Moscow

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When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. - Clifton Fadiman

May 28, 2009, Thursday, Nelidovo RUS to Moscow RUS. The saga continues and the road certainly has not improved, it is still incredibly awful. Today’s drive will be another 360 kilometers as we drive into Moscow.
We are taking turns with our friends leading and following, and at one point we just stopped…it is hard to take the ruts, bumps, dirt, potholes, washboards, etc. There seems to be not end.
“There appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel, or is it a train coming in the other direction?” Finally the road surface improves as we approach Moscow, but then there is the traffic problem. Moscow has over 13 million people, and I think all of them were out today driving. Russian drivers are not timid; they are aggressive to the point of being suicidal. Everything is relative, but the Italian drivers now look friendly.
Eventually we found our way to the Olympic Stadium Camp Area, right on the Moscow River and only 4 kilometers from the Kremlin. We have electric, and drainage, and water of a sort, (brownish and needs to be boiled), no fitting on the faucet (so difficult to pump), and showers… but no hot water. Glad we have an RV, but its potential is limited. This is Russia…and this is the capital city?


May 29, 2009Friday, Moscow Russia. A bus picks us up at the stadium, (which is actually a private athletic club on the Moscow River) and we begin our tour of Moscow. Our initial impression of Russian drivers is reinforced. The infamous Red Square is our first stop. It is located immediately outside the Kremlin’s NE wall. We walked up to the ultimate symbol of Russia, St. Basil’s Cathedral (1555 to 1561) it celebrated Ivan the Terrible’s capture of the Tatar stronghold, Kazan.
Lenin’s Mausoleum, standing at the foot of the Kremlin, houses the embalmed leader’s remains, as he has been since 1924! (I can’t imagine it is a pretty site, we opt not to visit inside)
The Cathedral of Christ the Savior sits on the site of an earlier church. It was destroyed by Statlin and turned into a swimming pool. Today it is a lovely church again, finished in 1997 and it commemorates Russia’s victory over Napolean.

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