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Published: April 30th 2013
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Moscow- the worlds most expensive and unfriendly city. We've proved that wrong.
Arriving to Moscow was the easy part- next find hostel. We don't normally pre-book but had to have a Moscow pre-boooked address for some tickets. Express train and metro.. We managed to work them out then followed the map from the metro station to the correct road. By one am and the cold, rain and dark we had had two different local Russians search for the hostel with no luck... Another hostel was found but 'no room at the inn'. The only place open seemed to be a couple of night clubs, outside one we met a Russian but English speaking DJ called Andrew who took us to a hotel... This was above a nightclub, noisy but fairly luxury and out if our normal league but desperate for a room we stayed.
Our next mission in the morning.. Try and find ABC hostel again as they have our tickets delivered to there... With the help of wifi and one of Justine's friends being awake we managed to contact the Russian ticket company and check where they had been delivered to. What is advertised as a hostel on
hostel bookers is right. The road we were on last night except... No signs. We discovered to get to the hostel... Find a certain looking door.. Press intercom press 309.. Say 'we are to ABC hostel' go up to fourth floor.. Knock on door.. No answer..walk into front room and they had out tickets. Definitely a dodgy apartment advertising as a hostel- even the front door has no sign! After stopping at the patisserie we visited the Kremlin where we passed two men in the park drinking vodka and being sick. The Kremlin is an ancient fortress where you can see 800 years of Russian history with lots of cathedrals, bell towers, canons etc. We thought we should educate ourselves but can't quite decode the Russian yet so picked up a few handouts. Every building was covered in the inside with gold portrait paintings which we decided were a bit over the top.. And Ivan must have paid the Italians well.
We'd read about polar bears in Moscow zoo so definitely worth a visit- a few metros later we were watching them in the snow and one lonely polar bear depressed in a cage of its own with no
snow.
Hungry we decided to look for some Russian food.... Impossible we found. English pubs, Italians, Chinese, sushi bars... And everything too posh for us.. We eventually settled for some pork noodles then made our way to the Transiberian station.
Everyone else would probably dread getting on the third class Transiberian for a couple of days... But we were excited. We were in third class which is called platskart-54 people in bunks in a carriage. We decided as long as the other passengers don't 'gob' as Justine calls it then we'll be happy.
On one side we had two Russian women, one of them university Lecturer at Moscow, on the other we had a Russian guy probably my age who liked to strip off and a boy from Texas who quickly let a Russian girl and were chatting each other up over iPad translate. They were still translating till past when we went to sleep... The naked boy also had a similar friend down the carriage.
We quickly realized its good to be short.. Even my feet hang over the planksart but luckily we like sleeping so we had no trouble.. When we woke up the Russian women had got off and been replaced by an old man.. Luckily he didn't strip right down and kept his long john n vest on, he liked to huff n puff n slurp on his tea but he wasn't too bad... We were worried at one point he hadn't ate in over 12 hours but then he got out some eggs and ate them with his salt that he kept in a match box.
The train guard was on a break so came and sat with us.. He enjoyed reading our Russian-English dictionary and calling Justine Justin Beiber. He picked out hard workers, fair hair, student and hobbies. He lives the other end of Russia so we think he's on there the whole journey. Time passed with us entertaining ourselves and enjoying our food we cooked using the hot water.. Some people made it home n had a plant they would carry down the carriage to water!!!
Our stop was perm.... A new mission to find a hostel. We had a map and got a tram to the centre, were still unsure how Russian building numbering works... Number 57 and 67 on the same road were 1.5km apart.. So we were on the right road but couldn't find 67. Looking lost and it being midnight 3 rather posh Russians probably no older than us wound down the window of their white BMW... They searched the address on their satnav and gave us a lift to the hostel..rather amused that we had come by train when they fly to Moscow every two weeks!!
Forgetting to change our watches to Moscow time we woke up at 11.00 instead of eight. We explored perm and ate ossetian pie and khinkali ( spinach pie and dumplings) and drunk rye bread kavass( local alcohol), cowberry water (taste like pond water I would imagine) and rosehip sorbet. We also got given champagne.. I think the Russians are pleased were visiting... We are yet to see any other travelers.
We are now staying in a hostel- a dorm with 16 beds, the others seem to be Russian tourists. A guy from the hostel has wrote us messages for tomorrow... We plan to go 2 hours by bus to some ice caves so he's wrote messages for bus driver, taxi driver and people in the cave... They all begin with 'hello we do not speak Russian'. We were quite amused but embarrassed!! We just can't quite speak words with random numbers and symbols in the middle, but our reading and recognizing Russian words is improving.
All in all.. We like the Russians... We're yet to make a Russian smile but they're hassle free and helpful when needed.
We're off to test out the kitchen n cook ourselves surprise dumplings for dinner.... Until the next blog...
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mum
non-member comment
Relieved
Glad you are having fun and surviving the traumas. I can read as much as you can write on here but no need to duplicate it! Keep practising the Russian. Love from mum, the mummy jenny xx