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Published: September 3rd 2007
This evening we joined the Intrepid 'Taste of Russia' tour after another day of rambling around this great city. As probably expected, we are 10 women and two guys, all Australians, plus our local tour leader Sergei. Ages from about 25 (a Melbourne accountant) to around 75 (mother of two other women from country Victoria).
Forgot to mention yesterday, that we are staying in a large hotel. Twenty eight floors of which we are on 21, and there are four of them out here about six metro stops from the centre city.
Had a good day today rambling around the sights including Lenin's tomb (free but they charge you 60 roubles to cloak your bag which is clever marketing), St Basil's cathedral (I'm in love with onion domes), Gum, the Tretyakov Gallery etc. 'Spending a penny' in a portable loo cost the equivalent of 75 cents or 15 roubles, which seemed a little rough. No hand washing or paper in most of them so glad of the antiseptic gel left over from India.
Yesterday we stumbled into a monastery and thought we would look around. Had neglected to carry head scarves but were interested to find we needed
Four domes
Domes and more lovely domesskirts as well. Women wearing pants is not on with the Russian orthodoxy it seems, and if you wanted to go inside the grounds you had to don a scarf and a wrap around skirt! All the locals were dressed in the right way of course. Am used to covering shoulders and even head, but the Russian orthodox church is clearly pretty conservative.
Constrasts with Iceland where the service was great, everyone spoke English and you could drink the water, are strong. But we have swapped natural wonders for culture, so are probably all the better for it. Where in Iceland you used the credit card for absolutely everything it is completely different here. Even breakfast at the hotel requires cash.
More of the Kremlin etc. tomorrow on an official tour and our last chance to do the sights before pushing on to the Golden Ring.
Can someone please tell me the footy scores? No doubt Dockers have done their dash, but I live in hope!
Cheers
Georgie
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