Travel Notes

Matryoshka Museum

The first museum of Russia’s most famous souvenir, the matryoshka nesting doll, opened in Moscow. It is located in the Fund of Popular Craft, Leontievsky pereulok, 7. The museum houses hundreds of brightly colored dolls, with dozens of smaller figures nestling inside them. The mother of all matryoshkas, a giant red figure at the center of the exhibition, is about one meter high and “houses” 50 smaller dolls inside.

According to director Larisa Solovyova, the museum was originally expected to open last year, on the occasion of the centenary of matryoshkas in Russia. Matryoshkas came to Russian from Japan, and were quickly assimilated here by an artistic movement promoting a return to popular culture. Whereas Japanese dolls portrayed rather somber, bald-headed Buddhist monks, the Russian matryoshka typically features jovial, scarved peasant women with rosy cheeks. In recent years, artists have used the art form to chase fast bucks, emblazoning matryoshkas with such unlikely subjects as the not-so-rosy-cheeked Leonid Brezhnev or tennis star Marat Safin.

While the first museum of Russian matryoshkas steers clear of such modern unorthodox dolls, visitors will find among the collection innumerable Father Frosts, Peter the Greats and even a representation of the last of the Romanovs—the family of Nicholas II.

Tourist Haven?

As the tourism industry struggles to stay afloat in the wake of the international war on terrorism, Russia may gain a reputation as one of the safest regions in the world for international travel.

Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development, in an interview with Itogi weekly said he was convinced the number of travelers coming to Russia will increase, because the situation here is “stable” and the “economy is doing well.” Domestic tourism can certainly use a boost. Last year, 7.4 million guests from beyond the FSU visited Russia; of those 2.2 million were tourists. Last year, Russia earned $4 billion on foreign tourism, while Russians spent some $10.2 billion on travel abroad.

Anatoly Yarochkin, deputy head of the Tourism Department at the Ministry of Economic Development, said that numerous Russian regions could become magnets for tourists: Central Russia, Sakhalin, Kamchatka and Baikal to name just a few. In terms of environmental tourism (UNESCO proclaimed 2002 “the year of environmental tourism”), Russia has such vast opportunities, Yarochkin said, that “one can bring along the whole Europe.” For example, UNESCO recognized Tver region as the most ecologically clean region in Europe.

The Other Transib

A 10,000 km long Transsiberian Highway will become fully operational by 2004, said Sergei Frank, Minister of Transportation. According to Frank, there is presently a 1,000 km gap in the roadway between the cities of Chita and Khabarovsk. The highway’s completion was included in the federal program, “Modernization of the Transportation System of the Russian Federation.” Under the plan, according to Frank, by 2010 the total  length of Russian roads will increase by 20% (to 640,000 km), while the length of multiple-lane highways will be doubled (to 8,000 km).

Tsar’s Finger Gone

Russia’s Ministry of Railways has straightened a 5 km portion of the St. Petersburg-Moscow rail line. As a result, the line is shorter and will also allow trains to travel this part of the route twice as fast, the overall result being a 7-10 minute reduction in travel time between the two cities.

In 1850, when the Moscow-St. Petersburg railway was being built, Tsar Nicholas I, in a resolute gesture typical of him, picked up a ruler and drew a straight line between the two cities as the path for the railroad.

The rail line was indeed constructed in a straight line, with an exception in the district of the Verebyovsky bypass, where trains used to detour through a contour that has since been called “the tsar’s finger.”

A story attributed to 19th century writer Nikolai Grech had it that the bump in the line was attributable to the fact that the tsar’s finger got in the way of the pencil drawing the straight line. And, of course, no railway architect dared to point out the incongruity.

The story is apochryphal. As a representative of the Railway Ministry explained, the detour has a more mundane explanation: the low-powered locomotives of the time could not pull their trains up a steep slope in the region.

Renaissance Decade

The five-star Renaissance Moscow Hotel celebrated its tenth anniversary in late 2001. The 475-room, 12-suite hotel adjacent to the Olimpiysky Exhibition and Sports Complex is managed by Marriot International. “This country has great prospects in terms of business, incentive and leisure travel,” said the hotel’s General Manager Finn Rasmussen. Indeed, Rasmussen said that the hotel’s revenues were up more than 35% over last year. The 12-story hotel opened in 1991 as the Olympic Penta Hotel (in cooperation with Lufthansa) and was taken over by the Renaissance hotel chain in 1993. When the Renaissance hotel group was bought out by Marriot in 1997, the hotel took its current name. Today it is a joint venture between Marriot International and the Moscow city government.

Scraper on track

The tragic events of September 11 did not shake the resolve of Moscow city authorities to build a 600 meter tall skyscraper as part of the Moscow-City project, a trade and business center to be mainly completed by 2003. The complex will also include a 200 meter high hotel. Moscow-City will be connected with the rest of the city by metro and by a special mini-metro line departing from Kievskaya metro station.

When asked at a press conference if it makes sense to build skyscrapers under current conditions, first deputy head of the Moscow Committee for Architecture (Moskomarkhitektura), Mikhail Posokhin, replied: “And do you think production of aircraft will be stopped?”