Moscow Moscow Man

After 7 nights, 7,800 kilometers, 4 books, 12 beers (only), half a bottle of vodka and 2 bowls of pot noodles (more than I care to eat again in my entire lifetime), we are in Moscow.  We decided to have a bit of a splurge and splash out on the Hilton, which actually works out well, as I am super secret double platinum status, which affords me all of the free food and alcohol I can put inside myself in a 4 hour period………every single night!!!  Another plus, thanks to corporate rates, it worked out cheaper than staying in a hostel or 3 star hotel.  Moscow well and truly delivers the goods in shear cash vaporising expensiveness and well and truly earns it’s 4th spot on the Mercer cost of living survey, as one of the worlds most expensive cities.

After having a glorious, long,  hot shower and changing into a pair of denim shorts and polo top, that made me look like Chip Douglas the 3rd from Boise Idaho, we decided to make for the nearest metro station and head directly to Red Square.  I was dressed like this due to Moscow’s unprecedented hot weather, unfortunately by the time we arrived it was around 12 degrees!

We were meant to be met by someone from a Moscow based tour agency, but after having no email, or phone contact from them, we figured we would wander around with them the next day and do the Kremlin that afternoon.

However, as luck or misfortune, would have it, we were soon cornered by an angry woman of middle age and limited altitude wondering why we were 20 minutes late.  After first abusing the front reception staff, the concierge and yelling in English “I’ve had better service at a 3 star hotel”, no doubt for our benefit, our City Tour began.  The only reason she found us, was because she was looking for a pregnant foreigner, I wonder how many other pregnant foreigners she accosted that morning.  All of this shenanigans was because the hotel had failed to pass on a message and let us know that our tour would be starting that day…….oh well.

We all stomped off to the Metro.  Once at the Metro, we were given a lecture that because basically we were foreigners, and by inference, therefore stupid, we would find it incredibly difficult to navigate and unravel the mysteries of the Moscow Metro.  Now, the Cyrillic alphabet has 33 letters, as opposed to our 26, they are all easy to discern and just sound a bit different, it isn’t rocket surgery!  In fact the Metro is totally kick ass, cheap, efficient and interesting.  It’s definitely your best option for getting around.  Just don’t get caught in the very rapidly closing doors.

During the short and quiet ride to Red Square, I tried not to look at “the woman”, for fear that I would turn to stone.  At this point I was going to pull out of the tour, as quite frankly I was happy to wander around myself, but Tans convinced me to stick it out.

We arrived in Red Square to find the Lenin memorial closing in 5 minutes and the rest of the place covered in scaffolding for an upcoming military tattoo, things can only get better from here.

Red Square is truly amazing, the cobblestones, the red walls of the Kremlin, the ornate and elegant facade of the GUM department store and the crazy, garlic bulb shaped domes of St Basils are absolutely stunning.  Standing here, I’ve managed to tick another item off my bucket list.

After an obligatory photo in front of St Basils, we walked around the streets of Moscow, it is pretty amazing, there are no modern glass and steel skyscrapers (that we could see), just beautiful well maintained stately old buildings, built in the 19th and early 20th century.  We walked down the Arbat, visited the Bolshoi Theatre, we saw the old KGB headquaters, the Duma, Radio Moscow, statues, architecture, and art.  Moscow is an amazing place.  We were particularly fond of the Eliseeevsky Magazin, what was once a palace and is now an upscale, well stocked deli, full of smoked herring and vodka and caviar……oh my!  We also saw a statue of Russia’s foremost poet and literary hero, Alexander Pushkin, who, we were reliably informed by “the woman” that “anyone who has not heard of Pushkin would have to be an idiot”, happily we learned about him in Yekaterinburg.

We also learned that many of the buildings along Tverskaya had been literally jacked up and moved back to make the street wider in pre-war Moscow, all while the residents were inside or asleep in their beds.  Apparently people woke up the next day with their building in a totally different position.  Amazing.  We bid farewell to “the woman”, she never did tell us her name, but she did manage to cheer up a little bit.  As an interesting aside, she did tell us she lives alone, with a cat.

After this we had lunch……at McDonaldski’s.  I’m disgusted in myself, but we’d walked a long long way, Tans had to eat, it was cheap and sometimes you do really want to satisfy your curiosity as to whether or not it’s the same as where you are from.  Plus, it had a toilet.

We’d had clear, if not cold weather all day, but the rain was closing in, so we decided to visit every single station on Moscow’s famed Ring line.  Each station is completely different and are the result of some of Russia’s top architects and designers of the 1930′s, 40′s and 50′s.

Each station features at least one, or all of the following features, chandeliers, mosaic tiling, porcelain reliefs, marble tiling, gun toting statues, stained glass windows and massive escalators.  Many of the stations were used as bomb shelters and command posts during WWII.  To do all 13 stations on the ring line took us around 2 hours and was a very cheap and supremely interesting way to spend a rainy afternoon in Moscow.

After around 8 hours on tour, we arrived back at our metro stop, Комсомо́льская (Komsomolskaya), which as it turns out, is in my opinion the most detailed and stunningly beautiful station on all of the ring line.

We repaired to the hotel for, in my most humble opinion, the single best spread I have seen put on in a Hilton executive lounge, anywhere I have been.  There was fresh fish, succulent chicken, amazing Russian beer, Australian wine, vodka, Champagne and even vegies.  You could totally have a decent meal there, which was well deserved after all of the walking we had done, I estimate we walked around 10 KM’s.