Moscow September 2007

  Moscow, Russia
Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Hi All,

Obviously I am writing this a while after being in Moscow so apologies for the lack of detail. Moscow is a massive city, which has loads to see and do.  We (well I) get a major shock when I arrive and realise that everything is written in Russian script so cannot understand a thing.  Little to no English is spoken by the locals so the Lonely Planet is whipped out fairly lively to learn how to say the neccessities ie how to order beer!  We meet our first Honcho (Natasha - a local student who works for Vodkatrain whose job it is to show us around the city and get us to the train on time) on the evening of our second day.  We also meet the rest of our group that we will be travelling with for the next three weeks - three Ozzie girls (kate, cam and Emily), one Dutch girl (Rose) and the 2 Dave's (one Irish & one English).  Everyone seems ok and not too intent on sticking together like glue.  We go on a boat trip with natasha and the Ozzies head off and do their own thing.  We visit the usual sites while in moscow including Red Square(huge), Lenin's Mausoleum (he looks fake) and the Kremlin.  Oscar's history lesson's just come flooding back!  Natasha also brings us down one of the main streets where the buildings were literally moved back 20 meters in order to make the street wider during Soviet times.  There are loads of other little crazy schemes that were carried out during Soviet times that natasha tells us about. Very strange though - when we ask her if things have improved in Russia after the change from Communisim, she agrees that things are better but she still doesn't voice any critisims of the old times.  She deposits us on the train on Thursday evening and we are like hyper school children as we settle into our 4 berth compartment.  There is a little table with teacups and tea pot that we can use.  there is free hot water to make noodles and the like which we will soon see are sold everywhere and are the staple diet of all travellers on the Trans-Sibernian including the local Russian travellers.  There is a Russian "Provenitze" or attendent for each carriage who are generally female and look like they are named Helga or Olga or something!

The first leg of our train journey takes about 24 hours so we get on around 8pm and arrive the next night around the same time in Ekaterinburg.  We pass the time on the train by all bailing into one compartment and drink and listen to music, eat, sleep and read!

Vodkatrain Part 1 - Moscow