Moscow

Hello everyone,

So I've made my way to Moscow. After three trains, two flights, an agonizingly long layover on Riga airport, a night without any sleep, and about 36 hours I arrived at the hostel. Anne came to pick me up at the subway station and off we were!

My first impressions of Moscow were not great. From the train I could see row upon row of Soviet concrete blocks, desolate looking places with all the fun squeezed out of them. The arrival in the city centre was not much better; traffic seems to be the main concern in Moscow, not presenting the city as a pretty place. Apart from a few nice places, usually either really old or really new, the city is a concrete and asphalt valley; an oasis of noise and dirt.

But seeing the sights in Moscow I've come to realize that there are a few pretty places. Our hostel is pretty close to the wonderful Red Square where the Kremlin is located. There is a beautiful church there as well, St. Basil's cathedral, which we visited today. An example of Russia's modernity is located across the street from this church; The department store 'rym' (pronounced gum, I believe). It's very luxurious, and I'm pretty sure that most people walking around there could never afford to buy anything, but it's an example of new Russian wealth.

We also visited Arbat street, perhaps the touristic heart of Moscow, where many artists make portraits of passing tourists. It's quite similar to Paris in that way, and it has a similar charm, even though the buildings are nowhere near as nice, and it is clearly designed to shake money out of the tourist's pocket. We had dinner at a traditional Russian chain restaurant, where I had fish soup which tasted exactly like the Euroshopper frozen fish soup (I know where they get it now), and a blini, a Russian kind of filled crepe. You can get blini's on every street corner in all kinds of varieties. A nice lunch, then.

At about 11pm we went to get Erwin from the train station. This is when you start to notice Moscow's dark side. Then sun goes down and the alcoholics come out, it seems. In the day the Russian's composure (a serious look, as if the person behind it will not smile even at the best joke in the word) seems impolite at worst. But at night this attitude starts to take on threatening proportions, as we found out when we ended up in some quiet streets where we were met with cold stares. Nonetheless, we found Erwin and went back to the Hostel for a well deserved 12 hour sleep.

Today we didn't do much. We walked around town, didn't actually visit any museums or churches, and mainly just chilled. We had some beers at the Russian chain My-my (moo moo), which is characterized by its cows; all the plates and cups have cow patterns. Sufficed to say that Anne now carries in her purse one beer mug with a cow pattern on it. The food at Moo Moo is really cheap, so we might just end up there tonight for dinner.

The next two days will be spent preparing ourselves for the first leg of our Transsiberian journey, and perhaps visiting a few of the museums and parks in Moscow. I'll type up something new when we reach Irkutsk and the Baikal lake on the 2nd or 3rd of August. I can't wait!