Moscow

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We arrived in Moscow at the unholy time of 5:11, meaning we had just managed to scrape about 3 hours of quality sleep. Fortunately this time we had a hotel transfer organised by the agency so we didn't have to fight with the metro and the cyrillic alphabet in our sleep deprived state. Our rather grumpy driver took us to our hotel which was about 15 minutes outside of the city - and also in complete darkness. The hotel was experiencing a power cut and had nothing in the way of emergency lighting but we did manage to drop our bags off in the luggage room using the light from several mobile phones. The staff assured me power cuts were not a common occurence!

We attempted to venture to the local coffee shops for breakfast (it was 24 hour, as many things seem to be in Moscow) but this also had no power. With nothing better to do we ventured onto the metro and headed to Red Square to get some early sight seeing in. This turned out to be closed at night which is a move to prevent protesters from setting up camp after the recent large protests against the government. We were only an hour away from it opening so we sat ourselves down in the only open venue we could find - a 24 hour sushi restaurant! We were only in the mood for coffee thyough, raw fish isn't my idea of a good breakfast (though maybe this will change in Tokyo). Sitting outside Red Square at 6am with a cup of coffee in a sushi restaurant was as strange as it sounds.

It was worth heading to Red Square early though as we got to see if pretty much devoid of tourists, a rare occurence I'm told. We saw the lovely church everyone knows and the Lenin tomb from the outside (it's closed on Fridays) before heading back towards the hotel for breakfast. Fortunately the power was back on so we were able to sit down in the local coffee shop and eat something before our walking tour at 10am.

John decided to skip the walking tour due to the blisters on his feet and the lack of sleep but I powered through. The guide was incredibly happy that I'd already seen Red Square and she said she gets very bored repeating the same route day in day out. Instead she took me to some of her favourite places including a church with links to the British royal family (through a marriage to a Russian tsar), a sculpture park (including a section containing the old Stalin and Lenin statues that were pulled down after the fall of the USSR) and a new bridge across the river.

The tour finished as a posh deli in the centre which was open all through the Soviet times albeit with a lot less food in it! After the tour I returned to the hotel to get checked in and most importantly have a shower! Post lunch we had a relaxing afternoon taking a boat trip down the river then due to being absolutely knackered we ate in the hotel restaurant which was suprisingly good and reasonably cheap. The only down side was the live singer (who I think worked there, it was not a special show) who wailed out Russian pop songs very loudly...

Friday we got up early and attempted to be as touristy as possible by going to see the Lenin Mausoleum, though unfortunately this and indeed the whole of Red Square was closed off for the whole day for a police cadet graduation ceremony, grrr! Hopefully I'll be able to come back on day but reading some of the guide books the government find the whole thing a bit of an embarrasment so they may be looking to actually bury him.

We did manage to get into the Kremlin Armoury (so named because it is well guarded) which is a museum showcasing a lot of Russian treasures both domestic and foreign gifts give to the tsars over the years. The queuing system for this was decidedly Russian - over complicated, involving too many staff and with not enough information- well they wouldn't want to make it easy would they?

For lunch we headed to MooMoo - a modern twist on the old Soviet style self service canteens. It's recommended by many guide books and visited by many tour groups but it was still reasonably priced. I ended up getting a salad, some soup, a main of meatballs (well, one giant meatball) in sauce with mashed potatoes and a beer for £8! MooMoo was located on Old Arbat, a long pedestrianised street with lots of shops, bars and street artists which was described as Moscow's Covent Garden. Very nice but a little cheesy and touristy.

The rest of the day we spent shopping for supplies for our mammoth 4 night train journey to Irkutsk (what the hell were we thinking?). The evening we looked round the small Muesum of Modern Art and had dinner in a German style beer hall (Number 1 Beer Tap - good name!). We both ended up ordering Shashlik as it was the only thing we could correctly identify in the short amount of time the waitress would give us. On the plus side I now know the Russian for "fries". We may have also had one too many beers but we did manage to get up the next morning for our transfer to the station (well, it was 11:15) to catch our 4 night 5 day train to Irkutsk (again, we must be mad...)

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Photos

Metro station
Incredibly opulent metro stations - transport of the people (and nuclear bomb shelters)

Alex Columbus
Originally this was Christopher Columbus and created as a gift for the USA. They refused the gift and the face was changed to be Tsar Alexander

Cig advert
Remember these

Comments

[Julie]

Goodbye Lenin
Love the photo with Vladimir Ilyich (blessings upon him)