Day 8
After checking out from the hostel we went back to the Church of Our Savior on Spilled blood built on where Alexander the II was mortally wounded. Apparently people had been trying to kill him for awhile, putting a bomb in the Winter Palace (which is now part of the Hermitage)...derailing his train, etc. Eventually a bunch of revolutionaries got him by throwing a bomb at his carriage. Lame. In any case, when we walked inside, the interior was even more magnificent than the exterior (see picture taken by Jeremy.) And all the images you see are mosaics! The chips of ceramic that make up the pictures are about the size of a quarter which is completely insane.
Next, Bethany and I set off on our own in search of Dostoevsky. Now, I didn't love Crime and Punishment, I didn't even like Crime and Punishment, but this seemed like a rare opportunity and it was that or the museum with three headed babies. We looked at the map and went up and down the streets, then up and down the same streets. It didn't really matter though, because even though it was slap-you-in-the-face-repeatedly cold, it wasn't raining and we didn't have to run. We felt so incredibly free. Midway through our semi-productive wandering, I needed a Big Mac break. One of the employees took my order while I was standing at the end of the line and seemed thrilled that I was American and asked me if George Bush was my president. I said yes and she started girlishly giggling uncontrollably. Two minutes later I had my food even though it was so busy that Bethany and I ate standing up. (Sidenote: I ate a Big Mac in the time it took her to eat half a muffin. I told her not to feel bad though, it just takes practice.)
We kept meandering and felt hopeful when we eventually saw the Dostoevsky Cafe, the Dostoevsky Hotel, and a statue of him. It was like Disney world, but creepier. Finally, we arrived at his apartment, fulfilling our quest twenty minutes ahead of schedule! We strolled though the rooms and read about his life. He loved shopping and hated math just like me! Then we looked at his writing desk and other assorted junk. The coolest thing was the clock Dostoevsky's brother stopped at the moment he died. Lauren, upon hearing of this commented, "how clever, though he had probably been waiting for his brother to die for years just so he could do that."
We then had to get to the Kazan Cathedral in order to observe an Orthodox service. On the way we stopped to admire babushkas selling bright flowers, the twilight dazzling off the buildings, and lots of ugly old Soviet cars. While getting to the cathedral wasn't a problem, standing forty minutes for the service was. Granted, it was in another beautiful tribute to God's majesty and yes, there was an incredible choir chanting in the back while the priests moved with well practiced grace and wafted the smoky scent of the Holy Spirit over everyone. But I think everyone was ready to go back to familiar bleakness of Lithuania by then. And so we got our stuff to the station and through the ridiculously heavy, incredibly swingy doors. We got yelled at by the police-again and boarded the train. It didn't take long for everyone to fill out their paperwork and pass out on their beds. We awoke in darkness to pounding on our door and fumbled for our passports to hand tp Russian security. One by one, we drifted back into dreamland and soon heard another pounding on our door. Now what? It took us awhile to realize that this was not a Russian woman, but a Latvian man. We had reached the next border without even realizing it. Under normal conditions, this guy would have made our pupils dilate, but we were lucky to keep our eyes open at all. Eventually we awoke in good old Lithuania, which almost felt home-ish.
I feel like at this point I should make some sort of lofty statement about how visiting Russia forever changed me, how I was captivated by it's cold beauty, and how what I saw and experienced there will forever remain burned into my mind. But I think my account speaks for itself.
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