MOSCOW - IZMAYLOVO MARKET, KITAY GOROD AND RED SQUARE

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09.10.08

Despite the first impression, it is now quite cold in town and time to wear gloves and hat. Today we want to relax a bit and take our time to wander. We got up a bit late, it was one of those mornings you just don't want to abandon the duvet! But we absolutely had to meet Igor so he could help us buy the train tickets on-line. Having done that and ready to go we head to the Izmaylovo Market, not too far from the city centre. I must admit that the major purpose of the trip was to buy myself a matryoska, which I eventually did, but has been a very interesting opportunity to see the “normal” city life. Unfortunately, even thou there was a huge amount of stalls, a big part of the antiques market was empty. It's probably only open at weekends or high season. Still in the part of the market where clothes, accessories, and underwear stalls lined up, there was a lot of people walking, talking, crowding. Like in every market in the world. After having drowned ourselves in this real Russian experience, we got back to the hostel to sort out part of our trip. We suddenly got inspired and decided to change our program a bit, go straight from Yekaterinenburg to Irkutsk without any stop and spend all the days saved in Mongolia. We just can't wait. Late afternoon we walked down to explore the streets of Kitay Gorod and then get the opportunity to visit Red Square at night (highly recommended). Kitay Gorod is probably the oldest part of Moscow dating back to the 13th century. It's now an area of beautiful buildings and sparkling high class shop windows. Some amazing churches and other buildings still dot every street and everything seems a pleasure at least fro the eyes if not for the wallet! As for the Red Square is definitely worth seeing at night with all the buildings lit up and the GUM decorated as a Christmas tree.

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