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Published: September 22nd 2007
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Red Square
The heart of Russia, with the Kremlin and Lenin's Mausoleum to the right, St Basils Cathedral ahead. In one of his famous sayings that you may have already heard, Winston Churchill once described Russia as a 'Riddle wrapped in a Mystery inside an Enigma'. Russia has always baffled the West and this is where we were to head, keen to understand the history and mindset of this great country.
Our arrival was like the start of a James Bond story. At the train station a man met us, he gave no name. Once inside his black car, he silently handed us an unmarked envelope, with papers inside. Inside was details of our next rendezvous and a pair of train tickets. Silently he conveyed us to our hotel, where he departed without a word. At the hotel we spotted a man attaching something to the smoke detector in our room (a listening device maybe?), we pretended not to see him.
The next few days were a blur of activity, we were so busy exploring Moscow and getting adjusted to Russia, we barely had an opportunity to look over our shoulders for agents. Moscow we quickly realised is a very big place, our hotel was quite a way out of town, but still easy to get everywhere
Dome in Kremlin
The dome of one of the many churches inside the Kremlin using the metro. The cost of the place really surprised us, often it was London prices or even more, but if we looked around we could usually find something cheaper. We went on a wirlwind visit to Moscow's sites including Red Square and the Kremlin, which both were very impressive.
One highlight was the visit to Lenin. We queued up early, and deposited our cameras and bags in a bag check office. Then began the silent procession past the dead communist leader. I say silent because there were guards lining the whole way, they were terribly serious about the whole thing and wouldn't allow talking or even putting our hands in our pockets. Mr Lenin was looking a little bit green really, and had so much makeup on it looked like he was made of wax (he could have been replaced with a wax figure long ago I guess and no-one would know). All in all the whole thing was kind of surreal, and was as fantastically bizarre as we hoped.
One thing that we were both really keen to do was to get out of Moscow and see some other parts of Russia, so we headed off
Eternal Flame
The changing of the guard at the Eternal Flame outside the Kremlin. to the Golden Ring, a series of old Russian cities, most of which predate Moscow, some of which were old capitals of Russia as well. We started in Kostromo, which was a thoroughly gritty old town with dusty streets, old run down buildings and falling down monuments, it was only the statue of Lenin that looked like it had any attention paid to it. It truly was a great Russian Experience, as we did not meet anyone who spoke any english the whole time we were there.
Onwards we headed to Suzdal, more of a tourist town. This small village was very pretty, but contained more than its fair share of churches and monastaries, in fact it was bloody ridiculous, every second building was a place of worship of some sort. There were so many domes sticking into the air it looked like a birthday cake.
Our last stop on the golden ring was to Vladimir, a bigger city than the rest and a more industrial one (it comes with its own chemical factory right in the centre of town, which gave a nice odour to the place). Vladimir as a former capital of Russia had some impressive
Young Soldiers
A sharp contrast to the usual war memorials, this doesn't show strong soviet soldiers in heroic poses, but young boys marching off to war. architecture, but for photography it started to get challenging as the Russians with their efficiency and practicallity had managed to string electric and phone wires across the front of every monument. Still we did as best as we could.
And finally another train took us back to Moscow, where we were to look around some more (and revisit some sites as the weather was nicer now).
As far as the Russian people were concerned, it was very confusing, truly a people of contrasts, some people were so incredibly friendly, but others so rude it was amazing. It seemed when it came to the service industry the rudeness was the norm, and unfortunately as a traveller this is often the experience that you had to deal with. Nyet became the standard reply to any question, usually without any attempt to think about the question.
But in this way we were very fortunate, as I have a Russian friend who took us out to dinner with his friends, and even took us out to Sergiev Posad, a beautiful monastary town outside Moscow. This proved to be one of our highlights of our trip to Russia, and after that he
Us in Red Square
The compulsory pose in red square, we waited a few days to take our photos in the capital, as we wanted a fine day. took us to his mother's place who cooked up a storm, and even gave us a huge fruit pie to take with us on the Tran Siberian trip. It was truly lovely.
But finally the day came and we headed to the train station (driven by a man who gave no name), and we boarded the train that would be our home for the next four nights.
We really had a stroke of luck on the train, we were supposed to be sharing a four berth cabin, but instead we got a half sized berth with only two beds, just for us!
The next four nights was a mix of sleeping, eating, reading, sleeping, drinking, reading and eating. Occassionally we would look out the window at the huge spaces and wilderness that was out there, and for four nights the train relentlessly plowed on, taking us further from Europe and closer to Asia. One thing that goes hand in hand with long train journeys is the socialising. Get a whole lot of people on a long train journey, add some vodka and you suddenly have some new friends. It doesnt matter if you even speak the same language,
Kostromo
A small city a couple of hundred of km from Moscow, this was the most Russian place we went to, where we met not one person who could speak English, we were forced to rely on our poor knowledge of Russian. with a bit of vodka you could have been friends for years.
It was with a slight hangover that we arrived in Irkutsk in Siberia, and brushing off the rain we prepared ourselves for a three day hike around Lake Baikal, the biggest fresh water lake in the world and the home to a third of all the melted freshwater in the world. Fortunately despite our misgivings about the weather, our hike had glorious skies, both during the day, and in the evening. Sitting around the campfire one night I saw more stars than I have seen since I was a child.
Back in Irkutsk, we did some more shopping for pot noodles and boarded the train to Mongolia, soon we would leave Russia behind and all things that were western. In actual fact the crossing to Mongolia took eight hours and was a long and boring (and uncomfortable) experience (they locked the toilets for long periods of time, and our pleas to the train attendents were in vain. "Please can I go to a toilet?". "Nyet!!!"). Finally we found our way over to the Mongolian side of the border where formalities were sorted out quickly and the
Strange Brew
Not sure what this old lady was drinking but she was loving it. We are sure it had alcohol in it. train proceeded ever onwards.
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