasters, dodge cars, trains for children, suffering deer… Yep, you read that right. Suffering deer. They had a stand set up, where people could get a photo of themselves with two deer. But with flaming 34 degrees Celsius and deer’s coats made to rough out the harsh winters of Syberia it was really more of a sad affair. The animals huffed and puffed, just lay on the ground hyperventilating while a family was actually petting them and getting their pictures taken just behind them. I don’t see how that would make a nice family photo. Maybe for the Pot family. As in Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge.
A warm beer later we were on our way again, over the bridge, past the gigantic Ministry of Defence. It really is a monumental piece of fearspect inspiring Soviet architecture. Huge block of concrete, all in straight lines, so tall the windows seem tiny while they are in fact quite abnormaly large. Soviet symbolsm on top, two howitzers parked in front. We could easily stroll by it, even climb the stairs to the entrance, take as many photos as we could. Two decades ago we would probably be arrested and anally probed for just thinking about pulling such a stunt. Accross the Moskva river, just opposite of the ministry, rests a real-sized model of the Buran, the Soviet space shuttle. A project so expensive and mismanaged it contribuited to the downfall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. In the end, it never flew. So the employees of the ministry go to work each day, seeing the great failure. It must be grounding.
One last tourist trap remained for the day. The Arbat street. It used to be the home of many of struggling artists such as poets, writers and street performes. The latter are plentiful to this day. There’s lots of portrait and caricature drawing, juggling, singing, even a mostly pathetic mime. Apart from that there are a lot of souvenir shops and restaurants. Perhaps the most useful part of the Arbat street is a fountain where you can chill out and observe the locals being their weird selves. It’s thoroughly entertaining and since it doesn’t involve much phisycal activity, it was just the remedy for our soring feet and a pleasant occupation for the remainder of the evening.

Camels in Moscow

Matic Bitenc — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:19:03 +0000

Moscow 18. July – Hot. The degrees rose higher than Jesus’ age, meaning upper thirties at times. Moscowites complained, deer groaned, the homeless left for more livable climates.
Luckily Moscow has a good metro system which saved us the trouble of Segwaying there. No, we didn’t have Segways, but wouldn’t that be cool, huh?
The metro forms a ring around the centre of Moscow (just like the roads) and there are plenty of other connecting lines. Tickets cost 26 rub if memory serves me right. The stations deserve their reputation as a piece of art, they’re definitively the most interesting ones I’ve seen in any city. The Dostojevskaja station, for example, is clad in marble, lights are decorated, and at the end of the platform is a portrait of Dostojevski, a mosaic made of stone. There’s plenty of coloured glass, metal ornaments, lights are almost always decorated differently. Not all stations are that special, of course. Some of the older stations show the wear and tear of time and are lighter on decoration. But what they lack in polish, they make up in genuiness, displaying old communist symbolysm like the hammer & sickle, bushels of wheat, young revolutionaries… Even the steel air vents are all adorned with the letter “M” logo of the metro. It also works well into the night which came in handy later.
Moscow is quite safe everyone says and it’s true from our limited experience. But who are we to say, our hostel was right behind the interior ministry. The Godzilla hostel was modern, clean, friendly, great service. The Godzilla did not eat anyone, but I assume they mostly prey on the Japanese. Human sushi. Which is really popular everywhere in Russia by the way. Fish sushi though, not the human kind.
Back to the hostel. A shower or two more couldn’t hurt, but hey, it’s not always that you’re all sweaty again even before you’ve left the shower room.
But alas, we had to leave the room at some point and go sweat elsewhere in the city. On our way to the Kremlin I did my usual routine and stopped cute girls passing by to take photos of them. Last year I was in Moldova, praised the beauty of Moldovan women when I got home and was chastised by my coworkers since I didn’t bring many photos. I took it to heart, this time, they’re getting a bunch.
We soon made our way to the Kremlin, the epicentre of Moscow. It was enclosed by a city race of formulas, street cars, lorries, you name it. It was there and loud.
Naturally sponsors had their stands, displaying cars and… dancers. Female dancers, moving mildly on a stage, like somewhat dosed dancers from a dance club. Their sporty suits were tight, revealed some cleavage, but the main “feature” of the suit was that it was so tied up into their vaginas they revealed a “camel toe” that would make a camel blush. I’m no moralist, but that seemed quite degrading even to me.
Passing the giant 4 storey shopping mall hidden just beneath the entrance to the Kremlin, we finally made our way to the Red square. We just missed the tomb of the world’s second favourite dead revolutionary, Lenin, since it closes at 13.00 sharp.
Next, the candy cathedral AKA St. Basil’s. Great & positively lickable on the outside, not much to see on the inside. There’s a small space (mini church) under each dome, nothing spectacular. The tsar (Ivan, if I’m not mistaken), had it built, as he promised, after winning the battle for Kazan in the 17th century. I’ve read before that the tsar then had the eyes of the arhitect torn out, so he could never build something this beautiful elsewhere. But they didn’t write down this tale anywhere in the church. I guess it’s for Russian eyes only. Pun oh so intended.
Afterwards we visited the inside of the Kremlin walls, housing a bunch of chatedrals, palace of the patriarchy (head of the Russian orthodox church), Russian senate and a part of government. All these being in one place is very symptomatic of everything that was wrong with the ruling of Russia in much of its past. All hail Raspoutin!
We then visited the armoury, but they only let visitors in at certain times and in limited numbers. So you have to buy the ticket 45 minutes in advance if you don’t want to be left without. Armoury houses the famous Fabergé eggs, other royal jewles, weaponry, cutlery, carriages, clothes and such. All of them priceless, clad in tons of gold and otherwise utterly useless today. What really stuck in my mind was a mini carriage for children, drawn by ponies instead of normal horses and accompanied by midgets, eeerm.. dwarfs, eermm.. little people. All in the purpose of creating a mini procession.
Exhausted, we went to the hostel, showered for the n-th time, debated in the park over some beer and returned to our crowded communitary quarters in the hostel for some sweaty sleep.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg continued

Matic Bitenc — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:33:13 +0000

Saturday, 17 July
The day was mainly dedicated to the Hermitage, a world renowned museum/gallery housed in the over-luxurious Winter palace, one of the former homes of the royal family. Naturally it was also the first place Lenin and the Bolysheviks attacked at the beginning of their October revolution from a ship on the Neva river which flows just beside the palace.
While I am no proponent of the destruction of cultural heritage, I must say it soon became quite clear to me why this was the best place to start the revolution. All its humongous splendor and wealth was the symbol of what the nobility were enjoying while the population was left to suffer in horrendous poverty.
The wealth really is mind boggling. Every room is covered wall to wall in detailed ornaments of marble, wood, precious metals and stones, all shaped up by the top artisans of the era. As for size, it took us 6 hours just to pass by all the exhibits on the three floors and we weren’t by far the most inquisitive of visitors, focusing mainly on some areas that were of more interest to us.
Most of the exhibits could as well be titled: “Look at what we were able to steal throughout the centuries”. Beside some pots and prehistoric tools from Syberia, the 1st floor mainly consists of aincent Greek and Egyptian monuments, a lot of them. Perhaps more than in some museums in their countries of origin. 2nd and 3rd floor contain newer art from various European nations. Italian reinessance, baroque, Dutch and French painters, whatever you ask for. There’s such an embarrasment of riches that a Monet is stuck in a connecting corridor and Da Vinci’s Madonna With Child only grabs your attention if you know where to look. There was also a visiting Picasso exhibition an some other, more modern artists.
Russian artists are quite neglected, perhaps a tribute to the “wannabeism” of Russian nobility in the past centuries.
The administration is quite liberal with photo taking, more so than practically any other European art museum. Apart from some visiting exhibitions you can take a photo of pretty much everything.
Jasmina and Maja quite liked the idea of living in such a luxurious palace with all the spaciousness and glamor. I for one more marvelled at the possibilty to rollerblade through it. At the end we all agreed that a billiard room with human sized and half transparent billiard balls was an appropriate choice for such a palace. People would go inside the billiard balls and try to knock each other out to the holed corner o the room. The unusually large gutters outside the palace were an indication that perhaps someone else had thought of this before.
Thoroughly tired from the six hour walk, we gathered our last atoms of strength and headed over the Neva to Vasilevsky island. What immediately caught our eyes were a bunch of wedding photo-ops along with the traditional release of the white doves. Perhaps an even more amazing site was the trash container nearby. I’ve never seen one so full of empty champagne bottles.
What followed was a well deserved break on the embankments of Vasilevsky island, accompanied by some Baltika brew and overlooking the Winter palace accross the river. I’m writing this blog post on just such a break, but this time bathed in evening sun next to the Yekaterinburg pond.
We were quite taken aback then by a young man washing his face in the filthy waters of Neva. What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger, I guess.
After dinner it was time to return to the hostel, get our backpacks and catch a train to Moscow. We got to the Moskovskii vokzal (train station) by metro, which is surprisingly deep. About 20 meters by my amateurish estimates, probably due to the marshy and watter filled lands of Petersburg.
We caught the train literally in the last second. We weren’t that late at the station, but when the platform is divided into 5 left and 5 right with very similar markings in cyrilic, some confusion is bound to happen. The train ride was surprisingly luxurious, with an air-conditioned coupe, slippers, lunch packet and morning sandwhiches, at least they somehow justified the otherwise steep 4700 rub (125€) price. In the morning we were well rested and in Moscow.

Battles, Buses and Bikes, St. Petersburg continued

Matic Bitenc — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:29:40 +0000

The battle raged. Cries of war resounded into the night as the buzzing tension built up to a crescendo. There was no way back, nor a way out. They attacked and we were obliged to defend. Their blood spilling incursions put us in a corner of no choice and no remorse. Chemichal weapons had to be used. Extreme measure by all accounts, yet they only delayed the inevitable. As morning rose we were left faced with the damage inflicted by their venomous stings. The mosquitoes were gone, but the itching remained.

I’m a drama llama, I know. It was actually only a mild annoyance in retrospect but it didn’t seem that way at the time. Other nights they left us alone since we mostly came back later when they had already fed from the other inhabitants of our dorm.

Friday, 16th of July. We got up pretty late, had some Solyanka (meaty soup, mishmash of everything) and pie and did some quick morning gymnastics in front of the Winter palace. The weather soon turned sour, which was really a blessing in disguise, since it saved us from the humid heat and left us with a much more tolerable humidity falling from the sky.

We started our sightseeing by visiting St. Isaac’s chatedral. The walkway around the dome on top of it offers an unique vantage point over St. Petersburg. Other such opportunities are rare, due to the city’s former strict building rules. No building was supposed to be taller than the Winter palace, with the obvious exception of churches. Evidentally you need to be pretty high up (or high) to get good reception when talking to god. One other such notable restriction was the obligation to build and stitch the buildings up together so the only roads separating them would be the broad boulevards planned in advance. The city’s character wouldn’t be the same without it.

After the cathedral we strolled along one of the water canals to the area known as New Holland. Norman Foster and his architectural bureau Foster & Partners, which I greatly admire, were building a new urban area there and according to Lonely Planet were supposed to finish up sometime in 2010. We were somewhat disappointed as the construction only seemed to have started recently and was nowhere near the 31. 8. deadline propagated on the entrance. Another visit is due I guess, the place certainly looks promising.

Petersburg, along with Moscow is supposed to be one of the most expensive places in Russia if not the world, but when eating out, prices seem to be quite comparable to the ones in Slovenia. While avoiding the most expensive eateries we usually got lunch & drink for around 300 roubles (1€ is cca. 40 rub).

Another commodity besides food, withouth which a modern traveller can hardly get by is internet. Mobile internet if chance be, so our smartphones aren’t reduced to being dumbphones and you, dear reader, can read this blog written and published on just such a device.
That’s why we acquired local SIM cards at Megafon, local mobile operator and one of the rare ones (apart from MTS) with coverage accross the country. With the prepaid card the deal is pretty fair, 1MB of data costs 1 rouble, SMS is 5 rub and local calls a similar figure not worth mentioning, or remembering, it seems. Besides, the 99 rub you pay for the SIM is already added to your account. The salesguy was really nice and even spoke a few words of English, the latter being quite a rarity.

Next, Church of the Saviour of the spilled blood, a name that instantly brought to mind the mosquito battle scenes of the prevoius night. The church is almost the spitting image of the St. Basil cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square. Yes, the red one with many colorful domes that looks more like something out of a fairytale or really juicy candy, than an institution providing the opiate for the masses. Inside, every centimeter is covered by intricate and recently restored mosaics depicting the life of JC and his apostoles. There is even an ATM inside the church if the need for cash arises, an idea our clergy would no doubt admire.

Another idea which could much more deservedly be implemented elsewhere is the Toilet bus. Not much explanation necessary, it’s an autobus containing nothing but proper toilets. Drive to location, plug in the sewer and water pipes, exercate at will. Worthless without photos, I know.

What was left of our incredibly well lit night we spent exploring the local bar scene. Pretty good, though somewhat expensive and not really that special. A notable mention would certainly go to the widespread availability of Hoegaarden, a Belgian beer and among my favourites, but rare to come by in Slovenia. We met some locals wanting to chat, but the language divide soon proved to be an insurmountable barrier only accentuaded by their inebriation. Or of I lose the posh talk: They were a bit drunk and couldn’t really speak English well.

On our way back to the hostel we came across a sports shop open at 4 in the morning. Naturally we decided that was just the right time to buy a bike…

Russia, the Beginnings of Sankt Petersburg

Matic Bitenc — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:40:57 +0000

Who: Me and my friends Jasmina and Maja, backpacking.
Where: Starting in Sankt Petersburg, then traveling by train through Moscow, then taking the Trans-Siberian railway to Mongolia and later Beijing, China.
When: Started on 15th July 2010, planned flight back from Beijing on the 25th of August, same year – hopefully a different mindset.

Well, now that you know the jist of our plans I can start unraveling the story of our adventures in a bit more literary manner. We have subtitled the trip as “Pustolovščine Pikija in muc” as a friend of ours jokingly reffered to it, non-Slovenian readers and metaphore seekers fear not, you’re not missing much but an opportunity for some oversugared nicknimes. But I digress…

The first leg of our journey started by flying from Ljubljana to Prague, in a propeller plane of all things, and then switching to a flight to Sankt Petersburg the same morning. Apart from some partly early beer inspired tomfoolery and forming of internal jokes it was largely uneventful. For those considering a similar trip, the flight from Ljubljana to Sankt Petersburg via Prague cost 218 € including a quite generous student discount from Czech Airlines.

The Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg still has quite a socialist feel to it, mostly due to architecture, but also due to proverbially unenthusiastic customs officers and the usability nightmare of the immigration form. First they don’t tell you that the form exists and that it’s required before you reach the end of the line, then you have to fill it out and start all over again. Naturally the spaces for writing are so small a clock maker would suffer a nervous breakdown before filling them out. To add insult to injury, you have to put down the same data twice. Luckily, it seems, I am quite a stoic clock maker. Rant over.

On the bright side, the minibus AKA Miško, going our way was just around the corner and we were on route to our hostel before you could say: “Is the weather causing all the hotness or are the ladies here quite dazzling?”

At the Crazy Duck hostel (which is nowhere near where the Lonely Planet says it is) we were welcomed by an incredibly spacious dorm room right in the centre of the city. After a much needed shower, what followed of course was a stroll around Piter, as the locals affectionately call their city. It has a really nice vibe to it with well planned, spacious streets, water canals, illustrious churches and islands. The city was started in 1703 by Peter the Great as a part of his effort to modernise and Europenise the country which really shows. In the beginning it was largely built by Swedish prisoners of war which might explain the prevalence of Ikea furniture.

We marvelled at the architectural wonders, sat down for a beer next to the Winter palace (The Hermitage) and later for a refreshing bowl of cold Borsch. Tired from a full day of travel we half-dragged ourselves back to our hostel, somewhat time confused since there was still daylight at 23.30.

The game was afoot, the plains of Russia laid bare before us.

I’ll try to update the post with more photosh when I get the opportunity to upload them from my camera. Since I’m a few days behind reality with my blogging I’ll catch up later on the train.

Maja and Jasmina in front of our small propeller plane.

Sometimes even an airline passanger must adopt the heat preservation techniques of homeless people.

This is how light it is in Piter at midnight.

The art of QUANGOs

Matic Bitenc — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:49:24 +0000

Click to enlarge! Explanation: GONGOs exist, just like BONGOs, as another vector of influence on the legislative process for their creators. Inspiration and substance for this strip are provided by the book Machiavelli in Brussels by Rinus van Schendlen. Check it out on Stripgenerator!

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Škljoc – MMS you photos to Facebook

Matic Bitenc — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:35:13 +0000

At the company I work at, called ThirdFrameStudios (or 3fs in short), we’ve just released a Facebook application called Škljoc. It would roughly translate to “snap” as in “snap a photo”.

What does it do, you say? Well it enables you to simply send an MMS message from your phone to a contact in your address book called Škljoc and the photo will be automatically uploaded to your Facebook wall in a few moments. Then your friends can marvel at the sight of the squirrel that just grabbed your nuts*, for example. Couldn’t be simpler.

So just add the Facebook app, Škljoc will send the contact to your address book and you’re good to go. It’s free, which means we don’t charge you anything, apart from the MMS that your mobile operator charges you (or not if you have that sort of a deal). The only catch is that it only works with Slovenian numbers at the moment.

Try it out if you like the concept, let me know how you feel about the app.

*This blog does not condone squirrel abuse, even if you must, please keep your nuts and squirrels private.

Slovenian mobile operators

Matic Bitenc — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:59:38 +0000

I used to believe I had lots of choice in the Slovenian mobile phone operator market. How could I not, at first sight it seems there’s plenty of choice. Mobitel, Simobil, Tuš mobil, T-2, Debitel, MMobil, Izimobil, these are all operators offering their services on the Slovenian market. Well, the last three are MVNOs, operators without their own networks, so they lease them, which also means that they can hardly offer much more competitive prices than network owners and are usually further down the line when it comes to implementing new network features. Tuš mobil didn’t have enough 3G coverage, I would love to check now but the coverage map on their website isn’t working.

I started off at Mobitel where I was a subscriber since the I started using a cell phone (apart from a short stint at Vega), but I had to change subscriptions due to a change in packages. I’m an iPhone user so good data rates and bandwidth are important to me.

The Simobil fiasco

So I tried Simobil, as they had slightly lower prices and the majority of my friends were there. Network coverage was a bit worse, as were the mobile internet speeds, but nothing that I couldn’t tolerate with the lower prices. But shortly after I left Mobitel, they introduced new plans for students which equated the ones at Simobil and even bested them in terms of included data (1GB per month is plenty). The price incentive was gone, but why change for something that similar. Then I went abroad for two weeks. I took care to check out the data rates for the Netherlands and Belgium, seeing how they were waaaay to high, I opted for a package with which I bought 10MB in advance as I knew I’m going to use at least that much. I took care to always check out the used bandwidth statistics on my phone when using the data. In the whole time I went a bit over the quota, but still bearable by my calculations. Home a few weeks later, I get a bill for 180€ which of course included a lot more data than what I had used according to my statistics. Of course I complained to Simobil, first by e-mail, then when that proved fruitless, by snail mail, with no avail. At every part of the process the support staff were completely unhelpful, they didn’t bother to present any more proof beside the bill with the listing that I got at first. No logs, no bills from abroad, their own statistics, nothing. At every step of the way the basically just kept repeating that my request for more information cannot be granted and to pay the bill. The signatories on the support responses kept changing but none of them would produce any new information. In the end I had no choice but to give in as any legal course would take a lot more of my time and nerves and they are not worth it. But to this day, I get all riled up if someone asks me about my opinion regarding Simobil. I cannot stress enough that I don’t recommend Simobil to anyone, if for nothing else, because of the sheer incompetence and arrogance they displayed in my dealings with them.

T-2 fail

T-2 are new as a mobile operator, but they are already my ISP for my home fiber internet connection. While they are mostly great in that regard, their mobile operator side is a completely different story. The subscription per month is only 4€, so incredibly cheap that I had to try what’s it all about. I knew that their network is only 3G, they have only a few central areas covered, but in the rest of the country, the network is provided by contract by Mobitel. The catch is that you can’t get any data apart from calls and SMSes when hosting on Mobitel’s network. I could almost live with that if the signal wouldn’t keep dropping in buildings even in areas that are supposed to be well covered. Apart from that constant switching which had a extremely detrimental effect on my phone’s battery and my nerves, MMS sending to multiple recipients wouldn’t work and I constantly wouldn’t get SMSes sent to me. Sometimes they appeared later on during one of the switches to Mobitel’s network. Anyway, it was a complete technical fail and I gladly escaped after only a month and a half.

Mobitel

So now I’m back at Mobitel, which turned out to be the only decent mobile operator suited to my needs in Slovenia. It’s only been a bit more than a month since I’m back but so far the experience has been good. Recently we went hiking to Stol, a mountain just a bit over 2000m in altitude. With surprise I noticed a good 3G signal and decided to do a speed test. Here’s what I got:

Mobile bandwidth Speedtest on iPhone at the altitude of 2236m.

The view from Stol, the very same place where the test was conducted. Line of sight is pretty good.

Disclaimer: this post isn’t sponsored by anyone, nor do I own any stock in the mentioned companies. My main motivation is solely the utter contempt I feel toward Simobil and T-2′s mobile operations.

Photos from Moldova – Part 1

Matic Bitenc — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:32:36 +0000

Despite the fact that quite a lot of time and other events have passed since then, I still haven’t fulfilled my promise to put up some photos from the trip to Moldova, which we went on during this summer. Before this innocent debt becomes a toxic asset as these thing tend to happen these days, here goes…

Moldovan government and the main square in Chisinau. A new liberal coalition was just forming when we got there, just after the second round of elections where the communists (in name only) lost.

The main church of Moldova, right vis-a-vis the government. The great majority of the country is Christian orthodox and on weekends, this square is full of newlyweds.

Selling cheese at the truly vibrant market of Chisinau.

Plenty of vegetables at the market as well, people from all around come to sell.

You can get a really nice quick lunch for a Euro or two.

Main boulevard, nice and clean, with electric buses which have been here for decades.

Mixing old with the new. Post office in front.

The boards and Lonely Planet were promising a lake full of swimmers, rowers...

...what you get is not quite as advertised. The lake was polluted and emptied a few years ago.

That lead to a certain level of frustration. Let's hope they fill it up again soon. Are you listening, new government?

Exploring the city, while using some quirky optical illusion. Or is that supposed to be a national symbol?

Partying at night with friends from Moldova. Clubs are pretty awesome, relaxed and always with something going on.

The gobnik/čefur cultural elements seem to be amazingly internationalised.

Our hotel room, pretty good for 18€/night. And that's only half of it, there's another bed and a large fridge on the other side.

Moldova has wine of incredible quality at laughable prices. Of course that warranted a visit to Milesti Mici, a famous winery with 170 km of underground tunnels. Wine tasting & debate with a friendly Russian with dubious stories is mandatory.

World War II memorial with honorary guard scorching in the sun. Every 15 minutes another guard comes to wipe the sweat from their foreheads as they stand still.

Memorial to the soldiers who died in the war Afghanistan. The previous one, back when the USA were sponsoring the Taliban and Soviets fighting (occupying) them. Oh my, how the tables have turned.

A Soviet-era jet. They didn't leave the keys in, I checked.

Yes, iPhone is available in Moldavia while we in Slovenia still wait. In fact Orange has their most modern 3G mobile network there.

Orhei Vechi, monasteries carved in stone next to a river meander.

The dwellings of an orthodox monk.

The dwellings of goats.

If you ever wondered, cows indeed are fond of bananas.

Spectacular views.

Fishing old school, like with phishing, they also use the nets.

Wandering off on the green fields.

The friendliness of our Moldovan friends really cannot be overstated.

Oh but there is more…

EU speaking in one voice

Matic Bitenc — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:33:24 +0000

We all know the famous Henry Kissinger quote, saying that you don’t know who to call in Europe. More than 30 years later, we’re not doing much better. See if you can spot the difference between the EU and US approach when setting up the new EU-US energy council:

The body will most likely have its constitutive meeting on 4 November, one day after being formally announced by President Barack Obama and Jose Manuel Barroso during the EU-US summit due to take place in Washington.

From the EU commission side, the energy council is set to include the commissioner for energy, Andris Piebalgs, the commissioner for external relations, Benita Fererro-Waldner, and the commissioner for science and research, Janez Potocnik. The EU’s top diplomat, Javier Solana, as well as Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt and energy minister Maud Olofsson on behalf of the EU presidency will round up the European delegation.

The US side will be represented by secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the secretary for energy, who also has science and research in his portfolio, Steven Chu.

Source EU Observer – New EU-US energy council to be set up early November

While I understand the underlying historic an political reasons for this approach, it still doesn’t bode well in terms of expected efficiency.

Bucarest photos

Matic Bitenc — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:44:43 +0000

Seeing how I am writing this almost a month later, it’s clear that the day by day coverage of our trip was untenable to begin with. I sort of knew that all along, but tried to keep it up as long as I could. It would even be a shame if I were to keep up with it all the time. Just think of all the time I would spend typing on my phone instead of actually experiencing the trip. It’s sort of like the stereotypical Japanese tourists walking around with their cameras, seeing the world through a tiny LCD (OLED if they’re advanced) screen instead of enjoying it in all it’s greatness through their own eyes. Immerse yourself in the moment first, record just enough to keep the sands of time from eroding the memories, that’s my travel philosophy.

I won’t get into any more detailed descriptions and rather give you some photos which you’ve been clamoring for.

Bucarest, Romania

Passage in the centre of Bucarest, home of numerous middle eastern coffe & nargile places, thus a nice chillout place.

How a city as large and as important doesn't manage to get it's electricity cables underground is beyond me. It's like this all over the place.

Police union on strike in front of the Romanian Ministry of interior (ex-communist central commitee building). Who's watching the police when they go on strike. Well the gendarmerie of course.

Currency exchange at the Bucarest train station ripping off IBM's logo. You'd trust IBM with your money why not us? Or is it more like: "We only rip off the big guys!"?

What Ceaucescu lacked in taste and compassion he certainly made up in scale.

Conversations beyond what this blog is able to handle.

Impersonating the Japanese at the location of Ceaucescu's last pre-shotinthehead speech.

EU seems to be promoting marijuana together with Pepsi in Romania. Strange bedfellows.