Moscow

After landing at Moscow Domodevedo we took (another) train to Petrovsky station where we shuffled about for a bit, realised we had no hope of figuring out the Metro, especially laden as we were, and opted for a cab to our hostel instead.

The cabbie had real trouble finding the hostel, eventually leaving us in the car park of a block of flats, gesturing at a nondescript door and answering “Da, da” to our questioning stares before snatching the money and driving off.

We stood bewildered in the nighttime snow for some moments and then tentatively approached the door and, all the while exchanging this-can’t-be-it looks, pressed the buzzer. We were greeted by a gap-toothed babushka and herded into a council-estate lift which rumbled up to the 6th floor. Still no sign or any indication that this was a hostel, we rang door 204 and stepped back. A woman answered, brusquely waved us in and told us to take off our shoes. Amy turned to me and mouthed “I’m scared”…

But everything worked out in the end. I mean, we are pretty much staying in someone’s flat; but its a well kept flat and is so central that we have a view of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and we can easily walk to the city centre.

Christ the Saviour – we could see this from our bedroom window.

Moscow is fantastic. It’s enormity is bewildering. The city is centred around the Kremlin, a collection of state buildings and golden-domed churches encased by a huge red wall that connects twenty fairy-tale turrets. It sits, broad and imposing, along the bank of the Moscow river and is flanked on one side by Red Square. Red Square is something special. At the one end the Moscow Town Hall and the Resurrection Gate conjure up those grainy black-and-white images of soldiers marching and tanks rolling by beneath; and then at the other St Basil’s Cathedral. We both agreed that there is no other building quite like St Basil’s, with its multicoloured onion domes and tent spires seemingly made from painted porcelain, and were honestly awe-struck.

Red Square at night…shepherd’s delight?

St Basil’s.

Moscow is also strange – familiar yet strange. On the one hand it has all the hallmarks of a big European city but then the Asian-esque churches, the golden cupolas, the wide boulevards and of course the funny writing, combine to give it a drop of Eastern promise. The language barrier is insurmountable (nobody speaks English, and why should they?), and the Cyrillic alphabet takes some deciphering. It is also ridiculously expensive – using the (inter-?)nationally recognised yardstick of how expensive a city is: a pint of lager is about £8!

Peter the Great (probably)

It’s the scale of the place that makes it so fascinating. Apart from the Kremlin and Red Square, the Bolshoi and the Lubyansky are monstrous, the Soviet buildings even more so, and most buildings are as wide as they are tall. At night the whole lot is bottom-lit which gives it a spooky, Gothic air, and makes the Kremlin seem like the lair of some evil fairy-tale King.

The Kremlin

In case you hadn’t guessed, we were quite taken with Moscow. Mostly we just walked around gawping, through the city, through Gorky park where we couldn’t quite work up the motivation to join the hundreds of ice-skaters, through the Kremlin – which actually is far more interesting from the outside, through Red Square and through the plush shopping districts. We took a tour of the Metro (spelt MetPo), the underground stations being marvels of architecture in themselves; some hanging with chandeliers, others with columnar arches and some yet with gilded frescoes on the platform walls.