The heart of Russia

At last I saw the city which I wished to see for a long time and I was on my way to Moscow. This time my ticket was for a 4 bed compartment in the train. I was expecting to travel with males but again Russian culture which does not distinguish between genders surprised me. My room mate was Tanya, a lady in her 50's. She was very talkative and nice. She asked me a lot about Turkey and life there. These long train journeys while traveling in Russia are also ideal places to read Russian classics. I finished a Dostoyevsky book during the journey from Volgograd to Moscow.

My first day in Moscow was kind of a disaster. Looking for a hotel is like a digging for gold in Moscow. Prices are astronomic and reasonable price hotels like 80 $ a night, never have vacant rooms. I spent maybe 6 hours and at last I ran into Hotel Slavyanka near metro Prospect Mira. It seemed like a clean, decent hotel and room was for 120 $. I did not care much about the price after all that walking. There were two ladies in the reception one was young and charming one and there was another one, middle aged and frowning. So after all these experiences with old, Soviet model ladies I straight away started dealing with the young girl. Everything was going smooth but at one point the middle aged one some how got involved and she did what I expected from her, stopped the process. There was a paper they gave me while entering to Russia called immigration card and she told me some seals were missing on it. I asked "So what?" and got the reply I was afraid to hear. "You can't stay here". Well if I were a girl, probably I had started crying there. With my bad Russian I explained this lady I had been traveling in Russia for a week and she was the first one who was looking for the seals. A few times I asked if she was sure. Well it was like speaking to a wall, I gave up and headed for another hotel. The price there was quite expensive and I asked a young girl if she could check my documents and if I were eligible to stay there. She told me nothing is wrong with my status and I should stay anywhere I wanted. I returned to the hotel which refused me. I explained to the two ladies if I wanted I could stay in the hotel just 200 ms away and there was nothing wrong with my status. This time the old frowning lady was more helpful and cheerful and did not create any more problems. During the checking in I told her many Russians came to Turkey and never ever they went through such problems and Turkish people are always helpful to the foreigners or guests. Actually I was intending to evoke some shame but instead I evoked some memories. Two Ladies who kicked me out of the hotel 10 minutes ago merrily started talking about their pastime holidays in Turkey. So that is Russia, even you have a visa, they may say you can't enter the country, even you have %100 real dollars, they may say they are not real enough, even you have a valid visa and the money to pay for a hotel, they may say they don't have registration for foreigners, a seal is missing in a stupid paper or simply a "No" without any further explanation. I feel like still a decade should pass to erase the all communist bureaucratic mentality of Russian organizations.

Next day I went the bus station Shelkovskaya, to look for a bus to Suzdal. Moscow is surrounded with many historical, little towns and altogether the region is called "Zoltaya Kaltso", in English "Golden Ring". According to what I read Suzdal is the most attractive one for the tourists. The journey to there is possible via another golden ring town Vladimir. In the bus station I found out it took 3 and a half hour to Vladimir. So the most optimistic time for this journey forth and back is 8-9 hours. So I left seeing Suzdal to another Moscow journey, if it would ever happen.

I spent the next of the day in the famous Red Square. I had been to Red Square before but this time it looked more beautiful probably because of the better weather. The colors were more vivid under blue sky and this time many more tourists were around.

One thing that should be mentioned about Moscow is its subway system. As an experienced commuter who never had a car, I can say Moscow Metro is the best public transport system human mind has invented. Many lines coming from all directions intersect at some central stations and a ring line connects again all lines 2-3 stops away from these central stations. During the operational times trains run non stopping in this ring.

In my last day in Moscow and Russia I went to the Glory Museum, built for 2nd World War. It is located inside the Large park Park Poobedi. The park is more like forest than a park and I was surprised to see so many Russians liked rollerblading. The museum was also a great one. There were not stupid rules like paying extra money for the photos or etc. and there was a wonderful open air museum for the vehicles and tanks used in the Second World War. Unfortunately I did not have enough time to enter there and there was a long queue in front of it due to it was weekend. I could just walk around the fences took some photos.

At last my nine days journey finished. While traveling in this big country I walked so much and tried to cover so many places, I was almost sick of being tired. Even the drunken, screaming Russian men around me could not stop me sleeping in the plane. We also had a small crisis during land off as a few of these drunks resisted switching of their mobile phones. When we were approaching Istanbul, another one from this group socialized with me and told me they were avionics engineers who were going to fix a plane in Africa. Drunk avionics engineers who can’t behave while landing of was the last surprise Russia prepared for me. Even though I will definitely see more of this interesting country whenever I will have a chance.

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