From Russia with love
i found myself, consciously or semi-consciously, on a plane with two friends and eight women, the youngest of them thirty years old, as i was told, on a relatively long journey to the russian cities of moscow and st petersburg.
i do not remember now how it happened, but it was a coincidence that was better than twenty dates and a prior arrangement. things went better and easier than i expected.
this was my second visit to russia, but it was fun all the way and useful, yet it was not satisfactory enough, despite everything i saw.
i believe another long visit to other russian cities is necessary.
russia consists of several selfgoverning republics, semi-autonomous minority regions, and other major provinces and counties. moscow and st. petersburg are also considered two federal cities.
russia has beautiful areas, a simple, friendly and welcoming people, beautiful restaurants serving select international cuisine, luxury, medium and small hotels, markets fi lled with various capitalist goods, quarters, restrooms, churches, mosques, and many other beautiful things that are worth visiting, especially accommodation food and transportation, other services cost much less than in western european cities, not less in quality with a clear freedom, and more security that can be easily felt and touched.
the history of modern russia began in 1721 with the romanov family, when the most famous caesar, peter the great ascended the throne.
the rule of this family and the history of the tsars ended a few months after the bolshevik revolution of 1917 when the revolutionaries shot and burned nicola ii, his reign and his daughters were in the garden of the house in a remote siberian city, in which they were exiled.
this phase lasted nearly 300 years and was followed by the communist phase which began in 1922; lasted for about 70 years and ended in 1991 with gorbachev’s policy of perestroika, or restructuring, or glasnost whatever you may call it (meaning ‘openness’).
moscow was the capital of russia for nearly 900 years before the tsars decided to move it to st. petersburg, the historic port of russia, and the soviet communists returned to moscow in 1917, with the success of their revolution.
the area of russia is 17 million square kilometers (kuwait is 18,000 sq km), twice the area of the united states, but in russia there are very few big and prosperous cities, unlike the old and modern capitals, and sochi the touristic city on the black sea.
in sochi a majority of the people were circassians, who were expelled by the russians for fear of their loyalty during its war with the ottoman empire. to be continued …
