In the beginning of November our long-awaited trip to Moscow finally arrived. This was one of our ‘cultural excursions’, organised by the program, for the program. Thirty people on a train to Moscow and back! You can imagine. It was a whirlwind tour with little sleep, many late nights and a lot of delicious food. Please note that to compile the collection below I have shamefully pilfered my friends’ facebook photos. (They can't sue me now, right?)
So let me start at the beginning. 4th November in Russia is a national holiday. Technically it’s the day of national unity, but no one really understands what that means or why it’s a holiday. Anyway, Russians celebrate their unity by taking a day off work, which worked out great for us. At 11pm on Wednesday night we boarded the overnight train to Moscow and began our journey. With such a big group we were able to book an entire train car and spent much of the night moving back and forth between each other’s compartments before hitting the hay for an inadequate number of hours and waking up at 5:30 in Moscow.
After meeting for a lively breakfast in a cafe down the road from our hostel (see below) we made our way to our first tourist stop – An ancient convent in the outskirts of the city.
Now I really don’t understand why the convent made it into the list of must-see attractions in Moscow but there we went nonetheless. It’s really old, very beautiful, consists of a number of different architectural styles, and Napoleon rested his army there when he captured Moscow. That’s about what I remember from the tour (by the way all our tours are in Russian so don’t believe everything I tell you. Ever played Chinese whispers?!)
The rest of the day is a blur involving an ice cream cake in the park and Russian football in a pub, so I think I’ll just skip to Friday. This was by far the most enjoyable, and least spacey, day. Recharged after a reasonable night’s sleep, we marched over towards the Red Square for a tour of the Kremlin. The Kremlin and the Red Square are the two most famous monuments in Russia and sit right next to each other in the centre of Moscow. If you want to learn more about the historical significance of either, there’s oodles of information on Wikipedia for you to sink your teeth into.
Alright, back to picture captioning. This is the gate to the Kremlin, taken just as we passed through the metal detectors (guarded by intense Russian guards of course).
What’s on the inside? A bunch of government buildings, a bunch of churches and a lot more guards. Don’t step off the sidewalk, they’ll shoot you.
Oh and a really big cannon:
And a really big bell:
Not such a practical size, but cool nonetheless.
Wondering how it broke? Well there was a fire near the bell and the workers around it worried that the bell could melt or catch on fire (Really?!). To cool it down they started throwing buckets of water onto the bell and the sudden temperature change caused a massive piece to break off. Bet they felt stupid huh.
Well that, in a nutshell, is the Kremlin. Sorry for a lack of photos, you’re not allowed to take photos of the cool stuff. While we were there we did see Medvedev drive past though. Very exciting, a whole convoy of black 4x4s and Mercedes driving 50 miles an hour! Unfortunately even my cat-like reflexes were not fast enough to capture this moment with a photo.
Ok, moving on to the Red Square! Thankfully the weather really cleared up in the afternoon and we got some great photos. Here I am looking happy in front of St. Basil’s at one end of the square (it’s really more of a rectangle, but don’t tell anyone).
Here I am looking happy again, this time with wind in my face. St. Basil’s over my right shoulder, towers of the Kremlin on the left.
Looking right from where I stood in the picture above, the beautiful Moscow river:
Oh and a friend photo, how exciting! Here I am with Scott, Meg and Steph on the bridge:
Other highlights from a lovely afternoon walking through the city?
Action shot of bride and groom falling on their photographer:
(It’s a Russian tradition for newlyweds to take pictures by their city’s most treasured monuments. On a beautiful day like this there were couples everywhere, making the most of an opportunity to get unforgettable photos like this)
A trip to Starbucks (Don’t judge me)
AND THE CIRCUS. Well, that was after dinner, but this is a perfect segway. I’d never been to a circus before and had no idea what to expect, but I must say that I was wowed. There was an act involving a dozen doxens walking on their hind legs and running over bridges, an act with horses running figure 8’s, an act with bears driving go-karts (I kid you not), an act with a bunch of ex-olympian gymnasts and, the trump card, … An act involving tigers, jaguars and leopards jumping between 12-foot-high pillars. Maybe hard to explain, but truly unbelievable. Sorry not to have photos, tigers aren’t big fans of flash photography.
This really was a long day! The night continued with a trip to the Red Square (which is a totally different place at night, as you can see below)
And another friend photo!
And then of course off for a night of Russian clubbing. Rarely do we start out in a group as big as this (nor are we normally in Moscow...) but we had a really great time. All around Friday was a terrific day!
And the next day...? I think I slept in. I resumed space cadet mode. We met for lunch, visited a great (enormous) market in the outskirts of the city, and ended up at ГУМ (The Harrods of Russia, which makes up one of the long sides of the Red "Square"), before boarding the train back to St. Petersburg. The train was exciting as ever, but this time was more relaxed and involved more sleeping. When I got home at 7:30 I curled up in bed and slept until 2. A morning well spent I think!
Moscow was great. I’d been before, in 2005, but this was a totally new experience. I know more Russian, I know more history, and I got to spend some alone time with the city. Standing in the Red Square and reflecting, for a moment, on the significance of that one spot, is like nothing else you will ever experience. Moscow is a vastly different city from St. Petersburg and it was eye-opening to walk through the second capital of a country I thought I knew. Putting the two together I can only honestly say I have seen only a sliver of Russia. This is an immense country, a state borne out of one of the largest empires in history, yet it is easy to forget the incredible variety of ethnic groups it encompasses. Marveling suits me just fine for now, but someday I’ll have to do some more travelling. Where? To the East of course!
So that was Moscow, which we realised marks the halfway point of our time here. It is definitely sad, and an anticipated but unexpected shock. From now it’s all downhill and soon the study abroad experience will be over. I’ll return to dear St. Pete I know, but there’s been something special about being a student here. Okay no more sop time, it’s only November.
In other news... apartment in Tallinn, Estonia for Christmas?? Sounds like a plan to me!
Sounds like a plan to me too. Hope you can work it out...
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