Moscow, Russia
Trip Start
Nov 23, 2005
1
30
31
Trip End
Jul 12, 2006
Moscow, Russia
Saturday, July 8, 2006
Up at 8:00 from a restless night, these bunks were very hard, my mattress kept falling off from all the bumping and it was cold. A quick dash to the loo before they locked them an hour before we got to the Moscow, had breakfast and then waited until we got to the station. We were by a driver who drove us to our hotel a good 20-30 mins from the station. At the hotel we were met by our guide who helped us fill in our passport registration forms and arranged a time for our tour tomorrow. Guess we'll have to make our own way today. As our room wasn't ready, we put our bags in storage and then headed into the city centre with Jacques and Claire. First stop, the Kremlin. There was a huge queue of tours which took a while to get through all the security (metal detectors) and when we went through the guard asked if we were English, and when we replied yes he just waved us through. Cool I'd hate to think what would have happened if we said we were American! We spent two hours looking around all the beautiful buildings trying to avoid the queues of tours and enjoying the experience. From there we walked around the outside of the Kremlin walls to Red Square via Mc'ds for an ice-cream (which was an experience trying to order something we didn't know the Russian name for). There are even more impressive buildings in Red Square, including St Basils church which looks a bit like Hansel and Gretel's candy house with its colourful spires and domes. We then walked down to the river then headed back to look at Bolshoy theatre, but unfortunately it is covered in scaffold and you can't see it. A little disappointed we walked back to the metro to go back to the hotel to check-in. The room was quite nice, clean and tidy which made it ten times better than the last. After a few hours rest and a shower, we met with Jacques, Jude, Dot, Ian and Claire and had dinner at the hotel.
Sat 8th July
Got up at 8:45 from a comfy nights sleep for breakfast and off to the Metro to meet Claire and our guide Lena for our 3 hour buddy tour. As we'd seen the Kremlin and Red Square yesterday, she took us around the back streets to show us the real Moscow. We saw some beautiful buildings including a few embassies, a music school, a chocolate shop, a big manor type house, an architecture school and Gorky's house, as well as a few churches, statues, a well flash grocery store with a Vodka shop that the shelves were bare because of some regulation problems, the first Mc'ds in Moscow and a beautiful Polynesian Park. Gorky's house was very impressive, inside we saw the beautiful marble staircase and some history about his life including some funny caricatures. It was a very good tour and our guide spoke very passionately in very good English about what she showed us. From there we walked to Red Square to meet Jacques and also some other guys we'd met on the train that were from Australia and traveling with the Vodka Train Co. To complete our day we walked to the former KGB building which is a huge intimidating building. On the way there we had to pass through some security gates that had been put up for the weekend as some sort of event was happening. We then went back to the hotel for a rest and shower.
At around 7pm we headed back into the city to meet Guzel and her friend Maxim, also Jacques, Dot and Ian. We all went to a restaurant called; My My (pronounced moo moo) which is a Russian style Calvary but cheaper. We tried to pick some typical Russian food and we'd had a good feed Guzel and Max showed us some more of Moscow. First Max drove us (Dot and Ian went back to the hotel, so we were down to 5) to the university which seems to be a very popular meeting spot, It was a bit like the Lord Derby with lots of motorbikes racing around, I was in my element. There were also plenty of boy racers around showing off their cars. It is a good spot as the view from there is fantastic and you can see all six of Stalin's scrapers, the river and most of the city. From there we drove along Lenin's Prospect, (the longest street in Moscow) to the new Arbat Street which has all the usual bright lights, banks and casinos. Then also to the old Arbat Street which is the oldest in Moscow and has lots of cafes, bars and shops. It is also where performances took place many years ago. As it was getting quite late, our new friends drove us back to our hotel where we exchanged emails and bid each other a fond farewell. It was really nice meeting them and hope one day we can meet up again either in the UK or in Russia.
Sun 9th July
As it was our last day in Moscow, (which was going to be quite long as our train to St Petersburg wasn't leaving until 10:20pm,) we had a nice long lie-in before getting up for breakfast and a enduring day. We then spent a good three hours traveling around the Metro looking at the most beautiful stations we've ever seen. Talk about extravagant! We then took a walk past the impressive Peter the great (Columbus) statue on the river and stopped for lunch in Bototnaya place (a park) which had some very strange statues called; the children victims of adult deeds. It depicts the evils that children are subjected to by adults, eg. Alcoholism, child labor and indifference. After that we went down the river on a boat to get a different perspective of the city, and then the heavens opened with a thunder storm and very heavy rain, so it was good timing as we were under cover on board. We got back onto shore with brilliant sunshine and caught the metro to Victoria park. On the way out of the metro there is a set of stairs that takes you out into the middle of the road to an archway that looks like the Arc de Trionphe in France. From there we made our way back to the hotel to collect our bags and head to the station for our train to St Petes. When we finally found the right station (there are three) we boarded our train, had a quick bite to eat and straight to bed.
