Moscow, Moscow, Queen of the Russian land … as the catchy eighties hit by Genghis Khan went.
So finally we arrived at the end of our journey, 2.28pm on Monday afternoon to a grey sky (unfortunately most of our time in Russia was under grey skies), we were sad the train journey was over but relieved we’d have a real bed to sleep in. Like in Beijing as we stepped off the train we were meet by a baggage handler offering to carry our bags for us, a quick discussion using sign language we thought we had worked out a deal of 100 roubles, as it turned out we didn’t. We had asked the hotel to arrange a pickup for us, but one didn’t show up to our annoyance, so we had to deal with the local taxi drivers. We had been warned about them; in Russia you have a mix of private and official taxis. We get to the gate with the taxi lout following us all the way from the train, we showed them the address and started to get our luggage in the taxi. First problem, our baggage handler, I went to give him his 100 Roubles and he protested, it turned out he wanted 100 roubles for each bag, that’s A$5 a bag a bit steep, at least to us and we were short of Russian cash. In the end he took the 100 roubles. So we finally squash the entire luggage into one taxi, with 1 large bag and the stroller in the back seat. After much discussion and looking at their map and the name of the hotel “Marriott” they came back with a fare of 2000 Roubles!!! I won’t write what was actually said but it wasn’t an acceptable price. After much haggling I used the oldest bargaining trip in the book, this is all the money I have on me (the only other money we had was Chinese which I offered but they didn’t want it, we were in desperate need of an ATM). So the fare was agreed at 230 roubles which emptied our pockets, which was acceptable fare for the distanced travel; besides he had to stop 3 times to ask for directions.
The Marriott Courtyard was a wonderful small 5 star hotel, our splurge for the holiday J Isabella loved it, (she even scored a cute little bear which we call “Marriott) Lisa had her in the Baby Bjorn as soon as she saw the her king size bed and mum unclipped her she leapt out onto the bed with a squeal, she was in heaven after the small train cabin, we get the feeling she likes to travel in luxury. It’s hard not to say we were enjoying it too!! We had 3 nights in Moscow and the hotel is within walking distance of most major attractions, which is great. Russia certainly is a city on the go on the back of a oil and gas boom, making it one of the most expensive cities to live in the world (within the inner city ring road) and it reflects that. The streets are full of expensive European cars, with Mercedes being the most popular, and like Paris the majority of locals, in particular the women really dress up everyday. The traffic is mad and you can pretty much park anywhere, triple parking on roads is not uncommon throughout the inner city, nor is parking on the footpaths (they have pretty big footpaths).
Our first stop was Red Square the political heart of Russia and the old Soviet Union, in and around the square resides Lenin’s Tomb, the Kremlin, the State Museum, Gum Department Store and the famous St Basil’s Cathedral. We entered through the gates past the State Museum to be greeted with the sight of the square sealed off and a large temporary stand being built on it!!! We had timed our visit perfectly… with the running of a military tattoo and half the bands were from Australia, including the excellent Western Australia Pipe Band, there was even the Australian Federal Police Pipe Band, interesting since we didn’t know they had one. Anyway we sat down for a while and watched the rehearsals throughout the day, some free entertainment, but I’m sure it was or will be telecast back in Australia at some stage, it might be on the ABC. It would have been a great spectacle to see in Red Square, but we were leaving on the day of the first performance unfortunately.
Luckily we could still get in to most of the attractions, except for Lenin’s Tomb, so we didn’t get to see him in person, they have actually preserved him since his death in the 1920’s. The Chinese copied the idea with Mao in Tiananmen Square. Interestingly, maybe to be a big communist country you need your dead leader preserved in a large square?
Anyway we still got to see and visit St Basil’s, which is a pretty unique cathedral. Ivan the Terrible commissioned the building of the Cathedral and was so happy with the result, he rewarded the architects by removing their eyes so they couldn’t build anything else as beautiful elsewhere. Now that’s a work bonus!! But I guess he was just maintaining his reputation of being terrible. If he didn’t do it he may have been called, Ivan the occasionally terrible by people behind his back J It’s a classic Russian Orthodox Church (with onion shaped domes, see the gallery) with the interior covered in fresco’s. To be honest its best viewed from the middle or top end of Red square, but our view was blocked by a big seating stand as mentioned earlier, which was unfortunate, but that’s life! Another time….
Next door is the Gum Department Store, Russia’s oldest department store, which now houses over 1000 of the most expensive stores from around the world. So we did little more than window shop. From there we walked around the city visiting a 4 story kids store full of everything except baby food which we were running low on, opposite the old KGB building just past the Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley dealer showrooms.
The Kremlin itself is huge! a walled city within itself with government offices, churches and gardens and home of Russian presidents and in the past Soviet premiers, and of coarse the Russian Tsars. It also contained the largest bell ever cast in the world (over 300 tonnes), unfortunately a large section broke off while it was being moved. Contained within the walls you can visit a large number of churches, with the most popular attractions being the Armoury which houses the state treasures from Russia’s past are kept, including the large ambassadorial gift form other countries, clothes of the Tsars and the old royal coaches which are so elaborately carved they were amazing to see. The South end of the grounds contain a garden to relax in and below near the Kremlin wall we saw a area for hunting birds, we think they were Falcons but make up your own mind from the photo, as birds aren’t our speciality, we assumed Putin uses them when he goes hunting.
Yes, buying food was a bit of challenge in Russia, as you have to rely on the pictures on packaging to work out what you’re buying, Kane had lots of fun when he went to purchase some anti-inflammatory for his leg. Trying to explain to the chemist what he wanted with an improvised one-man stage show. To say the least the chemist sold him something but we’re still not sure what it was as his quad healed very quickly after one night in the luxurious bed of the Marriott. In trying to buy more baby food was quite an experience too.
The most challenging experience we had in Moscow was the metro. We decided to travel by the metro to visit a church and inturn see some of the famous stations Stalin built during the 1930’s. In the past we have used metro’s all around the world with no problems, but boy this one had us stumped!. I think it was because we started at a “special station.” We got on the right line (Red Line) and rode the train one stop to change lines. Oops we went the wrong way, no worries cross over and go back the other way, straight back to the same station and we remained on the station. We get to the next station and wait for it to proceed to the next stop, but no. Its goes back to the first station again!! What the… Since we couldn’t ask anybody we were looking at metro maps trying to work it out. About an hour later we finally get to our destination, it was about a 15 minute walk! We worked out we were actually on some little feeder line to a multi-line station where you had to get off and follow a maze of tunnels to get to the other section of the Red Line. But we got there in the end. After that little mishap getting round was as simple as the London Tube.
About 10 of the stations were built in the 1930’s by Stalin, and they are impressive, made of marble, chandeliers, with elaborate artwork, truly amazing and we bumped into a number of tour groups also doing tours of the metro stations. They are also very deep in the earth with massive escalators to ride down and up from them, the newer lines were much closer to the surface.
To the south of the Kremlin we visited the cathedral of the Christ our Saviour, a huge church with a massive crypt where they held smaller services for the locals, instead of in the main church above. We were lucky enough to arrive when a service was in progress and their choir was resonating around the crypt with wonderful effect.
So off to St Petersburg we go on the fast afternoon train mainly used by business people returning to St Petersburg after business appointments in Moscow.