It's been a fairly hectic trip.
I will start with my last few days in Moscow, and continue on my experience in Ukraine at a later point.
In the waning days of the Moscow trip, we visited two particularly important places: Novodevichy Cemetery (Новоде́вичье кла́дбище) and Bunker 44.
At Novodevichy, many of the most important figures in contemporary Russian history are buried. It is considered second only to the Kremlin Wall. The graves are incredibly ornate, many holding emblazoned portraits or incredible statues of their permanent residents. Initially, when one is buried, a fairly plain wooden set-up is constructed over the grave -- the ornate markers come later. The enormous cemetery wall is used as a columbarium, holding the urns containing the remains of a variety of Soviet figures. Most of them victims of Stalin's purges. Khruschev and Yeltsin are buried here, the only contemporary Soviet leaders to not be buried at the Kremlin Wall. In Khruschev's case, this was due to his death after being unseated from power. Gorbachev will likely be buried here as well, as his wife's tomb is here. The neighboring covenant/nunnery once housed Peter the Great's older sister who was imprisoned there, along with being host to thousands of graves now bulldozed by the Soviets. There, you are expected to walk on the path, else the ground beneath caves in and reveals one of the old graves.
Bunker 44 was another interesting trip, if not something of a letdown. Located 18 floors beneath Moscow, lower even than the metro (you can hear the trains overhead), it has since been converted from a nuclear war command center into a museum. Many of the equipment and gear was left there to rot, and there it mostly remained. Still, it was something of a letdown, as the tour only covered a fraction of the bunker -- most of it was off limits.
Finally, we left Moscow late at night and took a train to Kyiv, and for the first time I really felt like I was "in Russia" as I was leaving it. The train was very rickety -- it felt almost historic, a great counter to the absurdly lavish and bourgeois Aeroflot planes. The station itself was packed with people trying to make a quick buck, people speaking in broken English to try and carry other people's luggage "express, express!" None of them looked to be ethnic Russians.
We had two other passengers riding in our compartment. An middle-aged man who spoke no English, was very quiet, though pleasant and friendly, along with a young Moscow lawyer who spoke in excellent English, albeit with a limited vocabulary. He was very talkative and excited, saying that even in Moscow he did not often meet Americans. I noticed he was wearing a single earring, something very rare amongst men in Moscow, and he explained that it denotated that he was the last in the Cossack line of his family, not as of yet having any children.
We spoke for several hours on and off through the night, touching on the differences in life, along with particularly controversial subjects -- usually brought up by him. He was curious to understand LGBT rights in America, asking whether it was something we considered "normal" and that he could not see it as being considered such, ever, in Russia. I dodged the question, not wanting to put a damper on an otherwise pleasant night, but explained that until very recently we were hardly some sort of bastion of tolerance -- and in many cases, our international approach to issues is contradictory to how we face a subject domestically.
The others slept on and off through the night, though I was restless, instead choosing to listen to music. We were constantly awoken at different points on the Russia-Ukraine border. For myself and my American classmate, we had to present our migration cards in order to leave Russia. As our passports were being examined, a plainly dressed and strangely smiling man who was probably in his 30s inquired as to why we were entering Ukraine. I let my classmate, who speaks better Russian, do the talking; I noticed that our Russian co-passengers immediately averted their gaze. I figured this meant he had a reputation, or that he could seriously interfere with our plans. When he asked why we were going to Ukraine to study Russian, rather than staying in Russia, I immediately thought he was a "spook." I was probably right -- the Russians later said they were fairly certain he was an FSB agent, the modern equivalent of the KGB.
Another border check on the Ukraine side woke us up, and I was singled out by a Ukrainian borderguard to come into the hallway. In my passport photo, my head is shaved -- this was years ago, and now I have shoulder-length hair after my brief stint in the military. She asked two other borderguards to confirm that I was actually the person in the passport photo. Eventually, they did. Finally, we were on the home stretch. The older Russian treated us to a breakfast of blackbread and salami, and we said our goodbyes -- exchanging gifts. However, as we arrived at Kyiv, I immediately wished I was still in Moscow -- the amount of graffiti bearing far-right symbolism was highly offputting, and it littered the trainyard.
The night gave way to the day, and our taxi took us to our hostel -- the smoke of Maidan burning easily visible on the ride. The hostel itself was nice, but the bedroom housed eight people -- and it smelled like it, too.
I let out a heavy sigh and closed my eyes as I tried to finally get some sleep. Now I was truly feeling homesick.
