Russia

I'm sitting here in Moscow this morning, finally in a nice hotel room. It's been a tiring week of travel. Since I left Moscow just over a week ago to travel around the country, I've covered over 9000 miles (not km's). Almost every day has been another city. Here's the 3 second itinerary: Fly from Moscow to Omsk (Siberia), fly back to Moscow to catch a flight to Orenburg, overnight train to Samara, fly to Moscow to catch a flight to Voronezh, fly back to Moscow to catch a flight back over Voronezh to Stavropol, then back to Moscow. At each city we met with a farm and in most places our distributor as well. Here's the short version, you can talk to me for more details if you wish, when I get back.

• Moscow is modern and rich. Same as any city in North America except more expensive cars on the streets.


• Most places have somone to speak English (in Moscow), I'm glad we had an interpreter at the other cities


• The other cities, are pretty poor except Voronezh which is little more of a resort city.


• Hotel rooms are really iffy. When you have hot water, that's clear, you take the opportunity.


• Always grab a bottle of still water to drink when you see one. The common bottle of water is carbonated "with gas".


• All hotels will access prostitutes, or have them standing in the lobby. Just to be clear, I did not utilize this feature! Some of the people we had supper with mentioned that most women, will either go with you for free or not much money.


• This one is for Melanie, almost all women wear high heel boots that come up almost to the knee. Any shoe or boot shopaholic, would get overload over here.


• Cokes come in bottles that are WAY TOO SMALL!!!!!!!!


• Driving in Russia is a quick way to die. Most farms and businesses we visited had professional drivers drive us. Dotted lines seperating the lanes, just mean that 2 lanes are actually 3 and whatever way you can move up is acceptable, even if it means taking the ditch and forcing your way in front of a car. I'm shocked there isn't more head on collisions.


• Travel documentation is checked everywhere. Never throw out a piece of paper that the airline or hotel gives you, because you will probably need it. Everywhere you go, you are registered with the police. Most of the hotels do this for you. You will find youself in jail if you do not have your immigration card you got when you entered Russia, your passport with travel visa, your airline ticket you used to get to whatever city your in and the registration paper from the hotel you last stayed in or are currently staying in.


• There is unreal security when you travel to and from the South (which is close to Georgia and Chechnya (or however you spell it).


• The people are pretty friendly and very hospitable.


• Unlike, North America, out here you don't want to finish your plate unless you want more food. An empty plate means either you are not enjoying yourself or you want more food, and it seems to come out of no where.


• They are very disappointed when you don't drink Vodka with them, but most seemed to understand (and the other guys on my team took the bullet for me).


• This place has a HUGE amount of farmland. The furthest place we flew was to Siberia, a 3.5 hour flight and it was farmland from takeoff to landing. If they ever get to full production, they could feed to world themselves. There're perfectly positioned to feed the two biggest populations in the world, China and India.

Here are some pictures. I have to do some work now, but I'll try and add a couple more entries on the travel challenges, my impressions of each of the cities I visited.

Dosvi' daniya (Goodbye)