Moscowboy

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First impression........ incomprehension......nothing is understandable, Cyrillic script is doing me in. This is hard. But, I've done this before, I think.

A double shot espresso, shot of voddy and I'm off to face the Metro.

It is a fantastic system. Fast!.......the old and new trains hurtle through the dark tunnels, I never wait more than 1 minute on any platform for a train. 196 stations, 237kms, 74m deep at best....you can google the details, it's huge! Some of the stations are like art galleries, incredible murals, statues, gigantic chandeliers, stained glass panels, surfaces of wood, ceramics, mosaics, slate, steel, bronze, marble, plaster. And it's all spotlessly clean, the trains too. I've not seen more than a couple of cleaners in the whole city but it's all really clean....and everyone is very conscientious about binning their litter!

Sometimes I feel I've travelled more vertically than horizontally as the metro entrances, exits and changeovers have nose bleed escalators that disappear above or below you, almost vertical, well, maybe 45 degrees.....and the number of people they carry is astounding.....but it never gets too crowded....very efficient!

Ticket machines at every entrance, even I could decipher the instructions, but now I have a slip of paper that says 'one day all day 210 roubles' that will get me an all-day ticket.....I flash it at the old woman at the window, she looks at me and I give her a huge grin, she cracks up, first time she's smiled in probably 30 years. Everyone does look pretty miserable, these are definitely the same people who holiday in Nha Trang.

Lost and bewildered a few times on my first adventures in Metroland I just asked the nearest person and they were always exceedingly polite and helpful, not exactly friendly, but efficiently helpful. Random acts of kindness. Despite their seemingly despondent dispositions. It's the same everywhere, smiles and sign language always get you through.

And it is so fucking wonderful to be somewhere where every man and their dog is not constantly on their cell phone, what blessed relief, and people are told to shut them off in galleries and restaurants, heaven on a stick! And nobody needs more than one phone, here or almost anywhere else in the world...except for?...hmmmm

And I've only seen 2 pregnant women, among the 2 million people I've mingled among, where I live every 2nd woman is pregnant, not making any judgement mind you, just unusual to see, or not see, whatever.

I must be blending in, obviously my classic Russian appearance, 3 people have stopped me in the street to ask directions....I mean they're Russians! Hahaha.....but one woman I was actually able to help. It took a bit to get her to calm down but then I showed her the map, where we were, and where she wanted to go.....she left in a flurry of thanks and astonishment, like she'd just been downloaded from an alien abduction, a story for the grandkids.

Thinking about the architecture, dress sense, life in general, it reminds me of somewhere else but I can't think of it right now, absolutely no sense of the absurd.

And of course, Red Square, after all these years, what strong feelings it evokes to walk out onto such a massive and history filled arena. And surrounded by such contrasting architecture, colours, textures, Disneyesque skylines, and chockers with 25,000 Chinese tourists with 24,000 selfie sticks. My tour de Kremlin is tomorrow, if I'm not back you'll never know what happened. I'll set this to self publish if I'm not back in 2 days.

I sat down on a bench to contemplate the mind boggling mosaic of events that have passed here, this is history.......a young guy sat down to share the ashtray (once more, the brotherhood of the smokers!) he's Vietnamese, from Hanoi and works close to the office! We're going to catch up for a coffee when we're back in HN.

Tracing the family roots in Bath, catching up with the family in Krefeld now reminiscing on the rich heritage of Russian philosophy, music, art, literature. And still, all the locals look like they're trying out for the lead role in the next Ivan the Terrible movie.

My room is only on the 14th floor but the there's a thin layer of small clouds that don't seem too much higher. My view is nothing special but everywhere in this city the skyline is filled with bland, what we'd call Soviet Era construction, of course it IS Soviet Era construction...hahaha....the real deal......but punctuated by glimpses of silver spires, great golden onion tops, gothic skyscrapers and the inevitable telcotower.

Then you pop around a corner and some absurdly incongruous piece of architectural acid trip leaves you gasping. It's never ending.

At street level it's a constant juxtaposition of aforementioned bland SE construction with intricately ornate facades, huge trees in small wrought iron grated gardens, lots of parks and gardens with such colorful arrays of flowers, old churches dotted around, and the big river, right through the heart of the city, any trip keeps crisscrossing across fantastic bridges. The roads are good and the traffic seems ok, and everything so neat and tidy and clean. There's a lot of upgrade work everywhere, in the Metro, on the roads, the street I'm on is being totally dug up on each side, not such a strong planning strategy. I guess they're taking advantage of the weather.

It's a bit disconcerting at street level with the lack of big shop windows and bright displays but on entering huge, heavy doors, set into very substantial looking walls, you discover entire shopping malls hidden inside, maybe another sign of the weather times. I'd always thought of Moscow as cold and covered in snow.

I went to Gorky park to look for Arkady but I think he only goes there in winter. Much as I shudder at the thought, it would be cool, metaphorically, to see all this in winter, under snow, and also St Petersburg. But, Gorky park, there's a name that resonates.

The hotel staff are generally friendly but sort of nervous, I think they'd prefer to be surly and give the usual monosyllabic grunt that passes for language, but they've obviously been highly trained to smile and it's making them very edgy.....and its not helped by being faced with several hundred borderline obnoxious Chinese tourists who couldn't tell real from faux friendliness anyway, or care. Borderline, shit, they're well south of that border!

Now for the good part, the photos! The Gallery I visited this morning is amazing, now where is the name in non-Cryllic? , Tretiakovskaia or maybe Tretiakov, check out the fireplace.....and the restaurant, I meant to say, food and drink is quite cheap, and really good! This restaurant turns out to be a chain, I'd been to one quite aways a away, remarkably great, went back the next day.....then I discovered another, right across the street from my hotel!! Have a look, it's all in Russian but you can go to any site and follow it in, lovely 360 images, all are different, absolutely amazing, I'm going back tonight....www.chaihona1.ru......have a look.....maybe some oil oligarch laundering the money? that's what they'd do in some countries.....but shh I'd better be careful what I say.

Ok, now the photos

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Photos

Ready for the Metro
And it's a fantastic system!

Good Metro
Excellent onboard information.....and free wifi.

Down, down, down
Very long, steep escaliers, into the veritable bowels, great for people watching but hang on!

Red
See the red colour? That's not why it's called Red Square!