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Published: September 4th 2006
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Komsomolskaya Metro Station, Moscow
Puts Bethnal Green tube station to shame! From Russia, with love...
We won't pretend we weren't pretty freaked out about coming to Russia. The guide book has all sorts of horror stories about tourists being extorted by corrupt policemen or by corrupt customs officials for failing to properly register visas, or failing to get the right customs forms. We spent a couple of hours translating the immigration forms from our Russian English dictionary so we knew exactly what they said. We even taught ourselves the Cyrillic alphabet so we could read signs. Russia we were taking seriously.
The reality has been much more light hearted and fun. It's nice to have so many misconceptions completely exploded. But there is a vague sense of disappointment that things aren't as edgy as we thought they might be. Perhaps we should be satisfied with the adventure offered in a country where very few people speak English.
St Petersburg - Санкт петербург
St Petersburg took us by surprise. It's a truly European city - a combination of Venice, Rome and Paris. It has monumental churches, palaces, gardens and a monumental number of cars. Rush hour here is a pretty impressive sight. And no, it isn't all Ladas.
Though there are still quite a lot around. It's low rise with no tower blocks. The tallest building is St Isaacs Cathedral. It's also big on Style Moderne - the Russian version of Art Deco.
In three days there we could only focus on the main sights: Nevsky Prospekt (four kilometre long main road cram packed with sights), the State Russian Museum (art and palace), the Hermitage (art and palace), St Isaacs (massive church), Peter and Paul Fortress (original citadel of St Petersburg), and the Church on Bloody Ground (aka Church of the Resurrection - incredible multicoloured onion domed church). And that kept us pretty busy. Hopefully the photos give you a sense of how amazing these places looked.
We will have a brief rave about the Hermitage though. This place was truly amazing. Like visiting Versailles and the Louvre all rolled into one. Spectacular spectacular palace rooms. The one that really sticks in the memory (and which we couldn't take photos of) was the Gold Room - the entire room, including the ceiling, was decorated in embossed gold. Goldfinger would have wet his pants (please excuse the Bond references but as reading material is getting short we
Gastronom No.1, St. Petersburg
Comparable to Harrods food hall, though in communist times this mainly sold pickled foodstuffs... have resorted to Ian Fleming to give the appropriate edge to Russia!). And then there is the art. We have seen a lot of famous and quite amazing paintings. The Hermitage has them in spades. Two Leonardo da Vinci's stick in the memory.
The State Russian Museum was also excellent for art - but it was all Russian - which we really enjoyed - our appetite had been whetted by the Russian exhibition we saw at the Bilbao Guggenheim. The late 19th Century landscapes and historical scenes are incredibly lifelike, huge and dramatic. We're becoming fans of Russian art. We also quite like the propaganda art from the Communist era.
We did a walking tour, which took us off the beaten track and introduced us to St Petes' courtyards and back alleys. We saw evidence of the numerous bomb shelters from the second world war (some are now used as nightclubs). It was also a great opportunity to ask Nick our guide, all those thousands of questions about how the ending of Communism in 1990 worked. For instance, St Petes' had loads of shared apartments, where a large apartment would have one family in each room, and they
would share the kitchen and bathroom. When Communism ended each family just ended up being allocated the room they lived in. Perhaps this explains the very high prices for property in St Petes', but also explains that most Russians do not have mortgages.
D - For me St Petes' was great, but two points of note. First, carry lots and lots of small change. This means small denomination notes because coins are almost worthless. Shops and kiosks appear never to have change at all, whether this is a scam to force visitors to give up their change, I don't know, but in a city of this size it seems crazy that no one seems to have change. Second, Babushkas. These seem to be every woman over the age of 55. They're everywhere. In museums, paid to sit down and look important, and argue with each other. They work in shops and kiosks and don't give change. They're on many street corner selling all their worldly goods. It's almost as if the city would grind to a halt without them.
Moscow - Москва
We caught the Nikolayevsky Express from St Petes' to Moscow. A bit posh by
Church of the Resurrection, St. Petersburg
A.K.A. Church of the Resurrection built on Spilt Blood comparison to some of our other overnight train journeys (we got slippers, toothbrushes etc).
We were very lucky to be staying with Logan, Abbie's friend and now a partner at Clifford Chance, Moscow. We couldn't have asked for a more generous host, or a nicer place to stay. We both felt very spoiled. And his place is about 20 minutes walk from Red Square, so we had the perfect base for exploring this mind blowing city.
We really liked St Petes' - maybe because it felt like other European cities we have visited. Moscow is an entirely different proposition. It's like a sucker punch to the head. It's huge, it's loud, it's full of neon, it has twelve lane roads, it's expensive (the most expensive city in the world we heard just before we left the UK), it's full of impossibly glamourous women and sinister black cars with tinted windows and blue flashing lights. It's hard work. It's what you'd get if you smashed Tokyo, London and Las Vegas together. Then throw in some Communist architecture (and our understanding of the term 'Communist architecture' is one of many misconceptions we've had exploded), the most beautiful metro system in
the world and you might start to get an idea of Moscow.
Of course we had to visit Red Square, the Kremlin and St Basils. And frankly, we felt slightly let down because they are nothing like as sinister as we'd expected. It turns out (and perhaps we display our ignorance here) that the Kremlin is a walled citadel full of churches, cathedrals and museums. The Government does operate from here, but we tourists aren't allowed into THAT bit.
Red Square isn't red. But it is very big. On one side is Lenin's tomb. We didn't visit. St Basil's, the quintessential multi coloured onion domed church, is on another side. It wouldn't look out of place on the top of a cake. On yet another side is the vast department store/shopping centre GUM. It's huge and gorgeous and full of western brands. It's hard to imagine how it must have been during the Commuist era.
It's impossible to talk about Moscow without mentioning the Metro system. The Metro stations are, quite simply, palatial. Some have chandeliers, others vast marble columns and statues, yet others huge stained glass lights and windows. They were built during the Stalin era,
so many also have Soviet propaganda decoration. They are worth visiting in their own right. Not to mention the fact that the trains run really frequently, and in all our 12 journeys not one was late. The guidebook tells us they move more than the New York Subway and the Tube combined every day.
Moscow is absolutely huge. There is so much more we could have seen in our time there. And we would have needed weeks to really get to grips with the place.
A - I can only say that this is one of those cities that is a MUST-visit like New York, Tokyo or London. It definitely has a character that is all its own.
Where to next?
We are now in Irkutsk, having spent three days and four nights on the Trans-Mongolian No 6 train. We'll write more about that soon. From Irkutsk we head for Ulan Bator in Mongolia in the next two or three days time. We expect to be there for about a week, possibly longer.
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Claire from Bulldog
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Congratulations
Hey you two! Been meaning to say congrats on the engagement - pretty cool. I'm really pleased for you both - am expecting an invite to the wedding! Sounds like you're really cramming it in. Hope you're not getting travel weary just yet......