Russia 2017

The following is our trip to Russia. We were in Russia from August 7th to September 4th. For the entire photo album: http://www.rsb0.com/piwigo/index.php?/category/album-2017-russia

On our way to the airport. This was my first Uber ride, although not Dmitri’s first…

We’re at JFK. The NYC skyline is just above the China Eastern aircraft.

We spent MONTHS debating taking a car seat or not. We opted not to. It worked out ok and some how Dmitri got some sleep.

We made it to Шереметьево (Sheremetyevo). Here’s Grandma and Aunt Masha greeting D.

On our way to Grandma’s house.

I’ll admit, I used a selfie stick…

First day in Dubna. We’re getting settled in. It was a tough night getting everyone to sleep considering Olessia sister came in from Siberia which is 6 hours ahead of Moscow and we were 7 behind Moscow.

As you can tell, I got internet working at my mother-in-law’s place. It was a bit tricky but with a lot of trial and error and Google Translate, I got it to go.

D has been showered with love as well as plenty of walks to the park.

The view from the balcony

The courtyard at Olessia’s mom’s home. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in probably the mid 70s.

We were planning to go to the market, but left a bit too early. So off to the park! We spent some time at the park which allowed D to explore and run around. Then we headed over to the market. We didn’t stay long at the market. The market was made up by a bunch of individual vendors with some very fresh products ranging from veggies, cheeses, eggs, milk, and meat.

Slick! For my birthday, Olessia’s sister Masha got me an AC Robin Zed2 action camera. It’s like a GoPro but with LCDs on the front and back of the camera. It comes with a waterproof case that is really similar to the GoPro. It looks like it uses the same mounting system as the GoPro which is cool. The gotcha is the instructions are in Russian but so far I think I’ve sorted the camera out. Here’s a photo and video…

Once D was to bed and conked out, Masha generously agreed to keep watch on D and let us sneak out.

We were aiming to go bowling. When we got to the place, it turns out the bowling alley was no longer there and a Georgian restaurant and a grocery store are now there. The Georgian restaurant was closing up so we took a quick spin around the grocery store.

We were shopping and I ran into a beer made by or endorsed by a Russian rock/folk band named Leningrad. So there’s a picture of their beer.

While we were shopping, some guy ended up following us around the store. Dunno why. My best guess would be we were speaking English and maybe he wanted in on it.

The 2nd picture is of potato chips. EDIT Ok, I thought the blue bag said crab on them too, which is confusing since it has a picture of a steak with ketchup on it. But Olessia has corrected me and said it says “brave”. I think I’m going to have to brave up and try them. I did look around and they didn’t have the sausage flavored chips.

The last picture is of Olessia and our drinks. I’m hoping she’s able to chime in as to the name of the restaurant and the name of the drinks. Her drink was very impressive. It was a hot cherry drink which was very tasty. I had a beer. Olessia said it’s from one of the oldest Russian breweries and a favorite of her dad’s. It was a nice beer – when you think of a what a beer should taste, this was it, I would say. We hung out at this restaurant and had dessert there. We chatted, ate, and enjoyed the American music videos from the early 2000’s playing on the Russian TV station…

Olessia’s kindergarten.

The fighter jet is a MiG-25 which was (Olessia, correct me if I’m wrong), designed and partially built in Dubna.

Most of the rest of the photos are of the restaurant Камелот.

Had dinner with the family at Камелот (Camelot). I had the Kiev cutlet (chicken Kiev) and D had a chicken with pineapple dish (he didn’t seem to eat much of it though). The food was excellent.

My first meal that came with gloves! The burger was going to be spicy but didn’t think it was going to be wear-gloves spicy. Good news, it was more of a medium spicy and gloves we’re not needed. This is the best burger I’ve had in Russia (really, the only other ones I’ve had have been at McDonald’s). The milkshake was good. From what Olessia tells me, the shake I had is Russian standard and was very good. The shake is more like a chocolate milk. No ice cream and not thick. It had great flavor and I suspect Nutella may have been involved (had a hazelnut finish to it). The appetizer was a cheese, chicken, mushroom dish that is Russian traditional (again, from what Olessia tells me). It was fantastic with mushrooms and cheese dominating the flavors, which was fine with me. Very tasty!

So far, not much of a car scene here. I did spot the white Subaru with a bunch of stickers on it. As for the other car, I know right now it’s pretty popular to wrap your car to give it a new look. The car in the center has a wrap, but it looks like it’s to keep the rain out (I think it was missing just about every window except the rear passenger one, although it was hard to see through the plastic). The guy in the photo went to add more oil to his Focus before starting the day.

Thursday was more so a planning and logistics day so I took D to the park for the afternoon.

Friday was our administrative/paperwork day. Olessia had some dual citizenship paperwork to submit on the other side of town. D and I needed our visas registered within 7 days of arrival. We managed to get everything done before noon, which was a lot quicker than we had planned.

Here’s some photos from the administrative offices where we had our visas registered. The door photo shows their free wifi sign and I thought it was interesting to see it in English.

We took a quick shopping stop before taking D to the park. The store we stopped at would be pretty similar to a gas station convenience store where it has a little bit of everything you might find at a grocery store.

The potato chips with the sausage on it are Bavarian kielbasa with mustard. It was more mustard than sausage. The idea was interesting, but not that tasty as a potato chip. Maybe I was doing it wrong and needed to add beer to the mix…

The Lay’s chips are Argentinian ribs flavor. Basically, BBQ chips with a hint of ribs. These are pretty tasty and I would recommend trying them if you run across them.

You know you are in a science city when the chalk drawings are physics equations.

Tonight I had a pepperoni pizza at Pizzaria Pizzaroni (Olessia let me know if that is the translation). It has 2 kinds of sausage (one traditional, and one the size of a dime) and 3 cheeses (one of the cheeses described as “hamburger cheese” – which I think was either cheddar or American). The pizza tasted pretty good. There were some health issues (probably TMI for posting here) which will have me ordering something different the next time I’m there.

On our way back, we met a chatty local who D enjoyed giggling at (the cat on the bench).

Rough day at the office so it’s some R&R time with his favorite cartoons.

Olessia’s friend, Vera, joined us at Olessia’s mom’s dacha. It was beautiful weather. Olessia’s mom clearly spent a lot of time working on the landscaping and had the structure built where we had desserts and snacks. D had a great time running around and rolling in the grass.

Front and backyard views of Olessia’s mom’s dacha.

The old and the new… Olessia and I were walking to her mom’s dacha and looking at all the houses. There would be the original ones mixed with brand new ones. The original ones have such a character to them.

D received a fancy fire engine from Olessia’s friend (thank you!). It lights up, moves about, and plays a song. D loves it. The batteries died and Olessia’s friend was very kind to include extras. The problem: you need a screwdriver to access the batteries and Olessia mom didn’t have one that fit.

So after visiting the playground, I took D to the store seen in the first picture. I took a guess with the Russian that it was a housewares or maybe a hardware store. Seeing the items in the window helped.

We entered and looked around. I THINK the lady behind the counter asked if I needed help and I told her no in Russian (would have been weird if she was asking what I was looking for). I spotted the screwdriver I needed and was able to tell her отбертка (screwdriver – I had looked this up on Google Translate) and point to what I was looking for. Then told her да (yes) when she selected the one I needed. Luckily, it was 100 rubles so I didn’t have to worry about change. And after check out, I told her спасибо (thank you). D said, “bye bye”.

It was a small victory. I feel bad that I wasn’t using complete sentences and I didn’t comprehend any of the Russian spoken.

The convenience store, I thought, would go easier since they have a credit card machine. They asked if I want a plastic bag (they cost extra) and I was prepared for this. But there were some follow up questions regarding my purchase choices and maybe payment options, but I’m not sure. It got a bit messy. I did manage get what we needed.

The flower shop went a bit smoother. I just ended up pointing and showing them a wad of cash.

Both Olessia and D are enjoying some cartoons.

The other is of a small creek we went over while D and I explored the dachas near the Volga river.

This week we’ve been staying local to Dubna so D can hang out as much as possible with his aunt and grandma. So I’ve been doing some minor food exploring.

Today we stopped at a sushi chain restaurant. There’s a photo of our late lunch. It was pretty yummy.

Then we stopped at the local grocery store to get ice cream. I picked up a creme brulee cone. It was good. The ice cream was so light, it was closer to being whipped cream.

I also got a bottle of traditional Russian cream soda. Very tasty (and sugary).

And the last pic is a mom and son moment…

Ok, back to McDonalds…

We’re at the train station, which is in the part of town, getting train tickets (first photo is the Dubna-Moscow train we would be taking Saturday). We got our tickets and Olessia was thinking McDonalds as a quick, inexpensive, and filling meal. Small problem: it’s a 23 minute walk from the train station to the McDonalds (just over a mile). So we took a taxi to go to McDonalds. I admit, it was a bit odd taking a taxi to McDonalds. I think Olessia said it ended up being cheaper than taking the bus, so there’s that…

Sorry, the taxi pic is a bit blurry. The phone camera did not want to focus in the low light and it was a bit of a rush to get he pic before the taxi sped off.

We get in and everything is looking normal until Olessia discovers they installed panels where you can place your order electronically and pay right there. It was AWESOME. And you could have it in Russian or English. We opted for Russian – everything comes with a picture and it was fun to read the Russian. There are some photos of the menu items. For example, you could order a wet nap for 2 rubles (about $0.03). The sauces… Mmm… They had a bunch of different dipping sauces I hadn’t seen before. I ordered the chorizo flavored sauce and it was tasty. I used fries as the transport medium and the sauce was great. I suspect it’s even better with chicken nuggets are even applied on to a burger.

Olessia said her fish sandwich tasted a little bit different than back in the States but liked it. I had a double cheese burger, which might have technically been a double quarter pounder, but was wider and thinner than than in the States. It hit the spot and was very good.

Continuing on the food theme…

So after McDonalds, Olessia needed to stop by a recommended grocery store to pick up some cakes. When traveling, I find grocery stores fascinating. It’s fun to see what’s available.

The first thing that caught my attention was they had a Lego Duplo knockoff under the brand name of “bauer”.

I found chips. For flavors, they had:

Cheeseburger (Olessia and I had some a few trips back and they were alright)
Bacon (haven’t tried them, yet)
Sausage & Mustard (tried them, kinda meh)
Sushi (Whaaa? I’m kind of curious what these might taste like)
Chili Steak (I’ve had the steak and ketchup and I’ve had my fill of steak flavored chips for now)
A couple other flavors that are common here such as salted and ranch.

The next picture is a pic of buckets of popcorn. Maybe somewhere back in the States, this is available. This just seems brilliant if you were looking for getting some Netflix in and wanted a popcorn experience similar to the movie theater.

The rest of the pics are some general shots of the grocery store. There were a lot of neat stuff I didn’t take photos of, such as the breads, pastries, fish, beer, candies, cookies, and other yummy things.

D was baptized today!

The church has a building dedicated to just baptisms. The space made it very personal as it was just us, the priest, and a few friends (and not much room for too many more people).

Father Gavrish performed the ceremony and although I didn’t understand what was being said (I picked up a few words here and there), his actions were loud and clear and I thought made the day special for everyone. He treated D great and let D be himself. He also was happy to let me live stream the event for my family back home and even put me in the best positions to capture everything.

Father Gavrish introduced D to the main church and alter. He even took D behind the alter for a quick tour, which Olessia tells me is really special since not everyone gets to go back there.

Afterwards, we celebrated and finished the day with friends at a local restaurant.

If you are curious about the church and Father Gavrish, here are some links. The pages will be in Russian. Google Translate works great on them if you need English:

For more information about the church: http://dubna-blago.ru/1.html

For more information about Father Viktor Sergeevich Gavrish: http://dubna-blago.ru/svyaschenniki/sv-gavrish.html

This is our train. It’s the express train to Moscow and should get us in in about 2 hours.

In the first photo, you can see the train engineer. He hopped out and put a couple rocks on the track to use as a chock (2nd photo). I guess when you need to park your train and disable the hydrolics/brakes, a couple rocks are all you need. Olessia tells me that it’s required to have an 11% grade at the station so they can move train engines or cars out of the way without needing power or additional equipment. So with the brakes disabled, those 3 rocks are keeping this train in place.

Source: Olessia who spent several college years studying to be a civil engineer with a specialty in railroads, tunnels, and bridges.

On our way to our hotel. There are some steep escalators here. Also a photo of the train platform and a metro train pulling in. We only had a 2 minute wait for the next train.

Added bonus was the trains now have both Russian and English signage and announcements! And free WiFi on board too!

Wish the NYC MTA could run this nicely.

What a grocery store! We stopped at Eliseevsky and Olessia picked up a couple of small breakfast items.

We are walking to our hotel and we hear church bells. Ah, it must be 10am on the hour. Nope. It was 10:10 am and the bells just kept playing. We walked and found a courtyard where we could see the bell tower. We look up and there is a human playing the bells!

Lunch. The food was amazing! The spinach dish had just a hint of heat that was unexpected at first. The khachapuri (the one with egg) was one of the best I’ve had, except maybe the one we had in the Crimea. The green drink is considered a Georgian soda. It tasted a bit like a lemonade mixed with licorice and grass. Turns out it had very fresh sprigs of tarragon. It was very refreshing on this warm afternoon (near 80F).

Saturday we visited Red Square. The city is setting up the square for what appears to be a major celebration of Moscow’s 870 year anniversary. So we were really limited with the views. We couldn’t stand in the center of the square and soak in the grandness and scale of the Kremlin, St. Basil’s, Gum, and other sights. We’ve been at the square before so we were not missing anything. But we really want to bring D and have him experience the grandness too.

So with the square pretty packed do to the limited space from the grand stands the city setup and with the temperature being in the mid-80s and sunny, we opted to head into the mall, Gum. They were selling ice cream at various spots in the mall with very long lines. The ice cream, Olessia told me, was the kind they sold in Soviet times. I stood in line and ended up ordering in Russian (it went smoothly, even though they were out of chocolate). The ice cream was really good. I have not yet had any thing that even comes close to bad ice cream here.

We then ventured to St. Basil’s for some photos before walking back to the hotel.

What are the chances?

I meet up with my friend and coworker. He was traveling Europe with a bunch of his high school classmates and was in Moscow for a couple of days. We were able to sync up and have dinner and drinks.

Having breakfast across the street from the Russian news agency TASS (ТАСС)

Pistachio raspberry pancakes topped with “warm sauce” and a popsicle.

Yes, it was VERY good. And rich. The popsicle provided the a la mode to the warm sauce.

Breakfast

What a way to start the day…

We last left off last Saturday when Olessia and I went to Moscow to explore and meet up with a coworker. On Sunday, we met up with one of Olessia’s friends. We were back on the Metro (subway). Things turned somber real fast when we encountered the memorial to the August 8th, 2000 Pushkin Square bombing.

The 2nd photo is a bit busy and itself not very existing. But check out that McDonalds logo. This business owner grabbed it and rotated it so instead of “M” it’s “W”. On a side note, you can get KFC in Moscow…

A pretty awesome “baby in car” sticker!

This is the one thing that fascinates me about Moscow and Russia. The architecture has color!

These are some seriously tall and large (city block sized large) residential buildings. There were a handful (maybe 6 or so) of these buildings grouped together. It was quite a site to see such a grand scale of residential buildings.

I’ve been working remote this week. In the morning, I would take D out to the park for an hour or so. Along the way, we would stop at the local grocery store and find some treats (cookies, ice cream, caffeine, etc).

I found out D likes bubliks. They are like a bagel. You can see him eating one in this photo. In his other hand is a cookie which did not receive much attention once he had the bublik.

I’ve been taking D to the park around about the same time in the morning and have been starting to recognize kids and parents. D has a friend who will shout out, “Дима!” when D arrives to the park. (Дима = Dima, pronounced DEE-ma, which is a nickname for D, kind of like Rob is for Robert).

Sadly, my Russian is REALLY limited. I’ve had kids come up to me asking, I think, if they could borrow some toys. One kid was determined and asked me a couple times and when he didn’t get anywhere, he brought his mom over. Smart kid!

This morning, a mom greeted me with “Здравствуйте.” This I do know, which is hello. I said “Здравствуйте.” I unpacked D. Then the mom started talking to me in Russian. It was a deer-in-headlights moment. I couldn’t figure out anything in the sentence other than it sounded like small talk. I responded with “Я не знаю” (I don’t know) and quickly mentioned I don’t know Russian using English. The mom looked at me sideways. Then a few minutes later asked me in English what was D’s name. She then told me her son’s name (who was playing next to D) and I think/hope I said it was nice to meet him, in Russian (“очень приятно”). She had a hint of a surprised look on her face. So hopefully I said the right thing…

On a side note, “Здравствуйте” I think, is the most complex Russian word in my vocabulary (4 syllables). It seems a bit cruel that it is an often used greeting. I said it 3 times today and hopefully didn’t botch the pronunciation. The people here have been very forgiving if I have been butchering it.

Olessia, from this morning, were people waiting for the bus?

A couple pictures of the road crew. Right now they’re going around the area and stripping off the top layer of the road.

D and I enjoy pausing to watch them work.

They use no cones and traffic is on their own. D and I were watching and the machines. One tears up the asphalt and spits it out to a dump truck which drives in front of the machine. The dump truck overfilled and large chunks of asphalt spilled out right as a driver was going by. The driver swerved and it looked like they just missed taking any damage.

The third picture is D taking a break to watch the road crew.

Taking the Metro! Can sort of see some of the station behind us. Each station is amazing and has it’s own style and charm.

Fun at the park!

D and a friend enjoying a caterpillar.

D was chasing these lazy pigeons around. I’m bummed I missed the first minute or two.

The pigeons, I think, are lazier than the ones I’ve seen in NYC. I have had to tap one a couple times with the stroller to get it to move out of the way.

The building in the background, on the left side is where we had our visas processed a couple weeks ago. And further to the left is the library.

Olessia tells me this is a very Soviet style meal.

Note to self: steak here is good but comes at one temperature and that is “cremated.” The potatoes with mushrooms and onions were really good. Olessia’s pork chop was also excellent.

This is a a market we visit now and then to get fruit, veggies, cheeses, and sometimes meats. It seems to operate similar to Cleveland’s West Side Market (not sure what NYC’s equivalent would be).

Olessia was shopping for fruit for D.

Some photos of the Volga River and it’s banks. The first photo shows the Special Economic Zone located on the left-hand side. The new building going up appears to be residential.

The second photo, the one with the yellow umbrella, if you look REALLY closely where the umbrella points up, you will see a round thing in the water. That is someone swimming! It was in the mid to lower 60s (F) today (19C-ish). Seemed a little chilly to be swimming. An old guy asked Olessia why she wasn’t swimming. She said it was too cold. He said it was still summer.

The third photo shows a bunch of cranes. This is the new bridge being built. It will connect the left and right sides of Dubna. The dam has a road that already connects the left and right sides of Dubna, but it wasn’t built to handle today’s traffic and vehicles. So we’re hoping the new bridge will make it easier to get to the other side of town.

Dubna is a science city!

Olessia and I are walking along the Volga and it’s chilly out and trying to rain. Olessia left the house with a very light sweater that wasn’t cutting it. She discovered a souvenir stand by the docks used for the Volga River cruise. We stopped by to look at all of the Dubna goodies. It turns out they had a heavy sweatshirt which fit Olessia perfectly and as a bonus, advertised Dubna. The shopkeeper was excited her sweatshirt would be going back to NYC and had to get a picture (she’s the lady on the right in the first photo).

How much of a science city is Dubna? The 2nd photo has pins and magnets of famous/popular scientists who have worked in Dubna.

Walking back down the river, we ran across the bust of Dmitri Mendeleev (developed the periodic table) and Olessia commented how Dubna keeps adding to it.

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) was near where we had lunch so Olessia took me around.

The first picture is where the president of JINR has his office. The sign next to it (2nd photo) shows the countries that are participating and the elements they have found or are working on.

The last 2 photos are at the JINR grounds. There is a gate there (see last photo) so we couldn’t get in. We got yelled at by an old guy walking past saying I shouldn’t be taking pictures. Whoops. In the third pic, there is a yellow building. There is a building just behind it and Olessia said that is where she did a lot of her work when she was working at the JINR for 3 years.

To put some scale to how impressive JINR is, it is, from what Olessia told me, the only place in Russia capable of conducting nuclear research.

Some photos of Dubna.

The first one (yellow building) is the mayor’s office. The next two photos are of the fire department.

The photo with all of the trees and a house peaking from behind them – this would have been a scientist’s house (the brown building in the next photo appears to be a garage/shed). Olessia said the house would have been (and may still be) on JINR property and JINR probably paid for the house. JINR and the city would house very important scientists. How important? They would have had written science books or have their names in the science books.

Olessia also pointed out what the city thought was more important. Instead of housing big business owners in their own house, they choose to house important scientists. During Soviet times, having your own house was just not possible/feasible.

She said because having houses were so rare, movies in Soviet times would film in Dubna when they wanted to record scenes of Western Europe or the USA.

The last photo is a random cat resting on a windowsill.

Continuing my world tour of potato chips… I found (and tried) bacon flavored!

I have mixed feelings about them. They were good and they were not hard to finish the bag. Although I’m not sure I would get any more nor do I have an urge to eat more.

Photos of lunch today. The dish that is looking for is the lasagna. It was pretty tasty. The noodly dish Olessia had and was also very tasty. The appetizer was salmon tar-tar and was very good (the caviar on top was a nice addition).

A few more photos from Il Патио where we had lunch yesterday.

Olessia and I went roaming around Dubna today.

Word was there was a Georgian restaurant just a few blocks from her mom’s so we thought to try it out. The bummer part was they were still recovering from a wedding the night before and were not going to be open for another couple hours. So we wandered around the neighborhood.

We stopped by a little shop which, I think in NYC, would be the equivalent of ordering some “street meat”. I defer to Olessia for the names of the items we ordered. She had the item at the bottom left corner of the food photo and I had the item at the top right (with the “50” on the red sticker). The food was AMAZING! I hope to stop here a few more times before we leave…

Walking around Dubna. We ran into some animals. The bird is a wagtail. The 2nd photo, there is a cat hanging out on the edge of the balcony. There was a dog guarding the door, but the moment I took my camera out, he thought I was getting food for him and got up to inspect.

So the one Georgian restaurant wasn’t open so we went a few blocks in the opposite direction and there was another Georgian restaurant. I knew what I was ordering: khachapuri (I’m going to have to learn how to make this.)

That green lemonade we had at the Georgian restaurant in Moscow can be bought in bottle form. Olessia thinks we can find it in NYC. The light colored drink is pear flavored and is really good too.

So Olessia and I are having lunch at the Georgian restaurant and we’re on the 2nd floor of the building near the windows. We look at and there’s this couple eating ice cream. It’s barely in the mid-50s (F), a pretty good breeze, and a near 100% humidity since it wants to rain. Not ideal ice cream eating weather. Ice cream here is very good and worth stopping to eat in any weather.

We were with priest Viktor Gavrish (who is D’s godfather) and his wife Anna.

D met a friend. He managed to teach her “yeah” and “go.” He also led the way for a couple minutes

On our way home, we found this cat chilling out.

Here’s a bread project, how about making пирожок с курицей (chicken pirozhok – seen in the first picture). Then there’s D enjoying some пирожок.

At a different park this time. Lots of things to do for the little kiddos.

This time, people were waiting to get something from the yellow tank/drum. There is a laptop propped up on the back of it and the lady running it seemed to be tallying who got what (or how much). Is this kvass?

On our way to the aviation and rocket museum!

So I’m going to geek out here for a bit. If you’re into Russian history, aviation, rockets, missiles, and what not, stick around…

We visited Dubna’s rocket/aviation museum. It’s located inside a school (high school?). The same school Olessia sister, Masha, went to. It the museum is new and although small, they have a lot of material and it’s very nicely presented, I thought. The director of the museum gave us a tour…

Walking into the rocket museum, this is what we saw first.

First things first: All the rockets you will see in the museum and these photos have been designed and built in Dubna. It’s the only city in Russia that designs and builds them. Olessia dad worked worked at the design bureau / factory and was a metallurgy engineer.

The director mentioned this is an air launched nuclear capable missile. The large Tu-95 bomber you see in the background could carry this as well as several other Russian bombers.

This missile type was a result of the Americans. The Russians needed to keep up in the arms race. Sadly, I’m not sure what would be the American version of this rocket.

When WWII wrapped up, the Soviets made a demand to the Germans. As pay back for the war, the Germans had to move one of their rocket factories to Russia and supply it with workers and engineers.

The photos below are of the head engineer’s desks as it was back in the 50s. The desk was from France and was the desk moved from Germany. The drafting board is also from Germany.

The last photo is of a poster – for the English speakers, skip the Russian and check out the photos on the left side. The factory in Dubna had come up with prototypes for an early shuttle which evolved into the Buran orbiter (for the Russian space shuttle).

Solid rockets, liquid fueled rockets, and turbo jet rockets (basically, strap a jet engine to a missile instead of adding a rocket).

The 2nd to last photo shows a rocket engine. Look closely. Look familiar? It’s basically a smaller version of the main engines on the space shuttle orbiters.

The last photo is a close up of a video guided missile. This was designed back in the 70s and is no longer in service.

(Continuing the rocket museum tour – outside!)

The airplane is an Su-24. It seems to be much like the General Dynamics F-111 and the two aircraft appear to play similar rolls.

This particular Su-24, if I remember correctly what the museum director said, had served in the Russian Navy. It had served in the Crimea before retirement in 2010. It was not designed or built in Dubna. It’s on display since it carried a lot of what Dubna had designed and built.

There is a photo where D is holding on to the nose cone of a rocket (the X-15). The museum director said this rocket was the first Russian one to go super sonic. The nose cone heats up to over 1000C and is made of composites while the body is made of titanium. This rocket has fins, they are not actually used for maneuvering when at speed. Instead, the rocket uses small ports on the back to puff air out to steer the rocket.

The other photo to note is the rocket that is on a cart/trolley. That rocket was the first one in the world to have wings added. It was used by Egypt during the Egypt and Israel (sadly, I’m not sure which time frame this would have been). The rocket was so successful, everyone else copied the design.

And the last bit of photos from the day which actually are related to the rocket museum… The first one is Olessia swinging D from the museum steps.

In an early post, I mentioned the Germans had to setup a rocket factory in Dubna. The cottages you see in the photos would be the original housing the German engineers and workers would have stayed in while they were living in Dubna. Olessia said they were here in the 50’s and had left in the 60s. There is one photo of a yellow building. That too would have been housing for the Germans. I saw many of these cottages being renovated to look more modern and likely add modern tech.

Same parking lot as the last few photos where there have been people gathered.

Here, this lady is selling unpasteurized milk from the back of her truck. I don’t think you can get milk any fresher without farm access.

Lizards can be found in Dubna. I didn’t know there are lizards here. Anyone know what kind of lizard it is?

This one is of poor quality. It’s what happens when you 8x digital zoom on a Samsung Galaxy S8. What is interesting about the photo is the little girl who is all dressed up for school…

This was taken on Friday, September 1st which is, as I’ve learned from Olessia, is when all of Russia goes back to school.

Olessia tells me that Friday would have been a light day for the kids. They are dressed in their “parade” uniforms (white shirt + navy blue skirt/pants). They bring flowers for their teachers. Parents come to meet the teachers and watch the parade of students. Yes, Olessia tells me there is an actual parade where students march. Sounds like a pretty awesome way to start the first day!

A couple random photos from around downtown Moscow and close to our hotel.

In the fourth photo, if you look at the end of the street, you will see the red brick wall of the Kremlin. This is how Olessia would get her bearings to get to our hotel – we pop up from a Metro station exit and she would look both ways and if she could see the Kremlin, that was the direction we would go.

This was the burger I ate at Burger Heros. It was actually Olessia’s burger. Our sides got switched and Olessia handed me this tray which had my side, but her burger. I was hungry and had taken 2 big bites before we realized she had my burger. Whoops. The burger were really good (easily the best I’ve had in Russia). The side was a cheese ball with bacon.

An interesting note which explains why the steaks in Russia might always be well done: Burger Heros have signs at all of the tables explaining meat doneness. The only reason I know this is because “rare”, “medium”, and “well done” were in English. So I checked the sign (my Russian reading is too limited to call it “reading the sign”) and there were arrows from the English words to photos of meat in various cook stages. I suspect doneness is not a common order option in Russia and it’s interesting they are using English words.

Two photos of us around Moscow.

If you find yourself in Moscow and needing to use the bathroom, have rubles on hand! I think this one needed 50 rubles or about $1 to use (first photo).

This seems like a nice upgrade from the setup I’ve seen in the past which is 3 or 4 porta-potties lines up and an old lady will convert one of them into her office. You pay her and she lets you use one of the other other ones (and may give you a few sheets of toilet paper). The 2nd photo is from our visit 10 years ago…

Some photos near or around the Kremlin.

The photo of the blue/silver truck is hauling the Kremlin’s horses.

The last two photos (one of which includes Olessia) is the Moscow library. Olessia tells me she spent a lot of time there in the 90’s doing research.

Детский мир – Wow! This place was AMAZING! It’s a really big toy store. They have a full size helicopter inside!

One Olessia told me her family would take her to since it sounded like it was the only one around back then.

The dragon and Lego ninjas are all done in Lego bricks.

Friday, September 1st, we took a river cruise which included fireworks celebrating Moscow’s 870th birthday. The cruise was nice and relaxing. The weather kept us on our toes. It was low 70s (F) during the day (not light jacket weather). And on the boat at night, it felt like it was in the really low 60s (F) and a light jacket almost wasn’t enough.

We weren’t sure what to expect with the cruise. We thought we selected the no frills cruise but ended up on one with food service and live music. The music played was all tunes Olessia had grown up with so she seemed happy traveling down memory lane.

Saturday we spent the day sleeping in then off to the Ostankino TV Tower which is the tallest building in Europe (for comparison, the CN Tower is just 13 meters taller than Ostankino).

We had an excellent lunch at the tower restaurant. It slowly rotates so your view is always changing.