Meschdunarodnaja Moscow

... the old residence of the Metropolitan, which had been in disuse since Peter I abolished the Metropolity(?) and replaced it with a council instead. The interior decoration of the building was almost entirely restoration work, as the original interior hadn't survived the centuries. There was another icon wall, and a large room which held various items that had once belonged to the Metropolitans. Most of them were fairly typical--goblets, vestments, funny ...

... As soon as the train stopped there was a mad dash for the door chinnes stlyle with thew mongolians pushign and showing and putting boxes on the train. I am use to this after living in China for a while. When we got on the train there was a load od Mongolians in oru cabin with boxes shoved into every knock and crany. We told them to get out and they did straight away and me and tom chucked all of there boxes into the corridor and there was lots of ...

Realizing that today was my last full day in Moscow (more on that at the end of this entry), I decided that it was now or never. I had to go to the banya. Sure, there are banyas in St Petersburg, but I'm going to be busy in Piter, and anyways, I had read about a particular one here in Moscow that I wanted to go to. Close to the Bolshoi Teatr, I felt that the location was ideal. It took a bit of finding, as my guidebook put it on a street that doesn't ...

... carved depicting how the deceased is known for. After this I went to the statue park due south of Moscow. This is supposed to be where one of the more interesting art museum is located, but it is closed too :( The statue park is worth the long walk fromt the train station, across the bridge and under a tunnel and over on the other side of the park. All the famous Soviet icons ...

Friday 2nd January Arrived in Moscow at 7.45pm local time and the outside temp was - 9 degrees. We waited at the carousel for our bags but to no avail. Eventually we went over to the lost baggage desk to ask about our bags. After a bit of a hoo haa and some form filling in we were advised that our bags were still in Helsinki and would be on the next flight tomorrow that lands at 12.05pm. Not a great start to the ...

... 7 bridges on your wedding day, which explains why we'd seen so many in both st p and moscow. I wondered what bridges scott and i probably won't cross - smelly bridge at junction street, north bridge... sampled some gen-u-ine Ukranian/Russian food for lunch - borscht, beef in aspic, herring, Vareniki dumplings, washed down with kvac which is a drink made by fermenting bread. Stuffed, we did the ...

... exact opposite. She smokes cigarettes constantly and is very blunt. She has read every book in her huge library and has resorted to reading the dictionary until someone brings her new books. She gave me an old Russian copy of "The Master and Margarita". Lisa took me to the Red Square. Only swear words appropriately explain my reaction to seeing the Kremlin, Intercession Cathedral (the coolest architecture I ...

... up eating chicken wings from a disco bar. It took a number of attempts to explain that the Coca Cola was supposed to be in the glass and there was no way I was drinking it neat! This changed rapidly as the rest of the night was spent drinking Russian style with good local beer and vodka chasers. Sometime around 4 am I realised that this had to stop and slowly crawled my way to bed. Needless to say the next morning was very painful. The metro in ...

... with my other hand and smashed him with the other one.I throw him out from our cabin and closed the door.I had to sit down for a beer and a timeout. After a while,the same gentleman came back with his friend.I kindly invited them to our cabin for a peace treaty.I gave them beer and sat down for a chat.Then he showed a tiniest little breach on his forehead and started to yell for a money.He wanted 200$ for not asking the police to pick me up.Yeah sure!Like i was gonna pay for something ...

... t got our dictionary with us at the moment.), the female attendant who was in charge of our carriage. It's her job to clean the loo, make sure the air con is on, keep the samavar water boiling and yell to us to get back on the train at the brief stops along the way before the whistle blows. Our attendants were a woman called Lena and a guy we called 'lazy', although his actually name was Anatolly ...