A glimpse of Moscow.
Trip Start
Jan 24, 2004
1
6
31
Trip End
Apr 01, 2004
Moscow,
Central Russia,
Russian Federation
Sunday, February 8, 2004
7th February 2004
Arrive in Moscow this morning with Tammy on the overnight train from St Pete's. We find our hostel on the outskirts of the city and check into a vacant dorm room. The hostel is part way up an ugly soviet concrete tower-block. We head out quickly to visit the Kremlin and its neighbour - the multi-coloured onion domed Saint Basil's cathedral. To our satisfaction, it is snowing in Red Square. It's what you'd expect to see after all. Moscow presents itself to be more European than Soviet Bloc. It's quite gay and exciting. We warm ourselves with some red wine inside the vast GUM department store complex and gaze upwards at the miraculous structure. A roof made entirely of curved glass sections. What a place ! The many boutiques around us are selling designer labels and it reveals a new breed of Russians.
What feels like a whole afternoon is spent booking up Trans-Siberian railway tickets. The task starts to get tedious given the unhelpful attitude of a small minority of railway employees, who simply don't like us. One even goes as far as to slam down the 'closed ' board blocking off her little window to the world. I begin to guess that in general, Russians don't enjoy the same freedom as we do. Perhaps it's a little unusual for foreigners to be at the station at all. Asking all these questions. At the wrong ticket window, for goodness sake ! Because the vast majority of foreign passengers on the Trans-Siberian railway use the correct protocol. Which is to go through a booking or tour agent and pay well over the odds for the privilege. But our dogged persistence pays off. We obtain our second class sleeper berths on the 'Baikal' train as far as Irkutsk. And save a packet by doing it ourselves. The total cost is about 100 pounds each for the five day journey. A staggeringly long distance when seen on a world map. That evening we drink gallons of red wine at the hostel and greet our new room guests. Though we were rather hoping to not have any other occupants in the room at this happy time.
The remainder of the short stay in Moscow involves an attempt by me to visit the preserved corpse of Mister Lenin. I am refused admission because I have my camera with me. It's not permitted. Rules are rules. A guard offers to look after it while I go in. I decline his offer and sure enough a little later on he is nowhere to be seen. Alternatively , one may wish to indulge oneself at a pub very close to the Kremlin which does a superb fish and chips and Stella on tap.
Next ; "The Baikal".
