Travel Notes

Keeping them home

A new law will limit foreign travel for Russian debtors. The Federal Migration Service signed an agreement of cooperation with the Federal Court Bailiffs Service in December 2007. Starting in February 2008, migration officers began checking the financial background of all persons applying for a Russian foreign passport. If they find a record of unpaid debts or court-imposed fines, the individual’s passport documents will not be processed and he or she will be unable to leave the country until all their debts are paid.

Private Train

Tverskoy Express, a Tver-based company, has developed alternatives to the monopolistic Russian Railways. Building on the 2006 launch of its Moscow-Saint Petersburg “Megapolis” express train, privately-owned Tverskoy Express recently inaugurated trains to Kazan and Samara, and plans to also offer an express train to Sochi. megapolis-te.ru

Metro Madness

The Moscow Metro has recently opened several new stations. Two of them, Sretensky Bulvar and Trubnaya, are in the center. A third, Strogino, extends a line in the city’s northwest region. There are currently 175 metro stations in the capital, with another six scheduled to open in the next two years. Extending the metro lines to highly-populated suburban areas scares some, however, since the metro is already operating at or beyond full capacity. What is more, some 15 percent of commuters go to the center only to change lines and shoot back out to a different suburban region, according to gazeta.ru. “It would be nice,”  Mayor Yuri Luzhkov recently said, “to develop a parallel metro system that connects residential neighborhoods together, bypassing the center.”

Little Bunker of Horrors

A new tourist destination has been developed in Lithuania. Tourists are invited to a secret Soviet bunker about 25 kilometers from Vilnius, “decorated” with posters from 1984, television sets showing broadcasts from the 1980s, and a typical Soviet store. There are four different tour packages to choose from, all of which include “interactive elements”: before going underground, visitors shed their mobile phones and other 21st century paraphernalia, and put on telogreikas. To get a full experience of life as a USSR citizen, visitors are interrogated by KGB officers, learn the national anthem, and try on gas masks. Visits last two hours, include dinner, and cost 120 Lt (about €10)  sovietbunker.lt

La Maison Russe

The Russian government is going to pay France some €700,000 for upkeep of the Russian Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery, Le Monde reported. The cemetery became Orthodox in 1926, and a rest home for elderly Russians - La Maison Russe – was opened. The cemetery is the burial place for some 20 thousand émigrés that fled Russia during and after the Revolution and Civil War. It remains a popular destination for Russian tourists who want to pay their respects to Ivan Bunin, Dmitri Merezhkovsky, Andrei Tarkovsky, and other prominent Russians. The cemetery is located in Essonne, south of Paris, and is the largest Russian cemetery outside of Russia.

A Moscow Poet

A monument to poet Marina Tsvetaeva was unveiled in Moscow to commemorate the 115th anniversary of her birth. It is located in Borisoglebsky Pereulok, across from the house – now a museum – where she lived as a child. The bronze statue of a young Tsvetaeva has been in the works since 1993.

Get that Estate

Recent legal changes may make it possible for private investors to own federal monuments, ending a moratorium on privatization that has existed since 2002, Interfax reported. Buying landmarks of cultural importance will only be possible if the new owner takes responsibility for the monument’s safety and upkeep. According to Boris Boyarskov of RosSvyazOkhranKultura, the most likely candidates for privatization are monuments that were constructed by people for their own use, such as estates, chapels, and family churches. There are about 90 thousand such monuments in Russia.

Rossi’s Glass House

Russia’s first museum of glass will open in Saint Petersburg. The exposition will be housed in the restored Orangery of Yelagin Palace, built for the Romanovs by Carlo Rossi between 1818 and 1824. It will show the traditions of glass artistry in Russia, and exhibit the best items from the Palace’s collection in the Glass Garden. The collection numbers some 8,000 items, and was a gift to Yelagin Palace from the glass factory. The Orangery once had a winter garden, including Europe’s best camellia collection. Unfortunately, the greenhouses were not preserved, and for a time during the Soviet era, the Orangery even served as a ski lodge of sorts. The new museum with Rossi’s restored interiors will open at the end of this year.