Moscow? Nyet…
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
(St Basil’s Cathedral)
Nyet (No) seems to be Russian service people’s favourite word. Particularly at train stations where we write in Cyrillic what we want and hand it over, waiting in anticipation to see if she will turn to her computer and start processing the ticket or shut us down with Nyet. Then that would be all, no more service. The trick is to not give up, pretty much every time they tell you no first time. There can be many different reasons for this but you will never know why. You have to go to a different ticket window or wait till that lady leaves on one of their (regular) breaks. It can get frustrating but we are getting good at getting what we want, just one big long lesson in patience. Basically we just write down everything and hope for the best, sometimes you get a nice lady (always an old lady) sometimes you get an extra unhelpful one who begins to ask you lots of questions in Russian. Eventually though it always works. Patience and persistence is the key.
Our train ride to Moscow was good, we were in platskart class which is what I have travelled on before in Moldova and also India, its like an open carriage with sections of 4 beds so having 3 of us was good as we could kind of take over our section-much to the dismay of the other passenger who was not so impressed. We managed to get some sleep and rolled up to Moscow in the mid morning. Negotiating our way through the Moscow metro was much easier that St P’s as this time there were actually maps every where and information on connecting stations. Finally we got where we wanted to go and found the hostel after climbing a lot of stairs and following dodgy directions with no signs anywhere. Once we arrived at the hostel the old babushka there spoke no English only to communicate to us that they had overbooked and didn’t have enough beds. This resulted in a bit of an argument with the manager over the phone until we left and set off across town to another, equally hard to find but much nicer hostel.
Thankfully the weather was nicer in Moscow and the 15degree days with blue skies were a godsend after grey clouds all of St Petersburg. The LP describes St P’s and Moscow and the Artist and the dictator which is probably a fair description as St P’s is definitely more arty and cultural feeling with more beautiful buildings and nicer feel where Moscow is cool, lots to see but not the same sort of cultural-ness…if that makes sense. Tom said it’s kind of like the difference between Paris and London-if you’ve been to both you’ll understand. The hostel we stayed in was much quieter and different type of people so we didn’t really go out at all, so a different experience than St P’s but still good as there is heaps to see in Moscow. I probably like St P’s better-like I would like to go back just to hang out cause its such a cool place. But we did do cool stuff in the capital.
Our first day after we had settled in we headed out on the highly efficient metro to a big market bizarrely set in some sort of old theme park and all these castle type buildings, a bit strange, lots of cheap knock off clothing and souvenirs where I got a sweet furry army hat with a soviet badge. Horribly there was a guy with chained up bears that did tricks…very depressing.
Given our quiet hostel we spent most nights in, cooking very good food for dinner- we have been eating very well as a group and buying lots of vegetables and making real food. I think we always win the “best dinner” competition that subtly takes place in the hostels. One night we headed out and had a beer in a jazz club round the corner and went to this kind of cool but strange café/bar/bookshop/clothing store. Would have been better if weren’t for the terrible live music, but we hung around for a bit in the bookstore part but were never able to work out how to actually order anything…
The big sites to see in Moscow are the Kremlin and Red Square. So we headed to the Kremlin on our first full day walking down Arbat street, a pedestrian promenade full of artists where we grabbed lunch again at this great cheap restaurant called Moo-Moo and checked out the Kremlin.
(Moo-Moo)
Kremlin’s are in most Russian towns, a big walled parliament area, this one has big high red walls and full of churches, a big bell and other important things. Already we had seen enough gold domes but saw some more, heard some monks singing which was cool and then eventually were over it.
Among many, many things I have lost, my most recent was my only jersey, a bit of a pain considering the weather, so I spent a few hours in a massive underground shopping mall and found a new black fleece to keep me warm through Siberia, an annoying but necessary expense. Actually the list of things I have lost is getting long so far
– My portable washing line- it was very useful until I left it strung up in a hotel in Syria
– My favourite (and only) t-shirt with NZ plants on it, it went missing in a load of washing in Romania.
– My pink jandals, not so much of a problem now its cold but they were pink, and havianahs…a bit sad…disappeared somewhere in the Baltics
– – My hoodied macpac jersey, vanished in the hostel in St P’s
– –All my bobby pins and hair ties, spread out from here to Egypt
– – – One earing, bought in Istanbul, lost dancing in bars in St Petersburg
– – Lots of socks, gone to the land of missing socks
It might not seem like much but I have very few things in my bag, so losing one t-shirt is actually losing all my t-shirts. Hopefully I can keep it together a bit longer at least until China where clothes are cheaper to replace! Anyway after the mall I walked home via red square, one of the most beautiful squares. With the walls of the Kremlin lining one edge, St Basils cathedral at one end and the other edges all beautiful buildings. The sun was setting and the square quite empty, St Basils is amazing, kind of like a church on LSD, all colourful and interesting-much better than European cathedrals. We went back the next day for the obligatory photos (lots of them) and the walk through Lenin’s mausoleum where his actual body is preserved. Lots of guards and all very serious, you file into this building and down into the tomb where Lenin lies, still perfectly preserved since his death in 1924. His body is dipped in wax every 2 years then wiped down, you to can get this done by the guys who invented this method for a million bucks and live forever like the communist hero’s-Mao and Ho Chi Min also are preserved in their capitals.
(Me outside Lenin’s tomb)
We also headed across the river to a sculpture park where some old statues of Lenin and Stalin now rest after they were purged from the city during anti-soviet times. Kind of cool to see all the old statues lying around and some other crazy big CCCP silver thing.
Also lots of new modern sculptures and just outside the park in the middle of the river, the biggest strangest statue I have ever seen. It was just very, very big, and kind of in the middle of nowhere. Bit weird, but then what in Russia isn’t?
We decided to attempt to get our Mongolian visa while in Moscow, it can take a few days and we had planned to get it in another town closer to the border but thought it might be safer to get it now so we didn’t get stuck somewhere waiting for it. We seem to have a knack of missing things by mere minutes and same in this case, we make it to the embassy one minute after closing. Lame. We went back the next day, nice and early with rubles, USD and passport photos ready to get it. The embassy it housed in some building being renovated, totally being pulled apart and basically a building site. Not really the impression you want to give to people about your country. We had to climb some dodgy looking stairs and eventually found a corridor that was actually built properly and sought out some girls gossiping around coffee who informed us we needed an invitation letter to get a visa! Definitely not what we had read anywhere, but you can’t argue with bureaucracy so we left empty handed. We have found out since the Mongolian embassy in Irkutsk, near the border is much easier and no letter is required….hopefully, we shall see though in a couple of weeks.
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