Lord of the East

Moscow to Vladivostok - 4284 miles, 8hrs 25 minutes, +7 hours Moscow Time

Aeroflot took me to the Far East on one of their very ship-shape Boeing 767's. In all, it was a better flight experience than I've had in some time (including Delta).

People in Vladivostok all know how to speak English, if you - like them - limit the English language to the phrase "One Hundred Dollars". Taxi from the airport? "$100". Hotel? "$100". It takes a bit of pleading in Russian before you stop looking like a Bank of America ATM to them.

But it doesn't always work. Most taxi drivers walked away from me when I counteroffered in rubles. A hotel clerk was trying so hard to disqualify me that she called the police to check my visa - she doubted that my Moscow registration was in order.

So, there's a warm welcome for you - extorted for 3x the price of things (literally, in both cases) and having the police called to comment on my recent travel. But then, what did I really expect from a place that has passport control at the door of the airplane on arriving domestic flights?

I spent the day walking around the center of town, along the bay and the ocean sides of the city. The views were quite nice, which leads me to my first blush impression of Vladivostok; It may well be the world's best situated crappy city.

The city straddles and spills down steep hills to an awesome protected harbor on the ocean. It is a very dramatic and scenic location that prompted someone to once call it the "San Francisco of Russia". Someone, of course, who had never been to San Francisco. And maybe not even Vladivostok; I can't image someone coming here and saying "San Francisco must be just like this."

Vladivostok is a jumble of crumbling, indistinguishably ugly soviet buildings, tumbledown shacks, and industrial fixtures. The monotony is occasionally relieved by a few charming buildings and shops, but they are few and far between. In all, the awe inspiring landscape struggles to make up for the city that blights it.

The best vantage point, and symbol of this problem, is the overlook as that top of the funicular. The scene is panoramic and really striking. But the overlook also includes the world's largest collection of broken bottles. It's hard to concentrate on the natural beauty the city enjoys when picking a path through shards of glass.

Still, a vista is a vista and Vladivostok's location offers up plenty of them. I stared out to sea and contemplated the thick ring of ice that surrounds several islands not too far offshore.

Some day, perhaps, a real spring will come to the Lord of the East.