Moscow and St. Petersburg are rivals. Stereotypically, a Petersburger doesn't like Moscow and a Muscovite doesn't like St. Petersburg. Petersburgers say Moscow is uncultured and the people are dumb and too focused on business. "Everyone's eyes are just blank. You can see it on their faces in the Metro," someone told me. Muscovites say St. Petersburg is boring, small. "Yeah so there's the city center, but... what else is there? Nothing, that's it. If you want to have any fun you have to go to the center. Everyone goes to the center for fun and that's it."

I got a very, VERY small glimpse of Moscow, but it seemed warmer to me. Less stern and suffocating. One of my profs told me it was the architecture in St. Petersburg. "Very serious," she said. "Very serious and very sad. It's a difficult city to live in." Moscow's city center seemed more open and organically grown. But again, I've been there for something like six days and that's it.






Moscow is full of all sorts of weird, Stalinesque, Soviet architecture. Buildings that symbolized ideals more blatantly than anywhere else I've been. This was some strange park, with buildings dedicated to different peoples of the Soviet Union. As far as I can tell from the ones we went in, now they are bottom-tier shopping centers, crowded with cheesy attractions and booths of sellers hawking souvenirs and other shit.

Socialism fell fucking hard, and there are reminders everywhere of the 180 degree turnaround.


















Moscow has a much more visible Soviet presence than St. Petersburg that's mostly evident in the architecture. But I guess I didn't spend a whole lot of time photographing buildings.




Soviet statues often made a point to show men and women in equal numbers, as equal workers and contributors. Yet feminism is not alive and well in Russia. I don't think I ever fully wrapped my head around the thinking there. By the way, this huge statue is the symbol of Mosfilm, the main film studio of the USSR.

The Soviet era's impact on modern Russian life is complicated and strange. Sometimes I think about it and it seems like it was just a thick paint lopped over the country. Soviet ideals from above, but down below, everyone kind of functioned as usual.










This trip warmed my little heart more to Moscow (considering I think I pretty much hated it after my previous trip). I walked around a lot more than last time and felt like I saw more stuff this time around. Though I did get absolutely fucking lost in this one park and wandered around alone for several hours in the middle of the night, finally finding a metro at around 12:30, by which point I was close to panic. I ran into my gay friend near the hotel. He'd been out on the hunt for gay bars (they do exist in Moscow and Petersburg), and I felt better knowing we'd both made it back from what could've potentially been disasterous situations.