Sarah & Richard's Travels

Check out our photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rico.bakker/Russia#

We arrived in Moscow after an overnight train from St Petersburg. It wasn’t too bad except for the guy who kept snoring. There are three types of tickets on Russian trains, first class with two beds and a small basin, Kupe or 2nd class which we had with four beds and then third class or Platkarsky which is an open carriage with loads of beds, much like a hostel. I guess there must be about 30 people in the carriage or something. As well as the class differences, you also hasve differences on the trains, some have extra services, some have restaurant cars etc. I think we were on a ‘firm’ train which has extra services as each person got two little boxes of food and water and even slippers! What luxury… There’s a scary Russian lady who looks after each carriage; checks all the tickets, offers tea, coffee etc and I guess you go to her if you need some help with something. Our one was very scary, a bit like a matron and I’m not sure I’d want to be on the wrong side of her!

We were met at the station by Nic who we are staying with (Nic and Volha) in central Moscow. It’s fantastic to be able to stay with someone as they tell you all the idiosyncrasies and have been a bit like Russian encyclopedias to us!

Moscow is a massive city – it stretches forever and it is so crowded with loads of traffic everywhere. We soon found out to be careful crossing the road and that cards park anywhere. If the spaces run out, they keep parking into the next road, so cars turning have to go further. They also have these weird pedestrian crossings. You cross as normal, but when you get to the other side you are in the middle of the street you wanted to go to, it’s like a T – crossing. Very scary!

We’ve seen most of the sights in the city which is cool. St Basil’s Cathedral at the end of Red Square looks pretty cool – I love all the onion domes. Inside it’s not that spectacular, or maybe I’m just all churched out. There are frescoes on the walls and lots of different paintings in gold frames at the altar. Rather than one huge altar piece they seem to have all these panels stuck up so it doesn’t have the effect of the Italian churches. Many of the women here go into the churches with head scarves on. I missed the Kazan Cathedral in St Petersburg because I didn’t have one, but now carry one in my bag, although I think we’ve seen enough churches for awhile!

We spent an afternoon at the Kremlin which was pretty good to see. We saw the old Tsar palace and had tickets to the armoury where the Tsars jewels, carriages and clothes are kept. The jewels were all pretty amazing, huge stones of all types, massive gilded bibles with inlaid pearls and stones, lots of glass and crystals and the Carl Faberge eggs. They had about 6 on display and with each one the little gift that was inside. My favourite was a clear egg made of rock crystal with sort of chains of silver and diamonds around the top. Some of the treasures inside included a model of one of the Tsar palaces, a gold transiberian train; it was tiny but was engraved and the windows (about half the size of the nail on your pinky finger) were made of rock crystal, amazing what those jewelers did. A couple of other eggs had images of the Tsar family on the outside, but I wasn’t so keen on those. They also had a selection of carriages on display, all gilded and / or carved, velvet interiors, some open some closed, they were beautiful – I’d love to go for a ride in one. Unfortunately one of the problems for us in Russia is they don’t like you to take photos and you have to get a photo license in all the museums and most of them such as the armoury and some churches you can’t take any photos at all. After paying all the money for entrance (which about 50% of the time is twice / thrice the price for foreigners) it get’s a bit annoying to fork out even more again for a photo license. Anyway, the armory was great and now someone has to get me a Faberge egg. Richy has promised he’s going to build a carriage for me, but we’ll see! The rest of the Kremlin was a series of cathedrals with their onion domes. Some of them had exhibitions inside, but in general were quite similar to St Basil’s on Red Square.

We tried to go and see Lenin’s Masoleum on Thursday which is open till 1pm most days. We arrived around 12.15 and went straight to the Masoleum, not realizing the queue was somewhere completely different. We eventually found the queue around 12.30 only to be told they’d just let the last people through! So we tried our luck for a bit and then sat on the pavement nearby deciding what to do next. At around 12.45 I turned around to see a group of about 5 Russians being let in! So we jumped up and pointed and said that’s not fair and all they said was ‘you were sleeping!’ We just looked at each other, it’s such a double standard, different rules for foreigners.

We’ve seen a few Lenin’s and Stalin’s wandering around so people pay money to have their photo with them. They actually look pretty good. We’ve also seen lots of people throwing money and making wishes everywhere. Volha tells us that’s what people do here, throw money and make a prayer. At one point just outside Red Square people stand on this star and throw it over their shoulder. Within two seconds an old lady was picking it up and pockets it! I couldn’t believe it!!
We’ve also seen the Tverkovskaya gallery of Russian artists and been on a boat cruise down the river. Unfortunately the commentary was all in Russian, but I recognized something about Stalin and something about Smirnov Vodka! Lol

We had a 'Moscow by Night' tour from Volha and Nic which was wicked as it gave us a different perpective of the city, plus they also explained all the sites we'd seen on the boat trip earlier! It was a saturday night, so quite a few people out and about and it was the night before the formula 1. We saw soooo many flash cars out and about. Audi R8's, Ferrari's, Mercedes MaClaren's etc all street racing around one of the city ring roads! Nic was telling us it's illegal, but they still all do it (like at home) and that the results even make the news stories! the fastest lap was six minutes and 31 seconds! Absolutely crazy. The Russian's drive fast anyway, but that speed is extreme! We also saw these two dodgy looking black, dark window minivans stop in front of us at the lights. When they took off, it was at the same time, speed everything and they wouldn't let anyone pass. Turns out they were security drivers protecting some guy driving in an open top Bentley! That much money to burn and scared to live!

In the weekend Volha and Nic took us for a drive in the country we stopped at a place called Abramtsevo which was a former artists community, started by a wealthy guy called Mamantov who also had a huge residence there. It was a beautiful location in the country with little lakes and lots of trees. It was so quiet compared to Moscow, you forget how noisy a city can be sometimes even when it’s quiet.

We also went to Sergiev Posad around 175 km from Moscow. It’s said to be the centre of the Russian Orthodox church and had a beautiful walled area with Cathedral, holy fountain where everyone was filling their bottles etc. It had beautiful blue onion domes with gold, when we went inside they were singing. It sounded a bit like monks chanting actually, but it was very calming, although packed with people so we stood at the back awhile before leaving.

Today is our last day in Moscow, we get the train to Ekateringburg tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1pm. We won’t arrive until Thursday evening at 7pm!!! I’m not sure how I’ll survive without going crazy – haha. We’re going in Kupe again, so hopefully with be ok. It was only around 60 pounds each which is pretty good considering the prices in Europe and the UK. Will let you all know how it goes…