Moscow
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2007
1
24
164
Trip End
Jul 15, 2009
Moscow,
Russia
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Nothing to say about the 8 hour train trip to Moscow. Pine trees, pine trees and a few pine trees. I even happen to get a glimpse at a rare few pines trees.
I arrive really late at Moscow and try to find an internet connection and see if I have any hope for a HC host. Nope! I later phone a few and get only negative answer. I then try Marina, Natasha's sister and she invites me to come over. Oouff!!! I didn't fancy a night outside, especially with the outnumbered poor wrecked homeless population outside the train station.
After Natasha and the young Boris, the middle sister happens to be as smily, nice and welcoming as her brother and sister! I even more appreciate her hospitality since she's got an English exam tomorrow
01- Arriving in Moscow. Tube entry
. So we don't chat for long. Nevertheless, though she's much fonder of French than English, we choose to speak English so as not to mess up her mind for tomorrow! :)After a night rest, I attack my visit to Moscow. Well, first I have to try to register at once. I go to the official place where I'm bogged off from. I'm said it's not the place where to do it. So, I look for an hour for a hostel that could arrange it and they tell me they can't do it today. Well, tomorrow, I'll try my chance a last time through an agency or there'll be no registration and the risk of a fine. We shall see.
With great motivation, I grab another tube and head to the center. The so much heard but never seen Moscow city. It is exactly what I had thought of it. A cold, inhuman, vast city. The Red Square and Kremlin are huge and impressive. They are beautiful but I think their majesty stand more by their size and arrogance more than their intrinsic beauty. The Saint Basil's Basilica is different. It is an awesome, joyful, original piece of art. I love it!
I spent hours walking around the city. I see some very nice places and monument but I quickly get sick of the immensity, not of the town itself, but of everything
02-
. Everything has to bigger than the other next thing, everything has to show off. Anybody is nobody. Nobody is everybody. And even if you've got the huge 4X4, as long as you don't have the blue bacon on top of it, any cop ant can detain you an hour at a traffic light. The more people show off and the less they give me an expression to exist! Everything seems so inhuman for me!I guess it gets lots of time to get to know and like this city!
At night, I meet Marina's boy friend, half Russia, half Peruvian. As he doesn't speak English, it gives me a nice opportunity to speak Spanish.
When I wake up, I know it's the one day, the day I'll take this long planned Transsiberian train to Irkutsk! :)
I leave my backpack at the Yaroslav train station and go for another day hiking in Moscow. It doesn't provide any more positive thought about the Russian capital though some spot are really peculiar are worth seeing. I love their train stations particularly. And the tube! The metro is amazingly decorated. And it's rare to see such a rafinated communist style At the end of the afternoon, rather sick of it all, I head back to the train station and patiently wait for the train.
