To me it was Russia. We all hear of these stereotypes about the Russian people. How they are rude, and many of people my age (54) were brought up with the Cold War propaganda. To many of us Russians were cold and downright nasty. But I found them to be the complete opposite. I found the Russians to be friendly and very hospitable, so much so that I visited the country twice more. I found that the further you get away from the tourists hubs like Moscow and St Petersburg the friendlier the people are. I think that they are genuinely interested in you and want to talk to you. Of course many Russians do not speak English, but still they try.
|I remember taking an 18 hour train trip from Moscow down to Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad). I paid an extra US$30 to upgrade to a more comfortable cabin. It had two beds, instead of the bunks in the lower castes, and a TV. It had Jurassic Park on, but that was no good to me as it was dubbed into Russian. But in the bed opposite me was a Russian paratrooper going down to join his units fighting in Chechnya. He spoke no English, but insisted on sharing with me a homemade bottle of Vodka, very strong stuff. We drank that and then he got up and brought another bottle which he also insisted in sharing. I slept most of the 18 hours to Volgograd.
(The Moscow-Volgograd train. The journey takes roughly 18 hours. Below is a beach on the Volga River in Volgograd. Russian summers can be very hot.)
Another surprise is the heat. In the summer months Russia gets extremely hot and the lakeside and riverside resorts get packed out. We are all familiar with pictures of Napoleon’s troops struggling through the snow and blizzards and of photos of frost-bitten German troops. Well, Russian winters certainly can get like that, but their summers are the complete opposite. I actually went for a swim in the river and sat down on the beach with an ice cold beer.
(There are many great things to see in Russia, buildings that look like they have just come out of a fairy tale. This is Kazan which I visited four years ago where I spent a few days before taking a train to Nizhny-Novgorod. Both are wonderful cities and I highly recommend a visit. In the summer the lake is a favourite spot for people to cool down. The building in the two pictures above and below is the Kazan Kremlin (Kremlin means fortified seat of government). As Kazan was an independent nation in the Middle-Ages along with several other cities in Russia it has its own Kremlin.)
Wherever I went in Russia I was met by friendliness take took me aback. I would go into a bar and people would try to buy me a drink. Another surprise was in Kazan when I was pointing at a picture on the menu of the food I wanted in a fast food joint when the lady suddenly said. “I speak English please.”
One thing they do allow in Russia which they do not allow in the UK or the USA is when display tanks, artillery and other military hardware in outdoor war museums they let the children climb all over them, to use them as climbing frames.
(People climbing on a T-34/85 in the Nizhny-Novgorod Kremlin, something you would not see in a British or American war-museum. Below you can see the Nizhny-Novgorod Kremilin.)
If I got lost people would always take me by the arm and make sure I got on the right path. And if sitting by yourself in a bar someone would often come to talk to you. In Kazan at an outside bar a boy of about ten asked (Americanski), Niet, Anglia,” I said. The boy immediately run away, leaving me thinking, what do they tell the kids here about us British. But all was not what it seemed; a few minutes later the boy was back, grinning from ear to ear with a woman who spoke fluent English. We sat and chatted and drank for a couple of hours.
(The monument, the MOTHERLAND IS CALLING on top of Mamayev-Kurgan in Volgograd. The whole hill has been turned into a memorial park for those who fell in the Battle of Stalingrad.)
Check out my other Quora post about my trip to Volgograd.
Alan Moore's answer to Which is your favourite battle of World War II?
Wow, thanks people 5,000 up votes, the most I have ever had on a single article. The sheer number of up votes clearly shows that many people are not being taken in by the anti-Russian mode of the media and our politicians.
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