We've figured out the second half of our Christmas and New Years trip, and I cannot be more excited. Let's just hope it works out, because, dang, the Russians are not fooling around. I called the Russian consulate in Hong Kong before starting to book things for this trip and figured, easy peasy, I can do paperwork - this should not be a problem.
Then I printed out the visa application and realized applying for a Russian tourist visa is akin to applying for government security clearance and playing roulette. A meticulous recounting of personal details, and not a bit of luck, seems to be required.
You have to list your itinerary, all the countries that you've visited in the past ten years and the year of visit (good grief!), your work history, your educational history, the full names of your parents and any relatives living in Russia... not to mention, you have to confirm whether you have medical insurance and answer a questionnaire... and fill out hotel support vouchers... and obtain formal stamped and signed hotel voucher forms from your pre-paid hotels. Apparently they also really don't like it when you go "off the grid," aka on your own itinerary without an officially recognized tour operator.
Hmm. This might take a while.
But, we have booked a lovely cabin in the middle of nowhere in the deep snowy woods of Ruka (major props to Michael's sister on this one), and if all goes according to plan, after Christmas we will fly out of Kuusamo into Helsinki, board an express train into St. Petersburg, and stay in the "Venice of the North" for two full days before boarding another train, this time the very famous Red Arrow, that will take us from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
The Red Arrow is a sleeper train that strikes me as a bit kitschy (think red, gold, pomp and circumstance and lots of it). The station even plays a song, "The Hymn to the Great City," when the train departs! However, the train is also steeped in history and tradition. The Red Arrow first began operation in 1931 and has not stopped service in all the years since, except for the Siege of Leningrad (that's modern day St. Petersburg) from 1941 to 1943. The Red Arrow was the nicest train (and still is, although recently the Grand Express, a privately owned train, has started operating the same route and it looks pretty sweet too) and shuttled the highest ranking officials and the elite members of the Communist party back and forth between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Pretty nifty, huh?
From Moscow, we fly back to Hong Kong on the first day of the new year.
I can't wait!
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