The Russian people are struggling for democracy and more power to them – if only they could vote Putin out – which is what they tried to do in this last election.

We visited Russia and went into the country in a tour bus.  As we entered, we had to go through four inspection stops.  The first three stops, an  armed soldier entered the bus and observed all passports.  The last stop, we were asked to exit the bus, went into a building, and separately went into a room by ourselves and were interviewed by a person in uniform.  My experience was when I entered the room – I gave the soldier my form which indicated how much money I was bringing into the country –  the soldier said something in Russian which I did not understand after viewing the form – so I shrugged my shoulders – then he proceeded to ask three times – each time I shrugged my shoulders – never indicating that I was shaking in my boots.  Finally, the tour director came in and asked what was the problem.   The question was why did I put an American dollar sign before the amount of money I was bringing into the country?  She spoke to the soldier for a minute and then he scratched out the dollar sign.  He then seemed happy.  After we exited the building – she told me he was seeing if he could frighten me.  There were always government people on all tours to be sure what the local tour guide was telling was correct.  Even in the bar hotel, we had government representatives listening and watching.

Russia was not what the U.S.  news media had been portraying –  that the people were poor and did not have any food in the markets which was not true.  Driving the countryside were beautiful farms and stands along the roads with lots of food being sold by the coop farms.  We even found a stand where we bought beautiful Russian crystal.  The young people walking on the streets were dressed very nicely and were going to work.  The old people were the sad part – they all had been supported by the government prior to the fall.  After the fall, it was different – the handouts were handled differently.  The tour director told us not to give any money to the young – only to the old.  We found the old women in the early hours sweeping the streets.  St. Petersburg and Moscow subways were like a museum – each stop with different scenes – paintings, etc., and guess what  – no graffiti anywhere. The museum in St. Petersburg was outstanding.  The worst part was the drinking water – we were unable to drink it – it was tan in color and we were told not to drink it.  But, that is another story – I forgot and washed my tooth-brush with the tan water and became ill.  The bus had a lot of cases of drinking water which was given out to the soldiers at our stops – they requested it?   This was a wonderful trip and the people were so nice.  

kommonsentsjane