Moscow: first impressions.

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The journey to Moscow took four and a quarter hours. My train was almost luxurious; soft maroon sofa-style chairs, a green marble design table and cream silk curtains that matched the carpet. If Elton John designed Russian first class train compartments they would look something like this. Because it was so early I slept for most of the way but I woke up for a cup of coffee - which a girl took through the carriages in an urn, with the rest of the refreshments in a supermarket trolley.

I got to Moscow Yaroslavskaya station at half past eleven. I had agreed to meet my pen-pal, Anastasiya, there. She is an English student from Ukraine, who had helped me with my Russian before I moved to Yaroslavl. We agreed to meet when I arrived in Russia: she has a cousin in Moscow and invited me to stay with them. We enjoyed speaking to each other in person, but there is an unhappy 'aura' around her. Ana has big, soulful eyes and a mouth that seems to be always close to tears. Her English is almost fluent but she was too shy to speak it with me, and she speaks Russian with a Ukrainian accent that it took me a while to get used to. She pronounces the sound 'g' as 'h' and uses some words differently.

She introduced me to her cousin, Lena, and Lena's husband Valera, when we arrived at their apartment in Nagornaya. I chatted to Valera for a while about Moscow and England, then we went back to the centre of Moscow.

Red Square was the only place that we knew anything about so we took the metro there. By the time we arrived it was almost dark and the buildings were lit up. Stepping up from the underground the beauty of the place suddenly hit me. I felt tiny next to the high buildings, as if we were walking through a huge ornate chess set looking up at towers and statues of horses. It was a warm, clear night and the atmosphere was light. The crowd all seemed to be enjoying walking around and there was a murmur of chatting people, like fireworks night. All Russian churches are beautiful but this place is especially spectacular.

We went back to Lena's flat. By the end of the day I was so tired from speaking Russian all day that I fell asleep before 11.

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