Travel Journal: 2019 CCI Trip -- Moscow, Sergiev Posad, St. Petersburg

For September 1 to 17, I participated in a Center for Citizens Initiatives (CCI) trip to Russia, where a group of 50 Americans went to Russia to gather information by talking to ordinary Russians to bring back to the US and help reduce tension between these two countries.

Here is the basics of how I got involved --
2007 -- One of my philosophy professors was a (libertarian) Marxist. He had chosen to teach a class on Marxism.
2009 -- I had an REU in Pensylvania. Our dog Kayla died while I was away. Afterwards, I went to Montreal for Worldcon. While there, I began to notice what cultural differences mean.
After returning, I remembered when our Marxist philosophy professor talked about conversations with one of our physics professors who was from the Soviet Union. This got caught in my mind and I had certain dreams.
2011 -- Near the end of my time in the PSI program, I had decided that I wanted to find activists and try to get politically involved.
2014 -- I returned to live with my parents in 2013, taking two semesters off from my PhD to deal with personal issues. I was thinking of trying to write a web comic, but had become focused on these dreams and emotions which had come up in 2009.
2017 -- When the Sanctioning America's Adversaries Act was passed in August, I was frustrated with the fact that I had learned about this only after the fact, while many other pieces of problematic legislation had triggered calls to arms by activists.
2018 -- CCI announced that there would be a group of Russians visiting the US and sent out a call asking Americans if they wished to speak with them, but I was planning on being in Russia during this time. I had found out about this call from the American Committee of East West Accord. I had contacted the organizer Sharon Tennison, and she tried to help, but then proposed that I go on the next trip to Russia, as she was currently busy with organizing.

I suggest anyone interested in liberal activism in foreign countries read Sharon's book, "The Power of Impossible Ideas." Her mentality is one typical of liberals or Democrats or mainstream activists in US, but she managed to get around typical issues such people face when engaging in foreign activism. Instead of going to the Soviet Union to try to "save" Russians, because she was a peace activist, she listened to them. She was trying to see them as human, and to bring this back for people to appreciate. Due to this, she grew to respect and understand Russians, although her mentality still very American. I will talk some about the issues of foreign activism when I talk about politics.

Before trip, we received many emails. One request which was emphasized was to talk to people you knew, telling them that you were planning on going to Russia for this trip, and to invite them to come. I had not talked to people I know about the details of what I was planning on doing in Russia, partly because I had not thought about it before this request, and partly because I was scared people would not let me go if I told them about it. I will probably talk about the issues of overprotectiveness at some point, especially since it comes up again in this story.

My attempt to talk to Americans about what was going to happen did not work very well, although many Canadians and Russians thought positively about this trip and our intentions. When I talk about the mentality of Americans, I will talk about both what I and other participants of the trip were told when they talked about the trip with other Americans.

The trip was split into three weeks (well 3 - 6 day periods). The first week we were all together in Moscow, the second, we were split up into several cities across Russia, and the third we reunified in St. Petersburg.

Our first "week" in Moscow was conference style. We were in Oksana Hotel, a small hotel away from the center of Moscow and very close to the Cosmos Hotel, a very famous Soviet / Russian hotel in Moscow.

I got in a day before most other people. I was supposed to meet someone at the airport to share a taxi, but my plane got in an hour after it was supposed to, at a different terminal than we had expected. The confusion meant that I got in late on my own. In the morning of the 2nd, I met the other people from our group who had arrived early as well. We sat down together at breakfast, and later went out to get currency exchanged. After this we split -- I went back to the hotel, while they headed to see the cosmonaut park nearby.

For the entire day of the 2nd, I was waiting for the organizers to come, since I was under the impression that there was going to be someone who would deal with helping us get Russian SIMs. While I knew how to deal with this myself, if someone had already dealt with this for us, it made little sense to do it myself. On the 3rd, I learned that travel agencies were no longer able to sell us the SIMs directly, so all they could do is to act as a translator at the store. However, in my case, this caused problems, as I actually wanted a different plan from the one she asked for. I also know enough Russian that I could communicate with the Russians, at least for simple things, but not enough that we would be at all confident in that communication.

After having finally dealt with the SIM, I finally felt free to do things. By the time I got the SIM, it was the afternoon of the 3rd, and people were heading out to the metro tour. I had not signed up for this, as I had seen the metro before, and I felt that I would need some unplanned time during the trip. After the tour, the group was to meet in Red Square by GUM, to explore, and eventually meet people for dinner. However, I was unable to find the group, so I ended up just getting dinner myself, then heading back.

While the 4th was a day full of speakers, on the 5th, we went to see the Gulag History Museum in the afternoon. Sharon wanted to emphasize to us Russian history, especially the collective pain from having gone through both the Stalinist period, with a very painful path to industrialization, and being invaded by the Nazis during WWII. I will talk about Russian's complex attitude towards Stalin as a historical figure in other contexts.

I will point out that at the base of the Moscow channel in Dubna, before getting to the giant statue of Lenin looking out towards where a giant statue of Stalin was before it was removed (by Khrushchev), is a plaque dedicated to the people who actually built the channel, (as in the gulag prisoners, not Stalin).

Speakers:
The schedule changed several times last minute as some of the speakers couldn't make it.

On the 3rd of September:
  --  Vladimir Pozner -- Well known Russian journalist (the top TV journalist in Russia), born in Paris, moved to New York as a child, then to Soviet Union when father had issues due to the "communist witch hunt" in the 50s.
    He talked about the Wolfovich doctrine and expansion of NATO in the 90s, Putin, the risk of nuclear war, the issues with modern journalism (in all three of his countries), and the Russian Orthodox Church. He emphasized the need for a large exchange (~10,000 people) of students, around middle school age, between the US and Russia. He seems to believe in journalists having a duty to keep power honest.

On the 4th of September:

 -- Vladimir Kozin -- Chief Advisor to the Director at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies of the Presidential Administration and well trained military scientist.
    Talked about arms control treaties, the need for them and who is responsible for our current situation without them. He also told us that many Russians fear nuclear war today, giving a number from a poll of around 50%.
 -- Rich Sobel -- American businessman -- I skipped this talk. That day was rather busy, and I know that listening to how these people tend to justify themselves can be rather difficult for me to deal with emotionally.
 -- Peter Kortunov -- He was the son of some important person who couldn't make it. He was not so good of a speaker, however, and very difficult to understand. In theory, being from the millennial generation, he has a different perspective of society, but I don't know what that is.

On the 5th of September:

 -- Pavel Velikhov -- The son of Evgeny Velikhov, a nuclear physicist. His field of expertise, however, was different. 
    He talked about Russian culture and society, the reality of the 90s in Russia, Chernobyl, and several other topics. His father was going to come with him, but couldn't make it.

 -- Christopher Weafer -- financial adviser, Founding Partner at Macro-Advisory who has previously served as Chief Strategist for several Russian banks.
    He talked about Russian politics and economics.
    I believe we were told that he is Irish, but he spoke as someone trained in modern economics, but not ideologically neo-liberal, who has managed to remain out of the Western or American propaganda bubble in his beliefs. His job is to study Russian politics and economics for corporate clients, and he appears to do it well, unlike many of the so-called "Russia experts" in mainstream news sources. Like all other speakers, he didn't speak of Putin in black and white terms, although unlike Pozner who had a partially emotional analysis, he had a very matter of fact, objective tone in this analysis. I will get into what people actually said about Putin in a dedicated analysis, after I cover some preliminary material.
 -- Drs Vera Lyalina and Igor Borzhenko -- work at a private Orthopedic clinic in Russia.
    Talked about the Russian healthcare system.
 -- Dmitri Babich - journalist and ex-liberal.
    He talked about his political beliefs and where they came from. I believe their are flaws in his hypotheses, but as his beliefs are common in Russia as well as many people who get pushed to the right on the commonly referenced political spectrum, I will explain these hypotheses in some of my discussions.

On the 6th of September:
 -- Alexander Korobko --  He presented to us what he had learned of the Ukrainian crisis in his research of the situation. I think he was a journalist, but I don't remember as Sharon had given us the wrong description initially, and I never recorded who he actually was. He brought with him two people from Donbass (who didn't speak English). The woman worked as a leader of the separatists' youth group, like girl scouts or boy scouts, while the man was a soldier with the separatists.
    So, as I talk to both Ukrainians and Russians, I don't like taking sides (with one "propaganda bubble" or the other). Most of the people in the delegation seemed more inclined to believe the separatists' account over that by the Ukrainian government. I am aware that people can complain about a legitimate issue with their opponents, ignoring the fact that they themselves also have these problems. ... I will talk further about my analysis at some point, even if it is just to give people some more things to think about to figure out what they want to believe.
 -- Mikhail Gorbachev was sick, and couldn't make it, but his secretary, long-term admirer, etc. Pavel did come to talk to us in the evening. Gorbachev was able to talk to the previous delegation, and the video of that is in Regis's YouTube library.

During our time in Moscow, I got sick, with something probably picked up in the airport. During the rest of the time in Moscow, I tried to attend as much as possible while not over-exerting myself. The illness became a problem for my time in Sergiev Posad, but I was able to manage in St. Petersburg until things got better near the end of our trip.

The 7th of September was a travel day. For the second portion of the trip, the group was to be split into small groups to go to various cities. Since I was put in a group which was going to a nearby city (Sergeiv Posad is 1 hr from Moscow by train.), and we were to leave later in the day, we had time to walk around. My companions had desired to see the Red Square area, as they had not had an opportunity to go there previously. I was playing translator and tour guide, despite my failing voice and poor Russian language skills.

For the 7th and 8th of September, Moscow was celebrating the official birthday of the city, so the center of the city was set up with all sorts of booths. The other interesting aspect which I remember is one of my companions making a comment about McDonalds being on the opposite of the Kremlin wall from the Presidential Palace. I made the comment that McDonalds was not actually in line of sight of the Presidential Palace because the Kremlin wall blocked the view. (The shopping center of relevance in this case is Okhotny Ryad.)

The provincial elections were on the 8th of September. Before then, when we were in Moscow, there were advertisements for political candidates all around, and even people handing out such election material. 

For the second portion of the trip, I was assigned to go to Sergiev Posad. I was originally put in with a different group in a different city, but Sharon changed this on the plans. I don't know why, but I was not particularly happy with it, first of all because I didn't understand the reason for the change, and second of all because the original city was not well known, while this one was famous for a cathedral.

 Our host in Sergiev Posad was in involved in agriculture. I was to go there with two other members of our group, one who was an organic farmer from Maine, the other a gardener / beekeeper living in California. I initially found the concept of talking with farmers to be an interesting concept, despite not understanding why I was put in this group.

We stayed in the house of our host, which had 5 bedrooms, an office/library, a living room, and a reasonably sized kitchen. The size felt comparable to many American 3 bedroom homes, although it is difficult for me to judge without numbers. This is actually very unusual for Russians, who typically live in apartments, although potentially with a dacha as a second summer home away from the city. The roads in the area were unpaved, and the surrounding area was plant life, giving a somewhat suburban or rural feel, if you ignored the fact that the city appears to have expanded to nearby areas. Many of the homes in the area appeared relatively wealthy, but I am not that good at judging these things.

The yard of our host had gardens, a bathhouse, and a chicken house with chickens and a roster providing fresh eggs as well as happily eating food scraps. For her neighbor on the right, the fence dividing the properties was chain-link, and did not obscure the view to the dog in the doghouse in that yard.

Since our host had been involved with Sharon in the 90s, she had a conception that we were to teach her farmers rather than that they were supposed to teach us about conditions in Russia. This was fine for our farmer, seemed to make our gardener uncomfortable, as she didn't want to be confused for an expert or official, (they kind of looked up to us), and was very bad for me, since I knew very little of farming. I would have found it interesting if the Russian farmers were the ones giving the presentations, as I could learn about agriculture, but this was not how things were set up, which made everything frustrating for me, as I felt like I had no place there.

Further issues arose because I was half the age of our host and my companions. Since I was also sick, our host was rather overprotective, which caused issues. While she tried to provide medicinal tea, she also kept me out of two of the three farm visits. All three of them also liked to drink wine in the evenings and talk, which was fine, until the point when they said the only reason they were fine with me not drinking was because I was so young, while I don't drink because I can't with my drugs (and it should be the option of people not to do such things anyways). And they also talked about the issues with modern youth with a complete lack of awareness of the realities people from my generation face.

The evening of the 7th, the day we arrived, our host had invited over her friends / singing group for a dinner party. There was lots of food, and the girls even sang and danced some over the course of the evening. While people were talking, our host translated for us as her friends didn't know English. It was a fun evening, although I didn't talk much as I was loosing my voice, and it was difficult for me to talk.

In the morning of the 8th, I went with my companions to the nearby market while our host remained home. The entire day I couldn't talk except for whispering due to illness. However, I still tried to help my companions with Russian at the market.

Later, we went to visit the monastery, as nobody was available on the Sunday (which was also an election day). The monastery was full of tourists, and didn't seem to mind cameras. Most Russian churches ban phones and cameras, many prefer females to cover their heads, and the monastery in Valday also wanted females to wear skirts, although provided skirts and headscarves to borrow. Here we saw the Chinese tourist buses as well as many others, and the place was packed. After walking around for a while, my energy faded, and I ended up waiting outside one of the buildings our small group toured.

Due to illness, we decided that I should stay home for the farm visit that afternoon. Our host also claimed that it would be uninteresting to me, but I doubt people's ability to judge what I would or would not find interesting. They ate dinner there, and brought back some of the pie for me to eat at the house.

On the 9th, we had a full day planned for a single farm visit which was very far away. Our host told me that it would be best to stay home, while I wanted to gauge how difficult it would actually be in order to try to make an informed decision. I was ordered to remain on the property of her house and yard while they were gone. I was not so happy with this as I wanted to walk some while I had free time, as well as to get a reader for my camera's memory cards. But since she didn't give me a key, there was no choice. I was rather restless all day, and when they came home, they just went to bed for a nap, prolonging the wait until I could get done what I needed.

By the 10th, my voice had recovered. That day, we had a meeting with farmers at an agricultural school. In the morning, I helped our farmer design a presentation of her farm from photos she had retrieved from her collection. We then dressed up nice and went to the school. She presented first, followed by our host (in Russian). We were told that she would translate her presentation for us later, but never did.

Afterwords were photos, and many people left while the rest of us headed out to a farm for a farm visit. This particular guy raised goats for milk. We had lunch, while he talked with our farmer, using our host as a translator. Then we headed to a nearby area, built of wood in the old Russian style. There are streams which come from the mountain there which were clean and cold. There was a legend about how the water first started to come from the mountain, and beliefs of its healing properties. People take water from the mountain and even bathe in it in special bathhouses set up for this purpose. Returning, we saw the goat farmer with his goats in the field.

For the 11th, we had a meeting at an agricultural college with students and faculty. Again, our host had us present, although this time twice, once for the students and a second time for the faculty. I ended up talking about the American education system for the students only, while our farmer did her presentation for both groups.

After the presentations, we sat down for tea and cookies. A couple of the students could speak English, and I ended up talking to them while the others who remained in the room had a separate conversation.

The dynamics had a few unusual aspects.

Our host presented us to the head of the department on the previous day, and tried to show off that I knew some Russian both days. She never actually tried to talk to me in Russian, she just tried to show that I knew some Russian.

Sharon had invited the press to each group in each city, but it was for the host to actually tell the local press who would be involved. Our host waited until the last day to bring in the press, probably because she didn't want to loose control of the situation, but I don't know how to best judge the dynamics at work in this case. They videotaped the presentations, talked, then left before the tea and cookies were brought out.

The 12th was a travel day to get to our third and final city, St. Petersburg. At this point, we were winding down the trip and doing some touristy things. We stayed at the Moscow Hotel.

Early in the day I was very tired and started to get worried that my illness would actually require medical attention. This never ended up happening. I instead used some cold medication at first, but switched to sea buckthorn tea later, which seemed to work just as well at keeping me functional.

September 13th was the report out -- basically, now that we were back together as one group, we needed to tell everyone our experiences during the time when we were split. There were a few issues as the hotel never got our reservation for a conference room for this event, but it worked out in the end.

During report out I needed to leave the room as I was crying. What happened is that I had finally realized issues with our host in regional city, issues my companions brought up during out time in Sergeiv Posad, but I think I only truly realized when confronted with reality, i.e., when other people told me about their experiences.

I also probably would have preferred being put in Yakutsk, something which I had chosen not to request, as I had been there before and wanted to see somewhere new. But part of my desire was to make connections, and I need the connections in Yakutsk if I am to continue with my story.

For the 14th, we had a bus tour of St. Petersburg, followed by an optional visit to Catherine's Summer Palace. I, like many of the people, chose not to do this. Our alternative plan in this case was to take a boat tour, but this was canceled due to weather. We instead went to the nearby Dom Knigi bookstore, to wait and see if boats would be available later. After eating there, we just went back to the hotel.

In the evening, I found some time to talk to my host from when I was in the language immersion school. The conversation we had was kind of interesting.

For the 15th, we saw Piskarevsky Grounds, which was a mass grave of the people who died during the blockade of Leningrad during the second world war. The Siege lasted 900 days, and most of the people who died did because of starvation or exposure to the cold, rather than by being killed. I believe one of the reasons our guide chose to emphasize these numbers was to remind us of the reality of the notion of sanctions, but I may be confusing this with something else.

In the evening of the 15th, we had home visits. However, the family I was originally paired with turned out to not be available, and our group instead went to Sharon's place, where she had invited over some other people.

On the 16th, I went in the morning with someone from the group for a walk along Nevsky Ave. We ended up staying out longer than I had anticipated, and I got to the CCI event in the afternoon very late.

On the 17th, the group left at various times in the day. I had chosen to take the overnight train back to Moscow in order to get to Dubna on the 18th, and had some time to wander around by myself.

Since I was sick during my time in St. Petersburg, I had not found the time to try to engage with the Pokemon Go players in the city. I eventually decided to return to the city over the weekend of October 19th and 20th, when I wandered around the city playing Pokemon, bought some books, and talked to people at a feminist cafe / center hidden in the city.

When I was at the feminist center, this was the only significant time I had during the entire two month trip to actually talk to someone in Russian. Most of the time people would either not try to have a lengthy conversation with me, or would speak in English. I think in this case, there was an incentive to talk, but the individuals with which I was talking didn't know English.

One of the interesting aspects of the trip is that I had the opportunity to met several Americans who had also managed to avoid being taken in by the American anti-Russia narrative. Reasons for this were diverse, but I think a lot of people either had roots in peace activism or had some sort of Russian connection. I know for one person, it was because she was (originally) South American. South American politics is a whole other story, for which I also know pieces of the complications. From the emails we received before the trip, there may have been some people who were more on the "it doesn't hurt to listen" side of things, rather than not believing the anti-Russia narrative in the US.

My Writings

I am going to link directly to a few of my pieces here: My apolitical summary of my experiences in Russia, a description of the reason for my interest in Russia, and my full travel journal list, my summary of my motivations or goals in writing about Russia and politics, and my basic appeal to the value of diplomacy and the legitimacy of the Russian experience and struggles. If you go through the two later links, I will eventually have more concrete explanations of certain concepts and the reality of the Russian situation, while the first two link to the basic travel journal pages.

So, I know I am basically hiding my overtly political writing behind a screen of links, but I believe this is more effective, as it prevents people who don't want to think about politics from being forced to think about politics as well as attempting to confront the source of the dissonance people will be shown in the political writings first, addressing the important points (of the legitimacy of other peoples), trying to tear down the misconceptions at their source, before building up a new, more accurate picture of the world later, if there is actual interest in continuing.

Basically, I don't care if you listen to my rant on Russian culture, feminism, authoritarianism, socialism, etc, as long as you don't scapegoat all of your problems on another culture or act as if another identity is illegitimate just because it is different or another population is illegitimate just because there are issues within it. So, I am going to focus my entire analysis on pointing out when people are doing this, perhaps without realizing, and try to force people to go through a path where they are confronted with the fact that I what am asking for is respect, then perhaps understanding, if you have enough energy to follow me that far.

And, yes, there is a reason I wish to present people first with fictional narratives, then non-fictional narratives, before even attempting the direct route.

Links to the Writing of the Other People

I will put here a link to everything which was sent to me that was actually produced by people from the trip as well as a few other links. 

• Here is the main Center for Citizens Initiatives site. The videos from our trip are here.
• Also, for the American Committee for East-West Accord.
• And the Back from the Brink anti-nuclear weapon campaign.
• Stephan Cohen is a scholar who studies Russia. He wasn't associated with the trip, but he is a prominent scholar of Russia in the US. His commentary about Russia nowadays is published here. I tend to dislike his focus on fighting terrorism, but that is a whole other discussion.
• Regis Tremblay was our cameraman and an independent filmmaker he has all the published video from this trip and more on his YouTube channel. He is currently planning on moving to Crimea.
• Natylie Baldwin, former traveler has her blog here. 
• Kenneth Rayman, one of the people on our trip who has his own spiritual connection to Russia, has his blog here.
• Sally Mahe wrote a blog devoted to the trip. 
• And this is the writing of David Owens, also from the trip.
• Ann Wright -- A US military veteran and activist with Code Pink who was on our trip, she wrote about our trip here and here. Her trip to Yakutsk got press coverage -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and she was also interviewed by RT and Sputnik.
• Chris Weafer was one of our speakers. Here is one thing he wrote on Russia.
• Riva Enteen wrote this, which has been published in several online sites.
• Whereas this was written by two travelers, by Dennis Ortblad and Krishen Mehta.
  
• This is Acres USA, an organic farming conference series in the US, cited by our organic farmer as a place people could actually go to learn organic farming techniques.