Home » Russia » Travel to St. Petersburg and Mongolia (part I)

Hello my dear subscribers,<br /><br />Tomorrow I am leaving to my next trip It is not only my travel addiction, that drives me. I have to travel for health reasons also. Life in America is pretty unhealthy. People in the not so prosperous countries walk for groceries, walk to work, run after overcrowded buses and fight with others to get inside. This provides them with much needed amount of daily exercises, the natural way. Americans almost do not walk. They go everywhere by car. Every task which requires even a small muscular effort is mechanized or automated. Even two story buildings have an elevator. This, along with abandons of food produce an un-intentional result. Americans became fatter and fatter. Dedicated people with strong will, would wake up earlier and go for a jog, go to gym and eat, not tasty, but healthy vegetables. This way they stay in shape. Ordinary folks don't do that and get fat. A Stunning 70% of Americans are overweight.<br /><br />This is an unexpected result of a sincere efforts to make people's live better and easier. I did not get overweight yet, but I definitely got out of shape during four months of sitting in front of the computer and traveling between the computer and the fridge.

Travel to St. Petersburg and Mongolia (part I)

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-22 18:13:34

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try to enter Saint Isaac's Cathedral most American looking guy was caught. He had to buy a ticket for foreigners and his Russian ticket may be returned to the cashier. However cashier refuse to take the ticket. I offered the ticket to people standing in line. Obviously nobody wanted to buy it because the ticket may be counterfeited or expired. Than I offered the ticket to people standing in line for free. Nobody wanted to take it. I went along the line and shouted: "Who wants a free ticket, who wants a free ticket" Nobody wanted it. Eventually one lady, who looked rather like Japanese, not Russian, took it. It was a pretty interesting experiment. Russians are so incredibly suspicious. They have the reason for this, they were cheated so many times in the past. It also indicates how difficult it is to create a new business in Russia. All these Intels, Microsofts and Fords were started on borrowed money.

BIKE RIDE

Most enjoyable thing for me in SPB is night bike rides. It is quiet, no traffic, and the entire city is illuminated by the magic light of white nights. I wanted to show it to my companions. But it was not easy. There is no bike rent in SPB. To find four bikes was not an easy task. In America you can find a few rusting bikes on every backyard. They were bought for children and as soon as bikes became inoperable, mostly because of flat tire, they are left to rust. After children are grown up, parents sell bikes on garage sale for a few bucks. If you inflate the tires and spray the chain with WD-40 the bikes are OK again. I was able to find only three bikes so we rode in turn. It was great. However in order to ride bikes in SPB you have to understand the mentality of local drivers. A car is still a luxury here, which most people cannot afford. So, every driver is a superman and he feel it is insulting for him to break for these jerks who are still walking. I was almost hit by a car here. I tried to cross the road in front ...