Mirth on the Orient Express

The train I took from Moscow to St. Petersburg was something like the Orient Express. The train is a late-1950s Soviet model that is well maintained and appointed with an elaborate dining room, bar (obligatory), and sleeping cars. My compartment ― #4 in Car 3 of 19 ― had a satellite TV and wireless Internet access. The compartment was comfortable, complete with a shower and toilet ― perfect for an eight-hour overnight trip.

I can sleep deeply in beds, planes, ships, cars, on a park bench and all manner of trains – anywhere, anytime. I easily fell asleep shortly after boarding and slept soundly in my bunk for two hours. Then the train came to an abrupt stop in the Russian wilderness, and I was suddenly wide awake.

Even after the train got underway, I simply could not get back to sleep. I read, wrote and sent emails, blogged and suddenly it was 5:30 am. I needed a couple of hours of sleep in order to have a productive day in St. Petersburg.

The real drama occurred a few hours later. At 8:45 a.m. the porter overseeing my car pounded on my door, barking at me to wake up and leave. Springing into action, I stuffed my computer, shirt, pants, etc. into my bags. I threw on my khaki shorts, Black Duck polo shirt, and my loafers (I could not find my socks). Before you could say dasvidanya, I was standing on the train platform, blinking in the intense St. Petersburg sunlight.

The train car door slammed behind me, and I could hear the female porters seized in a round of laugher about me: the ridiculous American. Then I noticed the train was at the station and would leave in an hour for the return trip to Moscow.

As I walked towards the train station and the awaiting IBM town car, I checked my wallet and found it, but quickly determined my passport was missing. Dropping my bags, I ran back to Car 3’s door and starting slamming it in a panic. The door opened and I found the gaggle of female porters laughing uproariously in the first compartment. They had watched everything and had something additional to laugh about.

I quickly walked past them, recovered my passport from compartment #4, and headed back to my bags on the train platform, totally relieved and oblivious to the cackling porters.

Ah, travel. So enjoyable.

From Russia with Love – Part 3

In my teen years I loved Russian women: Anna Karenina, Natasha Rostova, Catherine the Great, and of course, Julie Christie playing Lara Antipova in Dr. Zhivago. Russian women are more than smart and beautiful. They're extraordinary.

Today Russian women over age 30 outnumber men in the same age range by 3-7 percent. Sociologically, this is related to huge losses of men incurred during the two world wars, during the six to seven decades of Soviet purges, and other factors. Russian women are educated – indeed most are highly educated by American standards. Most Russian doctors are women. But getting married is very challenging, and having children is hard, especially after age 25, when many Russians believe women are too old to get married. Single women, especially in university and getting government funding, cannot visit the United States because they tend to get married to American men and don't come back to Russia.

The competition for men is vicious. The Washington Post reported in 2004 that the battle begins with cosmetics:

Just a generation removed from the time when their mothers and grandmothers resorted to the peasant trick of reddening their cheeks with beets, Russian women today spends twice as much of their income on cosmetics as Western Europeans do -- 12 percent of their entire paychecks on average, according to the research firm Comcon-Pharma.

Since many poor Russian women receive an excellent education, they can at least hope to marry well if they snag the right male. Some give up and succumb to Web-based dating services that promise drooling Western men a 1950s-era housewife complete with pearls and high heels. Even worse, some Russian women get snared by the sex clubs that have sprung up all around Moscow.

The good news is that the gender ratio is slowly balancing out. As far as Russia's women are concerned, it can't come a moment too soon.

The art of an empire

I went to the Hermitage Museum last night, the former residence of the Russian Tsars and now one of the largest and oldest art galleries and museums in the world.

From 10 p.m. until just before midnight, I joined 500 other invited guests as part of the Business Leadership Forum on a “white night” tour of the museum courtesy of IBM. The tour took in the collections in five of the six buildings on the Hermitage campus.

The collection was stunning: two paintings of the Madonna and the Christ Child by Leonardo da Vinci (he only did a total of ten paintings in his life), including one done when he was 19 and the other done when he was approximately 50; a room full of Rembrandt's religious scenes and portraits; an extensive collection of smaller Rodin sculptures; several exquisite Monets, Cézannes, van Goghs, and Gauguins; and 29 Picasso paintings, which were mostly from his Blue Period; and one of the deepest collections of Matisses in the world.

We missed several collections, such as the assortment of Fabergé jewelery. Still, it was an amazing, amazing night.

From Russia with Love – Part 2

My short stay in Moscow was at the super-expensive Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow ($900 per night; благодарность – thank you – Hyatt frequent flyer points). The hotel personnel were very helpful and always service-minded. There is a shortage of business hotels in Moscow, resulting in astronomical lodging rates at those that are available. For example, the Moscow Holiday Inn’s least expensive room is $350 per night.

I went to both GUM (left) and ZUM – the largest department stores in Russia. GUM is located in Moscow's Red Square in a huge, ornate building (constructed 1889-93) that once housed more than 1,000 shops. The name is an acronym "State Department Store" in Russian. GUM now contains about 150 shops selling food, clothing, all manner of consumer electronic devices and and home appliances, and other stuff. It functions more like a Western-style shopping mall than a department store. These Soviet-era retail dinosaurs are thriving – a manifestation of Russia’s current oil-based growth economy.

Before departing for St. Petersburg, I went for a quick dinner at Café Pushkin, an expensive and pretentious restaurant with a wonderful mix of French and Russian cuisine for celebrities and the well-to-do. The borscht was amazingly delicious and totally unique. Served hot (the style favored in Eastern and Central Europe), this sweet soup features sliced beets, slivers of goose meat, and sections of apple, and is served with a large portion of sour cream and thick dark bread. I also had caviar and blinis (light-as-air buckwheat pancakes) as my main course, although veal, pork, fish, and many other entrées adorned the menu. The desert selection looked sumptuous.

With Moscow behind me, I left for St. Petersburg and IBM’s 2007 Business Leadership Forum and encountered another drama along the way.

From Russia with Love – Part 1

I’m in Russia for IBM’s 2007 Business Leadership Forum, a meeting of leaders from across business, industry, government, and academia. This year innovation and the challenges facing global businesses are the center of discussion.

I will write more about this great event in blog entries to follow, but first there was some drama I encountered after touching down in Moscow. Yes, you guessed it: Air France lost my bag between Charles de Gaulle and Moscow. It was nearly impossible to connect with someone in the AF offices in Moscow or at Moscow International Airport to determine where in the world my bag was and when I was going to be reunited with it. I was unshaved and in the same clothes for a day plus when I asked a Russian friend from a leading American company for help. I felt like I was in a Narimanov-era movie. Finally I got my bag back a couple of hours before I left Moscow. How do you spell relief in Russian: вспомогательный.

While in Moscow I did some sightseeing. Turns out that many building facades in Moscow are new or beautifully re-coated and restored. The insides of these buildings are usually not restored, and they remain as they were during Soviet era.

I visited a boat basin immediately outside Moscow with a commemorative building erected by Stalin in 1933-37. There were twelve huge painted plates detailing the period’s accomplishments cemented into the supporting pillars of the building; they depicted monuments, large buildings, and other “wonders” of Stalin-era. It was an astonishingly Stalinesque remnant – real, yet seemingly fictitious.

Anytime I interacted with a Russian in Moscow it seemed like a bureaucratic experience. Permission was sought from a superior for everything. It took several questions and angles of inquiry to get things done. Motivation was a problem in other cases; in other cases there was no sense of empowerment and independent initiative. I wondered if it would be the same in St. Petersburg.

The Kremlin (above) lived up to its billing. The Diamond Fund, churches, and museums located on the Kremlin campus were amazing. Lenin’s Tomb was not open; he was at his да́ча (dacha) on the Baltic. Too bad: I would have asked him to borrow a razor.