Россия - Russia. St Petersburg -> Moscow

Россия
Russia, largest country in the world, energy super power, the world’s largest forest reserves and contains approximately 1/4 of the world’s fresh water. This is a country I knew very little about coming from New Zealand, so it was always on my list of places to see...
I organised the trip through a company called ‘on the go tours’. The tour package was called the ‘vodka shot’ and took in the two main cities of Russia, St Petersburg and Moscow. Good friends Richie and Mel were keen to join me on the trip, so that was great. The trip wasn’t as simple as jumping on a plane, Visa’s had to be organised as well as multiple flights. On the 13th of September I flew: Dundee - Birmingham - Copenhagen (overnight stop , at the Zleep Aiport Hotel) - St Petersburg. I arrived at 13:40 on the 14th of September. All my documents were in order so I swept through customs ok. As I stepped out of the terminal, my first impressions were very unlike my expectations. For some reason I was expecting a third world country gripped by cold temperatures and full of unfriendly people. I was wrong in every aspect. The people I encountered were friendly, temperatures were 15-20 deg and life seemed modern and normal. The only real shock I got was the language, In particular the Cyrillic alphabet, which was a bit had to grasp. The language had two layers, Cyrillic to English lettered Russian to Russian.
So when I walked out of the terminal my driver (I can’t remember his name so let’s call him Ivan) was waiting with an ‘on the go tours’ sign. He put me on the phone to our tour group leader Olga. She explained the plan of attack. So I then shared a two half journey (due to heavy traffic) with Ivan from the Airport to the Anderson Hotel. During the trip I ‘brushed up’ on my Russian and admired the buildings and monuments of St Petersburg. I was bit stiff when I finally extracted myself from Ivan’s back seat. I thanked him in Russian several times and found the check-in. Officially all foreign visitors to Russia must register within 3 days of their arrival. The hotel staff took my passport and registered me within an hour no problems. Feeling a bit peckish I needed some food, but I had no Roubles. So I had to exchange my Euro’s. I went to a bank, waited for 15 minutes in a queue only to realise I needed to be in a different queue which I was pointed in the direction of. I waited in the queue and indicated to the man standing next to me if this was the place where I exchanged Euro’s. He indicated that this was the right queue, but I needed my passport which the hotel had!, So back to the hotel to retrieve my passport and registration slip, then back to the bank. At the exchange till they didn’t even ask for my passport! What a drama. With roubles in hand I went straight to the nearest bakery where I bought a couple of apple pastry’s. I had no idea how much these cost and I handed her 1000 Roubles, she gave me the ‘do you have anything smaller look’ so I obliged with a 500. The pastry’s barely dented my appetite so I went into a cafe and ordered a small pizza (by pointing at another customer’s pizza). “Pizza” she said, “da” I replied, feeling pretty stupid, because obviously the word was pretty universal. I washed it down with a Russian lager, then went and chilled in the hotel room. After a kip I showered and then went down to the introductory briefing. Here Olga gave us all the do’s and don’ts, a breakdown of additional activities and we had a little bit of a meet and greet with the other Travellers. I met Divnesh, Elijah, Lydia, Steve, Belinda. The majority of the 19 strong group were from Australia, a handful of Kiwi’s, a couple of British and an American. It was 10pm by the time we finished and I realised I was hungry again, so I teamed with Lydia and Elijah and we went for a ‘traditional’ Russian meal, McDonald’s! The menu was in Russian and English. I ordered the big tasty, I got this strange yellow sauce with my chips, my initial reaction was shock horror because I thought they had given me margarine, we worked out that it was cheese sauce, so tragedy averted. Richie and Mel were enroute from the airport so I decided to walk back to the hotel so I could be there when they arrived. I was walking along the footpath when someone called out my name! Who the hell knows me in Russia, I thought to myself. But it was Mel and Richie from their taxi. I jumped in and rode the rest of the hotel. We had a bit of a catch up over a beer and some nibbles and I gave them the run-down from the meeting. I hit the hay by about midnight. But I didn’t fall asleep, nooo. There were at least two annoying mozzy’s giving me grief most of the night.
Day 2 St Petersburg:
I woke early and went for a jog, it was grey and misty, but the city was busy for 6.30 in the morning. I ran down Kamennoostrovskii Pospekt around Peter and Pauls fortress over some bridges, past the hermitage and back to the hotel. It was about 10k. I met Richie and Mel for Brekkie at 9 a.m. It felt like a porridge day, so I went for that. Unfortunately the porridge was very salty, I wasn’t sure if this was the Russian way, but the next day it was extra sweet, so I guessed it wasn’t. Our green bus departed at 10 a.m. Olga was on the microphone and we parked ourselves in the back of the bus. By this stage the weather was clearing and we were on track for a good day. Our first stop on our Bus tour of St Petersburg was the Aurora Cruiser. Aurora stands today as the oldest commissioned ship of the Russian Navy. The ship was one of three Pallada-class cruisers, built in St. Petersburg for service in the Far East (in the Pacific). All three ships of this class served during the Russo-Japanese War. As a museum ship, the cruiser Aurora became one of the many tourist attractions of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), and continued to be a symbol of the Communist Revolution and a prominent attribute of Russian history. From the banks of the Neva we also saw a hydro foil spraying water everywhere as it sped up the river.
Now is probably a good time to give you a bit of a run down about St Petersburg. Founded by Tsar Peter I “Peter the Great”, in 1703. The city was built on a swamp, by serfs and Swedish prisoners of war. Peter the great, was a great a traveller in his youth, and he gained many experiences, this blending of European cultures is seen in St Petersburg’s, it is sometimes described with all of its canal’s as the “Venice of the North”. The style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. The city is the second largest in Russia and the 5th largest in Europe. The city was also the capital of the Russian Empire for than two-hundred years between the years 1713-1718, 1732-1918. The city of 5.1 million inhabitants has also had several names Petrograd (1914-1924), Leningrad (1924-1991) It is also informally known as Piter. Geographically it is the most western city of Russia, it is located on the Neva River at the head of the gulf of Finland on the Baltic sea.
So we jumped back on the bus and drove past Trinity square, the site of the first settlements of the city. We jostled with the morning traffic over Troickii bridge while Olga, gave us commentaries on various sites. We passed the front of the palace embankment and then over the Dvorcovyji bridge to Vasilievsky Island. This is the largest Island in Saint Petersburg and is bordered by the rivers Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva. We only visited the eastern most tip of the island, where the bus stopped for 5 minutes and we took in the Rostral Columns (erected to commemorate a naval military victory), the old St Petersburgs stock exchange and the views across the Neva to the Winter Palace and Peter and Paul’s fortress. Back on the bus we went via the Nevskii project (st Petersburg main street ) to a funky Russian store which sold various souvenirs, jewellery, clothing and lots and lots of Russian dolls. One particular item in the store which really caught my eye was the ‘floating’ table with the red wobbly legs. From the store we walked past Mikhaijlovskij Gardens to the ‘Church on Spilt Blood’. The name refers to the blood of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, who was assassinated on that site in 1881 (He died from mortal wounds suffered after a suicide bomb attack). Construction began in 1883 under Alexander III, as a memorial to his father, Alexander II. Work progressed slowly and was finally completed during the reign of Nicholas II in 1907. We wandered back to the bus. As we wound through the busy Saint Petersburg streets, Olga explained what various buildings were. At this point, my phone rang. It turned out to be the bank ringing about my debit card, which had been blocked, “because they believed fraudulent activity was been carried out” After a couple of difficult phone calls with Indian phone operators I managed to get them to unblock my card so I could withdraw Roubles from cash machines. Next site was a quick stop at St Isaacs Cathedral, where we saw the horse statue with two points of contact and the worlds least intimidating police car. We headed back to Nevskii Prospekt for lunch. We stopped near a pancake house (which are very big in Russia), however the menu didn’t really spark our boat, so we wandered down the main drag to Subway. After lunch we checked out Kazan Cathedral. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan, probably the most venerated icon in Russia. The cathedral was modelled by Andrey Voronikhin after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The group planned to meet at the impressive Palace square at 2pm. Palace square was the setting of many events of worldwide significance, including the Bloody Sunday (1905) and the October Revolution of 1917. The centre of the square is marked with the Alexander Column (1830-34), designed by Auguste de Montferrand. This red granite column (the tallest of its kind in the world) is 47.5 metres high and weighs some 500 tons. It is set so well that no attachment to the base is needed. The earliest and most celebrated building on the square is the baroque white-and-azure Winter Palace of Russian tsars (1754-62), which gave the square its name. Although the adjacent buildings are designed in the Neoclassical style, they perfectly match the palace in their scale, rhythm, and monumentality. The plan for the afternoon was exploring the state hermitage with Olga as our ever knowledgeable guide. The State Hermitage (Russian: Государственный Эрмитаж) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise nearly 3 million items, including the largest collection of paintings in the world. Olga told us that someone estimated that if you were to study every item of the collection it would take you 11 years! Unfortunately we could not ‘fit it in’ to our tour schedule. The museum was very popular with tour groups and leaders holding up strange markers were common place. We trooped up elaborate stairways, though exquisite hallways, ballrooms and galleries. Most of the rooms were decorated with impressive guilding and chandeliers. We saw artwork from Rembrandt and Da Vinci as well as other cultures. Before the trip I watched the movie the ‘Russian Ark’ and many of the rooms in the Hermitage I recognised from the movie. Highlights for me were the mosaic table tops, the Peacock clock and the huge malachite vase. I was so impressed with the Museum I decided to donate my St Petersburg guide book (courtesy of the Dundee Library) to the Hermitage (not on purpose of course, in other words I lost it!) much to the entertainment of the rest of the group. After the Hermitage the group headed to a pub (some of decorations of the pub definitely raised a few eyebrows, due to their sexual nature). But with Olga’s assistance we tucked into a ‘Beer booty meal’ and a few lagers. Feeling ‘happy’ we moved onto the Ballet at the ‘Grand Palace Theatre’. This was my first ballet experience, and what better place than in Russia. To be honest I found Act 1 a bit slow, and it didn’t help that I didn’t know the story line. But after reading the programme and half time ice creams I got into it a bit more in the succeeding acts. I did appreciate the precision movement by the dancers in particular the lead female character Odette. The ballet finished around 10.30, and it had been a long day so we grabbed the Metro back to the hotel, with a quick stop at the supermarket for Beef Jerky and drinks enroute.
Day 3 St Petersburg:
Breakfast kicked off at 8 a.m. with the extra sweet porridge. Then we were back on the green bus, on the bus I sorted out payment with Olga for all the extra activities and confirmed my flight departure details which were wrong on her sheet. We took some of the back roads through St Petersburg and got to appreciate the ‘real’ non tourist part of town. We arrived at the train station where we dropped our bags in preparation for our overnight train. Back on the bus it took us roughly an hour to reach Peterhof Palace. On the bus I did crosswords with Richie, Mel, Lucy and Robert. We arrived at the Palace grounds at 12:30, delayed quite a bit due to traffic. The Peterhof Palace (Russian: Петерго́ф, Petergof, originally named Peterhof, Dutch or German for "Peter's Court") is actually a series of palaces and gardens located in St Petersburg, Russia, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great. These Palaces and gardens are sometimes referred as the "Russian Versailles". The palace-ensemble along with the city centre is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We only visited the gardens, although the fountains by sheer number were some of the most spectacular I have ever seen. In particular the main fountain of the grand cascade. These waters flow into a semicircular pool, the terminus of the fountain-lined Sea Channel. In the 1730s, the large Samson Fountain was placed in this pool. It depicts the moment when Samson tears open the jaws of a lion, representing Russia's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War, and is doubly symbolic. The lion is an element of the Swedish coat of arms, and one of the great victories of the war was won on St Samson's Day. Perhaps the greatest technological achievement of Peterhof is that all of the fountains operate without the use of pumps. Water is supplied from natural springs and collects in reservoirs in the Upper Gardens. The elevation difference creates the pressure that drives most of the fountains of the Lower Gardens, including the Grand Cascade. The Samson Fountain is supplied by a special aqueduct, over four km in length, drawing water and pressure from a high-elevation source. We spent an hour wandering around the peaceful, tree lined paths in the gardens, where we spotted red squirrels scurrying around. There were even more fountains of different descriptions (Pyramid, Bicycle wheel, etc). We also made it to the coast, where we looked along the gulf of finland / Baltic sea across to St Petersburg. Our stomachs were starting to rumble so we shot back on the bus to the city. Here we stopped at a restaurant (Deymidoff) where we enjoyed a delicious lunch. First we toasted with vodka, and I got to practice one of my Russian lines with the waitress ‘Ya istchu zakusku pod vodku’ (I am looking for something that goes together with vodka). So she brought out some pickles! 1st course was Borcshet a traditional Russian soup based on beetroot (this was my favourite food of the whole trip). Main was Stroganoff, really good. Then we polished it off with pancakes and Icecream. Overall a great meal! Next stop was Peter and Paul Fortress. The fortress was established by Peter the Great on May 27, 1703 on small Hare Island by the north bank of the Neva River. The fortress contains several notable buildings clustered around the Peter and Paul Cathedral (1712-1733), which has a 123.2 m (404 ft) bell-tower (the tallest in the downtown) and a gilded angel-topped cupola. The cathedral (Russian Orthodox) whilst fairly modest in its decor is the burial place of all Russian tsars from Peter I to Alexander III, with the exception of Peter II (The Romanov dynasty). Their white tombs with gold crosses are very distinctive. After exiting the cathedral we listened to the different chimes of the bells while Olga pointed out some of the other structures in the fortress which included the still functioning mint building, the Trubetskoy and Alekseyevsky bastions with their grim prison cells, and the city museum. According to a centuries-old tradition, a cannon is fired each noon from the Naryshkin Bastion. Annual celebrations of the city day (May 27) are normally centered on the island where the city was born. On the way out Peter the Great let me sit on this knee while we had a photo.
The tour continued through St Petersburg we followed a girl riding a horse bare backed through the city, we were so enthralled with this situation we missed the famous Bronze Horseman statue. The equestrian statue is a monument of Peter the Great, built by Catherine the Great. The name of the statue is also the name of a narrative poem written by Aleksandr Pushkin about the statue in 1833, widely considered to be one of the most significant works of Russian literature. The statue's pedestal is the enormous Thunder Stone, sometimes claimed to be the largest stone ever moved by man (1,250 t). Next we revisited St Isaacs Cathedral, as the rain started coming down we sheltered in the Russian Orthodox Church. The church reminded me a lot of St Paul’s, highlights were the, 112 red granite columns, the massive bronze doors, the mosaics, artwork and the interior guilding. We went from the cathedral to Subway, where we bought some beers for the canal cruise. The cruise took in various buildings and bridges from perspective of the boat, highlights were St Isaacs glistening in the setting sun. After the cruise the group split and we decided to meet at the train station at 21:40. We followed Olga and went straight to the station, where I picked up some sushi for Dinner. We gathered supplies for the train journey, namely beers and vodka! Richie/Mel and I shared a booth with this weird Russian guy, who Olga tried to get to move somewhere else but was not too successful. However opposite we found some friendly locals Slava and Olga, I tried communicating with them with my limited Russian (much to their amusement), however they spoke a bit of English, so we switched to that. We shared Cognac / Vodka and Cheese and had a grand old time. I think we crashed out around 1.30. However, some of the Aussies In the group kicked on later into the night.
Day 1 Moscow:
We had to wake up way too early 6:00! But we had no option because the train had arrived in Moscow! The weather was pretty average, much like our state of health, courtesy of the vodka toasts. The bus was ready to rock, we expected the trip to the hotel to take 45 minutes but light traffic meant we were there in 15 min. Unfortunately they had no rooms available this early, for the group! So Olga in her infinite wisdom had prebooked a room which we could store our bags in for the day. It was a three star hotel, and the reception had an airport lounge feel, but the rooms were nice enough. We went for Breakfast at the world’s largest buffet, the room was enormous and very very bright! So I tucked into my usual porridge as a violin whined away in the background. At 9.30 we headed to the metro we were on the blue line. All of the metro stations in Moscow were very impressive, characterised by marble walls, soviet statues and artwork. We got out at Ploschad Revolutsyii near Lubyanka square. It was a short walk to the famous Red square (Krasnyy – Trans. Beautiful -> Red). 500 metres in length, it was the setting for public announcements and executions. Surrounding Red square are a number of famous buildings. Gum – A ritzy deparment store, St Basil’s cathedral (commissioned by Ivan the terrible, who blinded the architect after he made it, so he couldn’t design anything as exquisite again), Saviours gate, The Kremlin wall, Lenin’s Mausoleum and the Historical Museum (red brick building). We wandered the length of the square and paused to have a group photo. We continued on hugging the Kremlin wall as we made our way down to the Moskva river. Black police cars with tinted windows and flashing lights sped past us, It oozed Russian style. At this point my foot (bruised at the base from running) was giving me a bit of grief but I hobbled on. We crossed over a couple of bridges and caught views back over the great Kremlin Palace. I got caught out holding a Banana skin for the duration of this walk because there were no bins anywhere! Next I spied the ugliest statue in the world, the 8th largest in on the planet it is a statue of Peter the great and commemorates 300 years of the Russian Navy. We passed the cathedral of Christ Redeemer, an impressive modern church that is in tune with historical Moscow. We looped back through Alexander II gardens, when I suddenly needed to go for a desperate leak. I had to hold on..., fearing if I went behind a tree or in a bush I would be arrested by the KGB. We eventually passed the WC and I dashed in. By this time the stomach was rumbling so with about an hour of free time Richie, Mel and I went to an Italian style buffet. We took the Metro back to the hotel around 2pm. We had to check into our rooms, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. Crashed out, for 2 hours in my hotel room, I didn’t realise how exhausted I was. I only woke up to Richie ringing my phone and it took me a couple of minutes to work out where I was.
We cruised back into town, getting off at one stop further than our usual tube stop. From there we began our own self guided tour with the help of my trusty guidebook. The walk was the 90 minute literary walk which highlighted the ‘well-known’ giants such as Dostoevsky, Puskin, Yesenin. The walk also passed other places of interest including theatres and newspaper offices. Earlier on into the walk we stopped at a Pub and grabbed a beer, Richie found an English newspaper and spotted a place we could go for dinner. Outside the pub I randomly met an interesting English guy who was living here in Moscow. During the walk we passed a large crowd of people cheering on Justin Timberlake look alike dancers. We finished the walk at Patriach’s pond one of the popular picnic spots in Moscow. Surrounding the pond were sculptures of creatures (monkeys and wolves) from the fables of popular playwright Ivan Krylov. As the sun slipped from the sky we tried to find this Restaurant, when we did locate it, it was fully booked. Down but not out we decided to go next door to a sushi restaurant, which I love! The menu was somewhat intimidating but with the help of the English speaking waiter we ordered the sushi banquet. It came out to us on a small wooden bridge. We washed it down some Asashi’s, perfect. Next we wandered back into the red square and took some night photo’s. Back at the hotel, I gave Richie a lesson in 500, before crashing out for the night.
Day 2 Moscow:
We had a big day lined up so I started with my usual porridge to keep the home-fires burning. This time for breakfast we were accompanied by an ‘upbeat’ piano accordionist. We rendezvoused at the lobby at 08:45 where Olga sorted out last minute finances with the group. Olga’s promises of fine weather for the whole trip, turned to custard as it was raining steadily outside. We exited at Ploschad Revolutsyii metro station and went straight to the queue for Lenin’s Mausoleum, as we waited in the queue we got to see the changing of the guard for the tomb of the unknown soldier. Next to the tomb was the eternal flame, which burns for all the soldiers that died in WW2. This area was only accessible to the soldiers and Newlyweds. After a much anticipated wait we finally made it to the Mausoleum. I was chatting away to Julia about running as I entered the Mausoleum and I was immediately Shushhhh’d, by the guards. There was also a rule for ‘no hands’ in pockets. It was an Eerie sight, the former soviet leaders body, was very life-like, with a slight waxy appearance. It looked like he was just having a quick nap. Behind the Mausoleum at the foot of the Kremlin wall are the graves of other famous communists including Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev and Yuriy Andropov. Lenin’s wife and sister are also buried here as are the first man in space Yuriy Gagarin, writer Maxim Gorky and American John Reed. Next on the agenda we coat checked our bags and ventured into ‘Russia’s Heart’ – The Kremlin. Citadel of the Tsars, headquarters of the Soviet and now home to the Russian President and the seat of his administration, for centuries it has been a symbol of the power of the state. The name Kremlin, translates to fortress. Designed by Italian architects, the gigantic red brick wall stretches between the 19 towers. The Kremlin actually used to be completely surrounded by water but now the river is directed through a large pipe underneath the Alexander II gardens. Olga left us to the devices of another guide for the Kremlin, she was just ok. I actually got more information from reading the guide book! So we entered the Kremlin through the Trinity tower, we first passed by the State Kremlin Palace, the most modern building (1961) of the complex. We peered across the road at the White Senate, and the guards were quick to blow the whistle on anyone who moved into this restricted area. The Tsar cannon was impressive, although at 40 tonnes it was more an ornament than a firing machine. Next we came across the Tsar bell, the largest in the world, weighing a whopping 200 tonnes. The bell now lies on the ground where it fell from Ivan the Great’s Bell tower (81 metres high). An 11 tone chunk is missing from the bell where someone poured cold water over a hot bell (from the 1701 fire) causing it to break off. The tour was then distracted somewhat by a military show taking place in cathedral square. Soldier marched with precision timing, horses strutted like in a dressage performance and the rifleman had some fancy tricks flipping guns around. The show ended spectacularly when a group of riflemen crouched down (and rather unexpectedly) fired live ammunition into the air. The buildings surrounding cathedral square were unsurprisingly cathedrals, however they were very majestic with their golden domes. There was the Cathedral of Archangel, Church of the twelve apostles, Cathedral of Annunciation and Cathedral of the Assumption. The last on the list was regarded in the 14th Century as the most important church in Moscow, this was where the princes were crowned and the patriarchs of the Orthodox Church buried. The interior of the church was unlike anything I had seen before, with wall to wall fresco’s and other artwork. Every surface in the church told some kind of story, even the pillars! And that was the end of the tour, and our guide rather hurriedly scuttled away! Running short on time we unfortunately skipped past the Great Palace and the State Armoury on our way out. We grabbed a baguette on the go before meeting Olga. We then took the metro out to a KGB nuclear bunker (Number 42). Purposely built for a nuclear attack, the bunker complex was 65 metres (18 floors) below a fairly normal suburban neighbourhood. The tour was interesting and interactive. We saw a short video on the history of countries nuclear testing and weaponry in the cold war era (from a Russian perspective). And we had fun trying on soviet uniforms and gas masks. Richie looked particularly gimpish in a certain gas mask! So now we had free time for the rest of the day, so Richie Mel and I went to Kamergersky Pereulok a pedestrian mall with cafes and bars. We stopped at a cafe and I had a beer and a biscuit. We meandered for the rest of the day, stopping at the ritzy Tsum department store, and wander past sites such as the Metropol Hotel, the Bolshoy Theatre and Karl Marx’s statue. We finished the afternoon at the Gum Department store off Red Square. Wandering past the western department stores we decided to rest our legs at a cafe called ‘colour’ and have another beer. The spot was a good vantage point for watching dancers performing a routine in the mall below. We met the rest of the group for our finale dinner. I tried a traditional Russian soup, but it tasted terrible! A cross between flat coke, soya sauce and onion juice. I much preferred the main which was beef dumplings. The group enjoyed chocolate cake to celebrate Elijah’s birthday! This was all washed down with vodkas and beers. As soon as we left the restaurant, the cool evening air hit me like a tonne of bricks. I definitely felt under the influence now. I clambered rather unsteadily onto the bus and headed straight for the back seat. Olga magically produced another bottle of vodka for the journey. Living up to the tour’s name! We were embarking on a night tour of Moscow. Olga handed over the tour guide reins again to a fast talking Russian lady, who was very difficult to understand and the crappy bus P.A. system didn’t help either. However the trip was good fun, we visited the Novodevichiy Convent which produced a stunning reflection off the surrounding moat. Peter the Great, sent his half sister Sophia here for life, to keep her away from the throne. Also, Sparrow hill, the highest point in Moscow it offered unsurpassed views across the city. On top of sparrow hill was the impressive Moscow state university, the tallest of the seven sisters (Stalinist-Gothic buildings) we passed the famous Gorky park and made a quick stop at the WWII Victory Obelisk (Nike, on the top). Winning WWII was a proud moment for Russia, and they don’t sell themselves short celebrating it. We finished the tour at Red Square, where Olga and the tour guide were almost brought to punches about some of the historical facts of the podium Lobnoe Mesto in front of St Basil’s. There was also heated discussion about the rankings of the world’s largest squares. The bus pulled into the hotel at 1 a.m. and while others ‘hit the hay’ Divnesh and I found another way to use up our remaining Russian roubles before the end of the trip ;-)
Last Day in Moscow:
I found it extremely difficult to get up after only a few hours sleep. But I had to be on the ball this morning as I had to find my way to one of the lesser known airports in Moscow, Vnukonov. With directions on the breakfast Napkin, I said my goodbyes to Olga, Mel and Richie and I was off. I took the metro. I was to get off after 8 stops, but I fell asleep on the tube and missed counting 3 of the stops. I ended up going well past my detraining point. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realised this. I made sure I was in the wrong by pointing at the names on my Napkin to some friendly Russian Metro users, and they smiled and pointed in the other direction to which I was heading! Doh! I kept an anxious eye on the time as I had to catch another train, which left on the hour to the airport. I missed the 10 a.m. train. But luckily I had built enough time contingency in my travel plans, to consider these sorts of scenario’s. So I used the spare time to wander around the market’s and surrounding streets outside the station in a non-touristified suburban Russia. I even saw a guy mowing the lawns! Safely on the 11 a.m. train I made it to the airport!

I really enjoyed my trip to Russia. From the outside it seems like a very intimidating country, but I felt once you were actually there it wasn’t at all. There were plenty of eye catching ‘sights’ in Russia, and some good buildings/monument as well ;-) Now I have a feel for the place I would definitely like to come back and visit some of the more out of the way places in Russia, I’m sure of which there are numerous, for a country so large. I think I could get by now, with key phrases under my belt such as “Hi” (prevet), “Thank you” (Spasibo) and “I am looking for something that goes with Vodka” (Ya istchu zakusku pod Vodku).
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