Day 2 - Moscow

24.07.09

Moscow sights in a day!

Yesterday we took a whizz around some of the mahor sights in the evening and today we will finish what we started and then jump on a train in the middle of the night for a 3335km journey across Russia to Novosibirsk.

Today we see the Red Square and all the classic tourist sights. We take a trip on the Metro, the stations are amazing and put any underground station I've ever seen to shame. They are grand and have arches and decorative work and you think you are in some kind of great hall, not pubilc transport.

Slava is such a great host and he makes me feel so at home. He tried to give me an african mask as a gift but realised I wouldn't be able to transport it all over on my travels, so I have a some food and some Russian antiseptic liquid which you can also use to oxygenate your skin and on open wounds to stop the bleeding, I think it is from the military. It also turns out that he was in the Russian form of the SAS and now works in security. Handy guy.

He gives us a breifing on safety on the train and how to behave and different points on staying safe. He says I need to have a manly assertive posture about the way I walk in Russia and especially on the train to avoid being bothered.

We get on the train to Novosibirsk and start our epic journey at 12.30am. 3 nights and 2 days across Russia and 3 time zones. Epic.

Day 1 - The plane

23.07.09
The plane to Moscow was fine, apart from a man who sat in the seats in front. He was going to Moscow and then flying onto Novosibirsk, this was his sixth trip and he came for medical research work. His Russian was ok but not great according to Igor, enough to get by but not to express himself or get in with the culture and people. Even though he had been to Russia 5 times previously, he had never stopped in Moscow longer than a few hours at the airport before his next flight. His words to me were, be carefull it's dangerous, I'm lucky to have a native speaker, if any woman tries it on with me in the first day then she is on the game, the people are not hospitable to foreigners, be carefull of the racism and watch for the police. So all in all, he didn't really have much to say that was good about the place and was on a constant spell of negativity.

When we got off the plane we were greeted by Slava, who served with Igor's dad in the army. He immediately contradicted the plane man's attitude and was so hospitable. We were also greeted by Illya who drove us back to Slava's flat via some Moscow sights. Illya could speak some English so I was attempting to give him some chat and Igor was translating between me and Slava.

After we set down our bags they took us on a tour of Moscow by night and drove us around lots of different sights, we also went to the train station and bought our tickets to Novosibirsk, the train leaving the next night at 12.30am.