Experience Russia’s slowness in Vladivostok
Vladivostok is the capital of Primorsky Territory of Russia. It is located at the border of China, North Korea and Russia. It is also called “Vladivostok City”, which means “ruler of the east” and “conquer the east”.
If you don’t take Aeroflot or go to Russia, you will never know how powerful the fighting nation is. Before I set off, I had many scary imaginations about Aeroflot. For example, there are no seats in Russian aircraft. After boarding, the stewardess will give each person a small bench; Aeroflot’s standard meal is a hard bread.
Therefore, when I found a seat on the plane and was handed out a box of warm plane meals, it was almost a pleasant surprise.
Hardcore
Vladivostok faces Japan and South Korea across the sea, and has therefore become an important hub for Japanese and Korean used cars to enter the Russian market. Two days before I arrived in Vladivostok, I was often uncomfortable because there were both right and left rudder cars on the road. The only thing these cars have in common is the old ones, most of them are obsolete second-hand cars, and even a few antique cars can be encountered. The reason is of course that it is cheap, a decent used car only costs 10,000 yuan, but you may need to spend twice the price to repair it.
Coming out of the airport, I called a car, the bumper fell off, and the driver wrapped a transparent plastic bag a few times and drove it in front of me. As soon as the car stopped, the driver held up his phone to show me the photo: “Big Woof!” On the screen was a dog that looked about the same size as a squatting dog.
I often suspect that it may be because it takes too much calories to grin and smile in cold weather, so Russians always look fierce. The driver is also fierce, so he drove without hesitation. Every action of Russian drivers is like pressing the accelerator button. They start fast, fast on the road, and brake hard. They are born racers. Sitting on the tattered seat, the driver made a sharp turn, and I swayed from the right to the left of the car.
Vladivostok scenery
I learned later that a driver’s license can be bought in Russia, and some dumb drivers have already driven on the road before they learn the traffic rules. A strange traffic rule: If the road speed limit is 60 kilometers per hour, then you can drive to 80 kilometers per hour, which is not speeding; and the penalty for speeding is 500 rubles, which is equivalent to less than 50 yuan.
This is in line with all my stereotypes about Russia: casual, fighting nation, bravery and drunkenness, life and death are indifferent, just do whatever you don’t want.
Russians always appear on social networks with brave images. I have read a piece of news: a tourist who evaded fare mistakenly regarded a brown bear as a staff member in disguise, so he beat the brown bear severely. The poor brown bear suffered serious injuries, just his head. After 9 stitches, even the fangs were interrupted, and the perpetrator was discharged from the hospital that day.
The “Global Competitiveness Report” once ranked the security reliability of countries around the world. Among the 141 participating countries, Russia ranked 93rd. This tells you, don’t count on the Russian police too much. People can only protect themselves with their fists.
I went to the gun shop on the street, and the cheapest pistol was only equivalent to RMB 900. The expensive ones, there are big hunting guys, which look as long as my upper body; ammunition, bows and concealed weapons are all available here. I don’t know why. At that moment, I felt that the Russian bears were somewhat pitiful.
In Russia, bears are a kind of food. Canned bear meat can be bought at the airport. It tastes dry and woody, like boiled bark. Therefore, the market for this canned bear meat is not very good. The bear has grown into a kind of unpalatable creature, and thus avoided the Russians.
tender
The bear has an important position in Russia. Newlyweds will sit on bear skins during their weddings, and the noble houses sometimes feed some bears. In almost any celebration, people dress up as bears. The bear’s character is also similar to that of the Russians: kind, calm, slow, and hibernate all winter.
Used car market in Vladivostok
Russian cuisine is based on bread, milk, potatoes and vegetables, and pork. The food is very sweet. Supermarket stuff is very cheap, 2 yuan can buy a huge leba. Leba has a sour taste and is very hard. You have to soak it in the soup to chew it well. I can hardly imagine the Russian love of bread. They can eat bread for three meals a day: white bread for breakfast, brown bread or sweet bread for lunch, and bread for dinner.
Vladivostok is very small, if the pace is fast, you can make a full circle in half a day. Walking down the main road is Victory Square, where there stands the monument to soldiers of the Soviet regime, the largest monument in the Far East. On the west side of the square is the State Government Building, and on the opposite side is a row of colorful houses, where vehicles are blocked. I like this kind of small house very much. The house is not new, but the Russians have always maintained it very well, so that visitors can see the appearance of this neighborhood many years ago.
Although old, slow, and obscure, it has a unique tenacity and compassion.
Local people’s weekend entertainment is to drive to the beach to barbecue. There is an “information island” on the street-renting houses, buying and selling vehicles, a piece of advertising paper, and a cut phone number underneath. You can just tear up one and save if you need it. This backward method of information exchange is still popular in Russia. In the era of smartphones, this is something that can be solved by taking a photo.
Phone case with Putin’s head
Russia is slow in everything. The buses are all second-hand cars bought from South Korea. They are already in bad condition. The driver works part-time as a conductor. Before everyone gets on the bus, they have to stop at the platform and settle accounts slowly. The take-out is very slow, you order the ingredients, even if the store is less than three kilometers away from you, you have to wait until tomorrow. The express delivery is also slow, it takes a month to go everywhere, and it is commonplace to lose things.
In 2014, the proud Russian experienced turmoil overnight. The ruble collapsed and plummeted by 50%.
There are no bicycle lanes in Russia, the temperature is very low in winter, and battery cars hardly work. Driving an electric motorcycle requires a driver’s license. Therefore, the most suitable way to deliver food is to walk or take a bus. Every night I’m lazy to get out because of the cold but have to go out to eat, I hate this place’s terrible takeaway system, but other times I’m thinking, it’s actually pretty cool to live a leisurely life like this?
Although old, slow, and obscure, it has a unique tenacity and compassion. The popularity of English in Vladivostok is not high, and most of the elderly grandparents only speak Russian. Now, the average income in Vladivostok is only equivalent to RMB 2,000. At night, Russia has only main roads with street lights. Even so, I still saw a woman in a mink coat in the flower shop, who used half a morning’s salary to return home for a flower-a flower is a luxury item, and one flower is equivalent to 15 yuan.
cruel
The history of Vladivostok can be traced back to the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. When it was still called “Vladivostok”, it was the territory of the Qing Dynasty. On November 14, 1860, the Qing Dynasty and Tsarist Russia signed the “Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty”, ceding all of the more than 1 million square kilometers of territory, including Vladivostok, to the Russian Empire. It has been 160 years since.
However, Russia’s golden age has long passed.
On the day I got the ruble from the bank, I stood at the door and took a photo, “I got my first 100,000 yuan in my life”. I look forward to getting the Zimbabwean currency one day and realize the “first 1 million yuan in my life”.
But for the Russians, this is a cruel incident. In 2014, the proud Russian experienced turmoil overnight. The ruble collapsed, plummeting by 50%, and all of Russia’s money evaporated by half overnight. At that time, my friend was starting a business in Russia and experienced the scene of Russians running into the street. Everything has depreciated. The money used to buy a camera can only be exchanged for a pair of shoes. People rushed to stock up before the price increase in order to preserve their wealth. It is said that Apple computers were sold out.
It is difficult to say who the poor and the rich have experienced more severe wealth turbulence, but in short, everyone has no money.
Many people were crying on the streets and walking aimlessly; some people were fighting because they were queuing, and people worried about the depreciation of their deposits and soaring prices, so they moved home quickly. As the exchange rate changes, prices change several times a day, and some stores simply close their doors or hide valuable things.
Russia suddenly returned to the period of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, when commodities were scarce, the ruble depreciated, and the exchange rate changed a few days. The price of imported chicken drumsticks and persimmons has doubled, and rice, grains, oils and flour are all out of stock. What to eat tomorrow has become an urgent problem.
In addition to the economy, another type of “cruel” in Russia is the imbalance between men and women. According to the census, there are 11 million more women in Russia than men.
Because of this, once the girls meet a reliable man, they will want to marry him immediately. But for men, a widely circulated view is that beautiful Russian girls are only suitable for renting, not for holding. Therefore, Russian men cherish their youth, but are unwilling to marry them home. A Russian man I know works as a lumberjack in a forest farm. He has three girlfriends, each of whom is young and beautiful. He does not intend to marry any of them.
“At any cost, you must let your daughter give birth before the age of 30” has become a classic monologue of an old Russian lady. In the traditional Russian concept, girls must give birth as early as possible. You can find similar arguments in various media: give birth to your first child before the age of 30, otherwise there will be childbirth problems or child health problems. On the Internet, people are even more unfriendly to women who marry and give birth late, such as “women who do not have children at the age of 32 are cockroaches.”
The state has issued a series of policies to encourage women to give birth and give birth early. From January 1, 2018, women aged 20-24 who gave birth to their first child are entitled to 52,120 rubles; if they give birth to a second child, there will be a “mother’s fund” giving you 453,026 rubles-this is enough You speeded more than 900 times.
Before returning to China, I bought a lot of Putin goods: T-shirts with his head, Putin badges, Putin passport covers, notebooks… Russians are obsessed with Putin. The previous Russian presidents have been made into dolls, one set one by one, the most The core of it is Putin.
When I went through customs on the day I returned, my beautiful Russian sister saw my passport holder. “Putin?” she asked me, then took it and kissed it.
