Baldwin to Moscow Part 2
Trip Start
Apr 30, 2004
1
3
88
Trip End
Jan 28, 2005
Moscow,
Russia
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Wake up passing through Minsk. It's 8am and am knackered but I don't want to miss any of these incredible places. They are so far removed from anything we've seen in Western Europe. Huge pastel coloured tenement blocks with sloping curved roofs, massive decaying factories and rusting machinery.
When they changed the bogies they also added a dining car so along with John and Alice we decided to give it a go. The menu was potatoes with either meat, chicken or fish. We only knew this because the man running the dining car spoke a little English. He looked like Jurgen. The fish turned out to be a big salmon steak and was delicious. We paid in Euros. The rest of the day was spent watching the world go by.
01 Berlin
As we travelled across Belarus we appeared to be going back in time, we saw horse and carts, wooden shacks and hand held horse drawn ploughs. Time stood still somewhere on the Belarus Russian Border and then slowly moved forward again. We had a game of scrabble of John and Alice and Cathy was victor.
As we approached Moscow the villages became larger, better built and more colourful. On the outskirts of Moscow the houses turned more basic but were crammed into any available space, some lovingly built, some not. Peoples day to day rubbish must get tossed outside as their is litter and junk everywhere. Nearer the center things clean up and huge apartment blocks take over the sky line. We arrive in Moscow at 8.45pm and it's still light and very warm. Irena from the hostel meets us at the station with our name on a board. We follow her back to her battered Lada Estate. Irena speaks no English so apart from the noise of the potholes its a silent journey. Irena gets lost in Moscow back streets and its after 9.30 when we arrive at the hostel. The hostel have been a great help with info and our Trans Sib tickets etc. and once our passports and visas had been checked by the local police we were shown our room. It was basic but fine. All we needed was a bed and after washing some clothes in the sink and watching the fireworks (bank holiday) and full moon over the Moscow skyline, we fell in
02 Poland
.Expenses: Meal for 2 on train Euro20; Taxi for the following day Euro 20.
Day 5 - Moscow (Scorchio 25c)
Woke at 8 having only been disturbed once in the night by my torch strapped to my arm and having cut off the circulation to my hand. We bathed, re-packed and enjoyed the delights of a breakfast of sweet milk and cornflakes, warm blackberry yoghurt, a cake and a cup of tea. The lovely Irena took us back into the city and dropped us at the train station where the Trans Sib departs from. I eventually fund an office where my rubbish Russian but better pointing skills helped discover the left luggage offices. After changing $100 and our left over Euros we luckily came across a Russian man who worked for an American firm who was able to interpret the left luggage procedure and we were then free to explore the city.
Lee's advanced Russian and acrylic writing skills bought us our metro tickets R20 and we entered the Russian underworld. Our first station turned out to be the most beautiful we saw and fairly easy to negotiate. On emerging out of the metro and after a couple of lucky guesses we were greeted by the surreal, disney-like spires of St Basils
03 Belarus
. This amazing building should surely be something to smile about but as yet our first observation had not faltered - Russians don't smile. St.Basils led to the Kremlin, Red Square and a whole host of architectural wonders. The gardens in front of the Kremlin were packed with locals and tourists alike enjoying the Bank Holiday and the unusually warm and sunny weather.After a light lunch we had a look around the GUM building, a shopping centre once barely occupied, now full of designer names at designer prices. It was here a lovely information assistant gave us directions to to the Post Office so we could make a quick call home. (I very cleverly forgot to look up the code for UK from Moscow and nobody understood what on earth I was talking about when asking instructions). We found a local shop to stock up on supplies for the train before another people watching session in the Kremlin sunshine gardens. Observations 2 and 3 - Girls are tall, skinny, glamorous and good looking and there's hardly any fat people.
We headed back to the train station at abut7pm and had a wander around the kiosks. We bought some vodka and beer for our trip, collected our luggage and settled ourselves on the station platform with a cold beer. The beautiful evening and bustling platforms were filled with people with shopping bags and cases piled high on rickety trolley wheels having been to the city to stock up on a few months supplies
04 Rene on the train to Moscow
. Unlike all of those around us we couldn't help but smile as we soaked up the atmosphere with excited anticipation.At 9.30 we boarded train number 4 bound for Beijing. We were shown to our home for the next 6 days and our compartment was the roomiest yet and much better than expected. One wall housed our bunks, the top folded away during the day. A little table under the window and a armchair the other side of the table. A wash room, shared with the next compartment, has a sink and tap with an extendable shower head. All the staff are Chinese and were very efficient to bring us our cups, Chinese Tea bags, hot water flask and bedding - what more could you ask for! To bed.
Expenses: Food and drink 840R; metro 50R; Provisions 1062R; Left luggage 70R; Post Office 200R
