Moscow

By Bea
21-25/06/2019
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “T”..... yup trees! Trees, trees, trees and more trees. I don’t know I expected of the Siberian landscape, it certainly wasn’t thick forrest that’s for sure! Occasionally a small village would quickly appear, seconds later more trees. Luckily the spring wildflowers had bloomed adding a lovely, refreshing, splash of colour to the green hues.
Although Siberia is known for its bears, beavers, deer and elk - no wildlife was to be seen. I intently looked out the window hoping to get a glance at something but all I saw was a fox, a few eagles and a variety of smaller birds.

The Perm to Moscow leg was our final journey together, our posse would separate in Moscow, Karen flying back to Bangkok while Pete and I complete the last of the Trans-Siberian route to St Petersburg.
This was a 24 hour journey and I wanted to make an effort. Opting out of the dining car, we took along a picnic dinner of traditional Russian goodies: rye bread, smoked salmon, cream cheese, red caviar, pickled herring, beetroot salad, a herring salad a bear pate (which we forgot to open) and vodka. Washed down with individual bottles of bubbles and gin & tonics. On the iPad we watched “To Russia with Love”... Party time!

Travelling by slow train gives you the opportunity to engage, more deeply, with the locals. Russians are so much nicer than the evil villains of all those Cold War spy movies, though some of the guys are built like them and have the cool accent. They are actually a very jolly lot, eager to chat and quick with a joke. There is still a distinguishable generation gap, generally the younger, post soviet, generation are more open, friendly and jovial, the older ones can take a little longer to engage. In the end though you get a smile and a chuckle from all your travelling companions. They always want to share their provisions, find out where we’re from and what we thought of their country.

On one of our shorter journeys, on an open third class carriage, we met a group who didn’t speak a word of English and whilst we had internet we used ‘conversation’ in google translate. We had so many people all down the carriage laughing along at the attempts to communicate with us. It was a lot of fun.

KC has been continuing her online Russian lessons. She is very willing and eager to try her skills. The funniest moment - calling the waitress stupid instead of perfect!
She also has resigned to the fact, quite graciously, that she is Australian. We point to KC and say England and then us - Australia. Australia causes so much excitement, and responses like “kangaroo” or “Dundee Crokodill”, that England is forgotten. One guy said he is really hoping to go to Australia, when KC asked why - he said because they have good beer! If they speak Australian, we do try to explain, one from England, two from Australia but we all live in Thailand through this is quickly brushed over and we are all Australian again. Poor Karen, we’ll have to start calling her “Kazza”.

Arriving in Moscow and you suddenly in modern, wealthy, capitalist, Russia. While east of the Ural’s the old soviet era lifestyle is clearly still visible, here it’s all but extinct, washed away by the monumental tide of free market economics. There are more BMW and Mercedes than I have ever seen in one city Maseratis out number Lada’s 10 to 1. The grand pre and soviet era buildings that line the boulevards have been renovated into offices and uber luxury apartments, streets are lined with fashionable bistros and cafes, or designer label outlets. It is Grand, its Impressive and its daunting.

We arrived on a Friday evening, at peak hour, so decided that the metro was the best option to get to our accomodation. A little difficult as KC had a wheelie suitcase, as opposed to the backpacks that Pete and I have, and Russian metro stations aren’t particularly suitcase friendly. She got a good work out at each station.

After a few hiccups we eventually found our apartment. It was now Friday night and we needed drinks...and dinner. Luckily we were staying in a very hip area, so finding both was not difficult. We settled on a bar close to us where had a few pints of German beer and grazed on shared plates of local treats.

While Pete finalised the last blog the next morning, KC went out to explore. By the time we met up with her later she had discovered some interesting streets and sights around Red Square so, with KC as a tour guide, we retraced her steps.
The entrance to Red Square was blocked off by military police, as it was, bizarrely, when we first visited back in 1993. The reasons though could not more starkly show the cultural change. In 1993 it was because Yeltsin was sacking parliament and the older generation were protesting against social change, today it was blocked for a ultra-HiSo wedding!

We made our way into the square via a back route and sat down for a coffee and cake and people watched for a while. We dodged the minefield of tourists taking numerous selfies and photos around the magnificent cobblestoned square, taking our own photos of the incredible architectural panorama of Lenin’s tomb, State History Museum and the big towers and colourful domes of St Basil’s, still the icon of Moscow to me.

From Red Square we headed to Zaryadye Park, recently created on the site of the old Rossiya Hotel on the banks of the Moscow river. This compact park includes various buildings including theatres, restaurants and a canter-levered walkway that boomerangs out half way across the river, a great piece of engineering and architecture. The park is well designed and has created a splendid community vibe and, being a weekend, the locals were out and about making the most all the aspects of their park. The public address system hi-lighted the atmosphere announcing that drinking, smoking,..and being sad were not permitted in the park, nice touch.

The General Manager from Eat Me in Bangkok, Maria (who is Russian) recommended a cafe nearby called Dr Zhivago, where we enjoyed a late lunch. It was very quirky. Neo-Old fashioned theme with typical Russian food - which was very good! Sipping on our Aperol Spritz (the in-drink in Moscow) we had various blinis (Russian pancakes) of lamb, game and fish followed by a crayfish julienne (ramekin pie) for me, salad and more blinis for Karen and grilled monk fish for Pete.

One of my most enduring memory of our visit to Moscow in 1993 was the ornate metro stations so I was relieved to see that they haven’t changed, except for the addition of English language signage which, to be honest, took a little of the fun out of getting around. Last time we would come up English words that look like the Cyrillic station names. The stations are magnificent temples to the working class, each station having a different story or theme, one for the farmers, another the athletes or the martyrs. You could spend a day hopping on and off at metro stations just to take photos! At one station, much to Karen’s embarrassment, Pete and I tried to recreate Joanna Lumley's 1960’s photo shoot. People to stare at us... not sure why I was standing in the middle of the platform wearing a blue plastic raincoat looking up!

Another vivid memory from our first visit, was eating an ice cream in the snow in Gorky Park, so we headed back there partly for nostalgia and partly because I wanted an ice cream. It was heaving with people enjoying the lovely, warm, summers day. We had a bit of a walk around, Pete swooned over the new contemporary arts gallery and I of course bought ice cream.

There was a free classical concert in the amphitheatre of the Zaryadye Park, starting at 6pm, so we left Gorky Park and headed back. Unfortunately, after sitting on wet seats for 30 mins watching a famous black & white Russian war movie, I found out that the concert would start after the movie, 8pm. Given we couldn't understand the movie, we didn’t hang around. None of us were that hungry so we decided to picked up a bottle of wine and some snacks and took them back to our apartment.

The next day we strolled down the streets of one of the more exclusive areas of Moscow, past trendy cafes, restaurants, Mazarratis and Porsches on our way to the Kremlin. I suppose the Kremlin is a ‘must do’ in Moscow, as it is the founding site of Moscow and the ultimate symbol of political power in Russia.

We had prepared ourselves for the onslaught of tourists, thankfully the process wasn’t too bad and the throngs weren’t so intimidating. I have never seen so many churches in a confined area as there was inside the Kremlin. The Kremlin is enclosed by 2.25km of high walls and houses 5 churches. It was pretty amazing. After about two hours, and after a brief moment wondering whether Pete would be arrested or not after he wandered into an out of bounds area, we headed off.

Pete was keen to revisit Zaryadye Park as he discovered, on leaving the previous day, that the enormous dome actually houses an indoor park and wanted to check it out. We decided to grab some lunch in one of the cafes in the park. Just a light meal as we had a special dinner planned that evening.

The restaurant White Rabbit has been on our hit list for some time. It is number 13 in the San Pellegrino Worlds Top 50 restaurants and we had been recommended as a must visit! Luckily we had managed to get a booking. It certainly didn’t disappoint. What an experience. The food was sensational and easy to see why it is number 13. After taking the tasting plate option, we were undecided what our favourite dish was. Was it the crayfish, short ribs, burnt cabbage or milk and foie gras. A perfect way to celebrate the end of our travels together.

KC was heading to the airport at 3.00pm the next day and, as she really likes Georgian food we, followed a recommendation of a local friend, and headed to a nice Georgian cafe for lunch.
After lunch, we said our goodbyes to KC who was sadly heading back to Bangkok. We have certainly covered some miles together on this epic journey, 10,000km across 7 time zones, Russia is without a doubt- massive. It was great that KC could join us on this part of our travels and after 3 weeks we were all still talking, surprisingly, since we were with each other 24/7 with several 24 & 30 hour overnighters in the same compartment!

Having fair welled Karen, Pete and I moved from our luxurious apartment to a hostel closer to the train station and settled in to a 7sqm room with no air conditioning, as opposed to the 25sqm with air conditioning that we booked (sorry mistake on website!!!!)... budget back on track!!

That evening we caught up with Maxim, an ex-colleague of mine from my TopTalent days, who heads up the Moscow office. It was good to catch up with a local who gave us some extra tips for our time left in Moscow and also for St Petersburg. After our drinks, we headed off to visit the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It was massive, definitely worth the walk. It sparks a love it or hate it reaction from the locals. It is described as grandiose and gargantuan. It was completed in 1997 in time for Moscow’s 850th birthday.

From there we walked down Gogolevsky Boulevard and Tverskoy Boulevard, both these stretches are a narrow park land strips stretching approximately 6km. Gravelled pathway and grass on either side, dotted with small playgrounds and art exhibitions along the way. Even at 9.30pm it was well populated with locals drinking wines and generally hanging out enjoying the warm, late Moscow evenings. Tverskoy Boulevard sparked a sense of de ja vu, we felt this was an area we had walked some 27 years ago, but then it was covered in snow, need to check the photos when we get home.

In a final act of reminiscence we found the first McDonalds store in Russia. We visited this store in 1993, back then we wanted to queue with the locals, just to say we had done it. At that time it was the largest Maccas in the world, today it is still the largest in Asia. It has changed - just a bit!

Unfortunately we are travelling to St Petersburg in peak season and all the high speed trains were sold out, unless we wanted to go business class at over $300 each - niet!!! So the only option was a slow 9 hour journey. Oh well it was cheaper and gave us time for some more trees. All aboard for our last journey in Russia!