By Tara Myers

I can't help but get all Anthony Bourdain as I await my flight out of Russia. Having grown up during the Cold War and being in high school when the Soviet Union collapsed—these were my "current affairs." This massive faraway place, where everyone on TV news wore a mean face, was often the focus of curriculum and represented all things foreboding during my most impressionable years. RUSSIA was the first thing bigger and more anxiety inducing than the horror of mom and dad making cube steak for dinner. What the heck was an iron curtain? Was cube steak really steak? These conundrums kept me wide eyed at night, my Holly Hobbie wallpaper staring back in the shadows.

It was the era when I began to form my own worldview and decide how I would both interpret and interact with this big round ball of people and politics we call home. I—we all were—was programed to think and react to this country and its people in one way, and one way only. Possibly justified at the time. But we couldn’t even play nice enough to go to each other’s Olympic games? I guess they hated us, we hated them. That was that. I began to focus on my bangs and boys.

And then the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. You file it all in your memory bank, maybe under R for Russia, or U for USSR or just keep it simple and stick it under S for Super Scary. Twenty-eight years go by. And then at age 42 life presents you an opportunity to go there. Like, put your body on an airplane and actually go there. By yourself. A solo act. To go through the tedious task of applying for a visa to step behind that former iron curtain in your size 5 boots with your 4’11” frame. An insatiable curiosity and determination to "do this" takes over. And then you do. You take out your pearl earrings, wear a black shirt and don't smile for the visa photo. You send your passport away In The Mail. You're granted a coveted visa. You can’t stop marveling at how cool your name looks in Cyrillic, the Russian alphabet. People say you're crazy, but you know you're not. And you stand on your tiptoes to answer the officer’s questions and make it through passport control at the St. Petersburg airport, whose code is still LED for Leningrad, as in Lenin. Vladimir. Communism. The subliminal—or not so subliminal—association doesn’t exactly scream,“welcome to vacation.”

But you’re in. And you breathe a sigh that your visa is real. And you go in a shockingly tidy and efficiently designed bathroom stall at LED to whisper "holy bleep" and compose yourself and check out the rubles you just withdrew. And then you spend three brief but endless days pinching yourself as you step into a city whose sheer magnificence and grandeur and architecture and canals and culture cannot be conveyed in words or photos or selfies or souvenir nesting dolls. People are nice. Super nice. Helpful. Welcoming. Sincerely glad you came. They smile and laugh and hold hands and have kids and wear cute leather shoes and linger over long meals. They don’t walk pet bears. They don’t all smoke. They don’t hate me, I don’t hate them. I make a mental note to re-file all of this under I for I Had It All Wrong.

The magnitude of the visit, both for what I experienced superficially and for the rewiring that took place in my mind and heart, was worth the price of admission. A supreme privilege that will forever live in a category all its own. I am overcome with gratitude that I had the means, overwhelming support from my husband and personal fortitude to do that which scared me, and then wowed me. I knew I'd be okay if I just put on my big girl St. Petersburg panties and walked in like I owned the place. I practiced in the mirror. It worked. I made a few friends, learned some words, put countless meaningful miles on my boots and made up for it in porridge and potato pancakes and even a shot of vodka. I purposefully went beyond the tourist spots to see life in action, participate if for a moment. I asked questions, lingered, sat, observed and peeked in corners. 

It underscored for me that politics are one thing, people quite another. I was reminded that we are all more alike than we are different, the vast majority of people are good at heart and every person simply wants to be loved. I will continue to strive to be the judge of all this worldly nonsense for myself. What others suggest I should believe, I will go see with my own eyes whenever I can. And that, is why I went to St. Petersburg, Russia. Hands down my new favorite European city, the "Venice of the North." Little did I know the Cold War curriculum of my youth would be obliterated for a brain rewiring that left me warm and fuzzy all over, and I didn't even buy the mink hat.

Tara Myers gained an affinity for adventure (and ultra light travel) during her master’s research trip to Ellis Island. Nearly two decades later, she has lived from the Gulf Coast to the Oregon Coast and Sin City to The Second City. A lifelong writer, she explores on foot to appreciate the mundane and the marvelous. Myers’ work has appeared in national publications; she is the author of Pink Chair No Underwear: 19 Confessions From One Madly In Love Couple. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon, travel ready.