Moscow
Trip Start
May 09, 2005
1
23
63
Trip End
Ongoing
Moscow,
Russia
Monday, July 4, 2005
After all the excitement, at around 1 am (still quite light till 12pm) we decided we should get to our hostel
Moscow Underground.
. This was not so easy..... but we succeeded and were in bed by 2.30am. We were paying a lot of money for our room and there was no hot water... much to our disgust, and on the third morning discovered that breakfast was complementary, typical Russia styles. Moscow is very easy to get around (once you have mastered Cyrillic, which Stewart did) on the Metro. Stewarts quote 'the Moscow metro transports more people than the London and New York metro systems together'. We made the most of this mode of transport and saw some incredible stations. The central stations were very deep underground and had very elaborate relief, carvings and statues on the walls and ceilings. Even mosaics and chandeliers. On one occasion we were admiring the fabulous sombre sound of a saxophone, that was so good that we thought it was being played over a fantastic sound system, only to round the corner to find a man busking. No wonder it sounded so good, the tunnels have amazing acoustics.
On Tuesday we happened to wander onto the Red Square area only to find it cordoned off for some unknown reason (this happens regularly). We did however, find out why because we stumbled across a massive party of thousands on the lower end of the Red Square below St Basils. To get this far we had to move through a series of metal detectors and be surveyed by the entire Mowcow Police force
Party in Moscow.
. We discovered that the celebration was in anticipation of the announcement of who was going to host the 2012 Olympic games. This was quite some spectacle, lots of balloons, flags, music and dancers. Poor Moscovites weren't let onto the fact they had dipped out until a few hours after the TV announcement, so as to not upset the party.We were lucky enough to not have to stay in our nasty and expensive hostel as Ewan kindly offered to have us. We were stoked as we found we had not seen enough of Moscow as we loved it and we ended staying in the city for and extra three days, long enough to see the Allblacks kick the Lions ASS.
The Kremlin was as expected, huge, beautiful, colorful and lots of Churches (luckily Stewart didn't know this was what he would see). The most favoured sight was the huge Bell that was never rung.
On three occasions we tried to find the Pet Market, succeeding on the third attempt, thankfully. This was definitely worth it. A massive building, half used, with almost everything but pets. Fishing gear of all types, hunting and camping gears. Pet equipment, food and eventually we found a few pets for sale. These were mainly dogs and most of these were miniatures. Stewart did fall in love with a little lab pup, it bit his hand. We heard that in the weekends it is much bigger and there are some weird and wonderful animals available then, for example snakes and crocodiles.
Catherine the Greats Summer palace was a day trip. It is made of red and white brick partly built, rather mostly, just missing a ceiling, windows and all interior furnishings. She apparently lost interest. It was huge and a very popular destination for Russians. Many Art students, people playing badminton, sunbathing and most having picnic lunches. We forgot ours.
On our last day, Saturday we had breakfast in a casino while watching the Allblacks- Lions match, great win. After that we took a trip into the country to see Lennins' Dacha. It was a nice Villa. Quaint and sunny, much brighter than I expected. We saw his specially made electric wheelchair that was never used because the controls were on his paralysed side and his Rolls Royce that has Caterpillar and skis on over the wheels. Hilarious.
Our train to St Petersburg left late, 11.55pm, this meant we could have a relaxing pack up and dinner with Ewan. Ewan dropped us off at the station. The trip to St Petes' was about to begin.
Take care
Debbie and Stewart
