Moscow

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Geo: 55.75, 37.62

15 - 18 Jul Moscow

The 77 hours ends and with it the trans siberian train journey at 17:43 when we arrive at Moscow Yaroslavl station (there are many stations here), hurray. We drive through the city to get to a burb called Ismailovo to the massive Hotel Beta (built during the olympics theres also Alpha and Delta) and by metro it is 5 stops to Red Sq. so fine 3-star location. The LP book is of course sniffy about the hotel but it's perfectly fine with a big enough room and a nice sparkly lobby and bar complete with what we suspect
are working girls who look a bit like they could be in 'Eastenders'.

First impressions of Moscow on the coach ride to the hotel is very impressive especially the 7 sister buildings which were once communist housing and now are a mix of hotels and offices and expensive apartments, That night we get our 1st glimpse of St. Basil's cathedral, the iced cake looking domed church beside the Kremlin and that everyone has seen on the news millions of times. But it's sight gave me the same feeling
I had when I first saw the Sydney Opera house or the Statue of Liberty or the Coluseum, you get the idea, exciting. On one side is the Kremlin and on the other the very very expensive GUM shopping mall. The 9pm sunset on Red sq. and St. Basil's are awesome. At dinner we see a big black man in an Ireland rugby shirt.

So in the following days we have a more comprehensive tour of the city with local guide Nadia (who was a bit scary but ok) - Novodevichly convent (in fact a bit of a knocking shop for banished female royalty), Saviours catherdral (v impressive golden dome) and the 50th anniv War Memorial park (which in a country full of them seems a bit excessive), then back to Red Sq. and tour of St. Basil's which is full of tiny rooms and is still a working church which we didn't realise and felt bad about tromping through but they sell entry tickets so what can I say (C. left early), not that feeling bad seemed to occur to any of the other thousands of tourists. However there was
a fantastic orthodox choral singing quartet perform and they had no qualms about flogging their CD in there.

Russia is not great on the vegtarian front and they even make greek sald insipid and coffee is never actually hot, but we did find a nice Italian called 'Gusto' which was lovely (on side street after 'Zara' - I now realise my life is one giant tour of Zara's). Another 'famous' st. to go to is Arbat St. where Puskin once lived and has buskers and high street shops Miss 60 etc. (where they amazingly have size 32 jeans for western lard asses like moi). And Moscow is high heels a-go-go, I am not averse to high heels myself but I cannot sight see in them but all the women here can, hats off to them. After beer hall dinner in the evening with the aussies we (C and I) found ourselves bush drinking at the back of the hotel with the locals, don't ask. Mind you people kept asking C&I directions and apparently I look the least foreign out of our group (bearing in mind Russians a skinny and high cheek boned so am taking this as a complement).

Within the Kremlin grounds are many churches so we just went to arch angel catherdral complete with more choral singers ans queues and where there's many dead royals who are all called Saints but it took me a while to cop they are not the same are our churches (RC) saints I don't even know if they have canonisation in Russian Orthdox but I doubt it. Each to his own. There's a pretty impressive bell in the grounds which never rang as it got cracked before it could be belfrised (doubt this is a real word). We had a fairly amazing guided tour of the palace armoury (with all the tsars bling) and call I can say is no wonder there was a revolution but it is well worth a look. Security going into Kremlin is not surprisingly like an airport, well you do walk past Putin's office building.

One of best evening entertainment we had was at the Nikulin Circus, really great with big scary cats and a brilliant clown who played a mutilingual audience like an melodian.
Best shopping was at a great market by the hotel 'Ismaylovo Mkt.' and after a morning there we did the metro station tour as each station is very elaborately decorated, so you can buy your 10 roubles ticket and and ride the train and get off and see them all, we did it for 2 hours and the mosaics and lights are amazing, with different stations being dedicated to different stuff, e.g. Ukraine or Lenin or Youth fighters etc. The Moskva river cruise is also good as you go past Gorky park (didn't see any spies though) and the see the Peter the great monument which looks suspiciously like Colombus hanging off a big ship, oh no wait that's cause it was built for the yanks who said no thanks and so they took off Colombus's head and put on Peter's even though he was not known for sailing. Waste not want not eh. But the views of the places we already saw were very good - 7 sisters, Krelmin, St. Basil's, Christ the saviour catherdral etc.

C & I also went to the brilliant Tretyakov 20th century (art) gallery near Gorky Pk (Kultury Station) the pre Stalin stuff was amazing. Really would recommend this gallery and it's a nice reprieve after all the churches and the palace armoury, but if you go note the entrance is at the side and not the front where'll they'll sell you tickets for some concert hall but will grumpily let you return then, ahem. The grounds of the gallery are full of old statues from all eras, originally it was a dumping place for them but they look good now all displayed together.

Amazingly I managed to have vege sushi in 'Arbora' restaurant near Red sq. for our last supper before getting train # 20 in Leningradskya station on platform 9 at 00:45 18th Jul to St. Petersburg. Absolutely plush train with caviar and what-have-you waiting in the carriage for you and super clean chemical toilets.

In summary am very taken with Moscow.

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