The Amazing Race Philippines: DryedMangoez Edition 5 – Leg 4 – Russia


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Leg 4 – “Poop and Potatoes”

The 4th Leg has teams flying to St. Petersburg, Russia!

The nine remaining teams will be flying on one of two flights. The first on Aeroflot via Moscow Sheremetyevo arrives at 9:45am. The second on Ukraine International via Kiev arrives at 11:25am.

Once in St. Petersburg, teams must hop into taxis to take them to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.

That clue reveals the Detour for this Leg: Classical Music or Cossack Dance. For both Detours, teams must taxi on over to Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace.

In Classical Music, teams must dress up as famous composers and listen to three different compositions playing on three numbered gramophones. They will then enter a music hall full of pianists playing several different compositions and must take a copy of the sheet music from the pianists playing each of the three compositions. If they have all correct pieces of music, they will receive their next clue.

In Cossack Dance, teams must dress up and learn a traditional Cossack dance. Once they have performed the dance with a troupe without mistakes, they will receive their next clue.

That clue tells teams to make their way on foot one block away to the bridge along Nevsky Prospect over the Fontaka River. Here they will find the Double U-Turn board.

After checking in, they will grab their next clue directing them to take a taxi to the Neighborhood Store in Alexandrovskaya.

The clue waiting for them there reveals the Road Block: Who wants to help the babushkas?

For this Road Block, teams must dress up like a babushka, pick up a sack of 50 potatoes and fill a wheelbarrow with cow manure. The Babushkas will show them how to properly plant the potatoes. Once complete, the Babushka will hand them their next clue.

That clue tells teams to find the cluebox at 2 Rossi Street.

And that final clue directs teams to the Pit Stop at Kazan Cathedral.

The first team to check-in here will win P200,000 courtesy of Shell V-Power Nitro+.

The last team to check-in here WILL be eliminated.

“Director’s” Commentary

So this is actually a last minute replacement Leg! One of the later Legs was supposed to take place in South Africa, but at the time of writing this filming, the country was in the middle of the xenophobic demonstrations. So, nope. (Really though, logistics to get to South Africa and lack of any good tasks in one city made it too difficult to design for this season lol)

But also around this time, I popped in my TAR17 DVDs and, along with remembering how good TAR17 was, I thought this St. Petersburg Leg was great to recycle. AND it fits perfectly in my original route, so yay!

In one of the future Legs, I had thought of the Detour task that involved teams listening to a room full of pianos and matching the pieces with the sheets of music. Then I realized it was actually in Russia and not Germany or something. So it’s a good task to have here. And while I liked the other side of this TAR17 Detour with the film strips, I thought it’d be a good idea to have teams in the same building for it. TARAU3’s Cossack dance Detour it is!

That also means this is a perfect spot for a U-Turn as well!

And finally, the Road Block with the babushkas is a must. The Babushkas are always awesome (Both in TAR17 and TARAU1!). And having teams in the dirt and poop is fun.

I threw in that 2 Rossi Street Route Marker because it looks like an amazing place, visually. It also seems a little hard to find. It’d make for a good Pit Stop too. But the Kazan Cathedral has that grand feel.

Another good Leg I think.

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