Moscow Now

Any number of people, knowing that I’ve visited Russia, say to me, “I’d never go there now.” I can’t help but think, why not? Well, there’s that crisis in Ukraine, of course. Yet most people I know wouldn’t be heading to Kiev, they’d be going to St. Petersburg to see the Hermitage and to Moscow to experience Red Square.

”Oh, but I don’t agree with Russia’s imperialism,” people say. Somehow they manage to completely forget that for a big chunk of the time, they also don’t agree with their own country’s politics. “But what about the human rights element?” people wonder. What about it? If that were a true criterion for travel, none of us would so much as get to Disney World. It’s not as if the United States hasn’t transgressed or made sufficient amends for its own offenses. One need only think of slavery, of the United States’s horrid treatment of indigenous people, of people’s lack of compassion toward immigrants, of our little forays into Iraq, or Grenada.

You don’t have to agree with a government’s actions to visit a place. You’re not really going to visit a government, are you? You’re going to see what life is like in a country, to learn about the people who inhabit it, to appreciate what they have and what they do there.

It would be easy for me to go back to Russia, today, any day. The first time around, I relied on a travel agent to do all the planning, to hold my hand every step of the way, to make sure I got on that river cruise ship.

Admittedly, I was too chicken on my visit. I was intimidated by the language, by being functionally illiterate in a nation that historically my own rivalled. Were I to go there now, I’d have no problem being unescorted, no worry about traveling on my own for a few days before joining a tour. I learned to count subway stops rather than listen to the announcement of stations. When I looked befuddled, helpful Russians offered to help. I wouldn’t hesitate to go there again. It’s all too easy to buy plane tickets online at someplace like CheapOair or to sign up for a cruise via Gate 1 Travel. Don’t hesitate. Go.

—Lori Tripoli