Moscow

(Perm - Moscow 1434km/891 Miles)
Total distance traveled = 11,611 km/7214 Miles

I'm slipping a bit with the blog! Maybe because it feels like there are a lot more things to do now im in the major cities in the West of Russia.

I arrived in Moscow at about 11am. The hostel seemed pretty close to the station,but there was no map on the website so I had to fiddle with google maps ad sketch a quick map for myself. Luckily it was very close,and my map was accurate enough to prevent me getting lost.

The hostel was more like a hostel this time,less like a converted apartment. On the first day,although I arrived early,I was pretty tired and didn't feel like trapsing around the city. Instead,I hung around the hostel. I did some (desperately needed) washing, and chatted to some of the other people around the hostel. I mainly spoke to the staff and Russian people there.

Viktoria is a member of staff there,but the hostel wasn't particularly busy so she had time to chat. She told me a few nice places to go in the city,how to get thereand how she taught English and this was only a side job.

I also spoke to Tamari and her daughter Asha (I guess she was about 6). I'm not sure exactly why they were in the hostel. Tamari didn't speak English and didn't seem to work in the hostel, but I never really asked why she was staying there... felt like I might be being rude. Anyway I did the usual games and picture drawing communicaton with Asha.

Later that evening I met Georgia again (Ulan Ude hostel). We went out to an Uzbekistan restaurant,had some random food (all pretty good),and caught up a bit. We had similar routes up to St Petersburg and so met quite a lot. The next day I went to the Kremlin. I didn't know much about it and only discovered just before going that it was a walled complex, not a single building. There were a number of churches, a theatre, the buildings used by the current government, a diamond exhibiton,and the main draw of the armoury (not as much armour as you'd expect - more a collection of valuable items). I also found time to go to Gorky Park,and a sculpture park (Including some communist statues).

The net day Georgia and I went and looked at the decorative metro stations. A lot of them have chandeliers, statues, and even a few mosaics. They're huge too, like big halls with pillars and marble. After that I went to a museum, then did a bit of souvenier shopping - bought a poster amongst other things, unlikely to get that home without it turning into a crmpled up mess!

On the third day I went to Novodevichy convent and cemetary. The convent is a UNESCO site, but I wasn't too impressed. It was expensive too. After I bought my ticket nobody checked it,so I wish i'd tried just walking straight in. The cemetery was much more interesting (there's a sentence I never expected to say!). A lot of famous and powerful people are buried there and their headstones and monuments are often very elaborate. I spent quite a long time wandering around with a Russian map hunting for graves. So now i have a selection of grave photos. Bet you can't wait to see those eh? They include Yeltsin, Khruschev, Eisenstein,and Bulgakov.

That took up most of my morning, so I spent the aftenoon looking around the Tretyakov gallery. I must be very uncultured,as it's apparently very famous but i'd never heard of it. It was ok,but didn't realy include alot of dfferent painting styles. There were quite a lot of portraits and landscaps from the 17th-19th centuries.They were ok,but a bit samey and I prefer more modern work.

After all that walking around I went to.....the ballet. Check me out! Maybe I am cultured after all. Another traveler at the hostel (Gregor) had mentioned that he had been to the ballet, and that it wasn't particularly expensive. The main Theatre, the Bolshoi,was closed for repairs but there were a couple of others still giving performances. I got the details of the youth group Gregor had been to see in a theatre next to the Bolshoi (I think they're actually connected and some performers may work in both) and asked Viktoria about how to get tickets. She mentioned wanting to go, so we arranged to watch Sleeping Beauty together.

It was the first time I'd been to the ballet,but it was fairly entertaining. Knowing the story helped,but i expected to be asking Viktoria questions. In fact we both got a bit mixed up and ended up checking parts of the story and performers who looked very similar! Not sure if I'd go regularly,but it'd be alright every now and then.

Afterwhat felt like a whirlwind of a stay in Moscow I just relaxed on my last day before I caught my next train. Another night train, this time to St Petersburg. It was the nicest one I'd been in on this trip. Didn't really matter though, as I boarded at midnight, pretty much went straight to sleep, then woke up when we were arriving in St Petes at about 9am the next day.

Lots more photos here, warning - lots of churches!

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Moscow/?albumview=slideshow