St. Petersburg Bound

Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood...or Bust

After much hemming and hawing, plans half-heartedly pursued and abandoned, I'm casting my next moves into stone: With a full, consecutive 6 weeks off for the first time since 1997, I resolved to do something different, something I hadn't tried before...something I felt would be unique.

When my freighter-to-Korea idea ran aground due to high cost, bad timing, and inflexible meal-offerings, I initially (somewhat begrudgingly) set my sights once again on the Fatherland: I intended to check-in on some long lost friends in Berlin...but I refused to conduct the trip by simply bouncing around Germany on ICE trains as I've always done in the past when lazily planning a vacation. I needed to get somewhere beyond same-old (yet still, admittedly, awesome) Berlin, after the initial friend reunion.

I also needed a challenge. I needed something foreign. Frankly, I needed something I could blog about...I needed a hook: and thanks to a still-functioning memory of presidential-naïveté, I recalled George W Bush's first impression of Russian President Vladimir Putin:

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy," Bush said after that first meeting, in Slovenia. "I was able to get a sense of his soul: a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."

Therefore, I'm going to Russia.

St. Petersburg, to be exact, via Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. But because this blog remains primarily politically focused, this 2-month project will be to document and highlight some travel preparation and, eventually, road-diaries, all with a political bent (pending Internet access in the former Eastern Bloc). I hope to capture and record first-hand some of the results of Putin's "best interests" for his country...perhaps I'll even feel right at home with ever-threatened civil liberties.

Assuming I can get in, that is.

At home as I prepare, I already have encountered the first foreign-policy squabble between two presidential soul-mates:

A requirement for entering Russia is completing a single-entry tourist visa application - a mind-bogglingly dysfunctional, bureaucratic mess of forms and approvals straight out of Brazil. As I contacted hotel sponsors, obtained passport photos, and downloaded forms, I found this amusing tit-for-tat on the Russian Embassy Web site:

As of January 1, 2008 the U.S. State Department raises the fee for American visa from 100 USD to 131 USD.

On the basis of reciprocity the fee for Russian visa (standard processing time 6-10 business days) is also raised to 131 USD, effective from January 14, 2008.

Reciprocity, kindergarten-style. A diplomatic fuck you, too.

Second runner-up would have to be question number 32 of the tourist visa application itself:

Do you have any specialized skills, training or experience related to fire-arms and explosives or to nuclear, biological or chemical activities? If «Yes», please explain

No, I do not.

I'll keep you posted on progress...

UPDATE: Part 1 of a series. All future entries related to this series will be tagged with an "SP-B" label and Title prefix.