Roads Less Traveled

I have been left standing on the north bank of the Neva River in St. Petersburg helplessly watching my ship leave the dock without me, which makes sense in Russia, since after all I’d only devoted an entire morning to this specific enterprise, and why should I expect that in the country where Murphy’s Law is an absolute Constitutional Provision that anything would work the way it should?  Because no trip to Russia can be enjoyed without seeing the knee-slapping humor in the everyday failure of the state-run monopolies to provide such non-essential services as reliable transportation, flushing toilets, or good drinking water, and no trip to that country will be complete unless you visit its crown jewels, St Petersburg and Moscow, which are about as different as Barack Obama and a real President.

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