Sometimes I'm never quite sure if I'm seeing a city in the right way. Let me ask you this: Given three days in Moscow without a guidebook, what would you do? I tried to answer that question for myself upon my arrival there on April 30.
Using my innate sense of direction and a picture of a map, we found the hostel and checked in and all that mundane stuff. In the afternoon we took a self-guided tour around the city center, seeing the theatre district, including the Bolshoi, then over to another part of town by the river, where we watched people drink in the square and then got some typical Russian fare at one of a chain of buffet-style restaurants called MY MY (Russian for moo moo; it was cow-themed). I retired just after darkness set in, at about 10:30pm.
Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral were quite the sight. I took some pictures. I liked the onion domes. So after that, I walked around with Francizka and a good fellow American Greg for a while, until Greg and I decided that we both loved space, and wanted to go see the cosmonaut museum, complete with exhibits in Russian (which I can read, but cannot understand), a shrine to the first guy in space, as well as the real taxidermied bodies of the first two dogs in space; they died of natural causes, or perhaps solar radiation poisoning. Here is one of them:
Later the next morn, I awoke with a heavy head and said farewell to Francizka who was heading back to Germany on a plane, then I went to Ploschad Revolutski and met an old friend from China, Nadya, who you might recall was one of my companions from Yunnan Province of China. She gave me a proper tour of Moscow (she has lived here for several years), as we walked around different parts of downtown, then bought admission to the Kremlin, the walled citadel that houses modern government palaces as well as 15th century cathedrals. My favorite part were some of these old cathedrals, which were painted from floor to dome with elaborate images, of the religious nature of course.
The next day was May 1, which for all you ignornat Americans, is when most of the world celebrates Labour Day (yeah, I used the British spelling). Labour Day in Russia is no joke, though I awoke too late to see the parades, which I'm told were more like demonstrations. We did see one group of demonstrators, arguing at least in part for justice for some of those slayed journalists, corralled into a small alleyway, outnumbered by cops by 2:1. They were not very vocal.
Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral were quite the sight. I took some pictures. I liked the onion domes. So after that, I walked around with Francizka and a good fellow American Greg for a while, until Greg and I decided that we both loved space, and wanted to go see the cosmonaut museum, complete with exhibits in Russian (which I can read, but cannot understand), a shrine to the first guy in space, as well as the real taxidermied bodies of the first two dogs in space; they died of natural causes, or perhaps solar radiation poisoning. Here is one of them:
After that it was back to the hostel to wait for that ever elusive nightfall, so we could go out to explore a bit of the Moscow nightlife. Greg had left and we were now joined by a good English boy living in Scotland named Chris. We went to a popular but not too fancy bar-club in the Kitay-Gorod part of the city, and it just so happened that we arrived on the weekly gay night. At first the place was somewhat relaxing; the music wasn't too loud and the people were low-key. But just before midnight the scene changes; the tables are removed and thus is born a dance floor. The DJs begin pumping the music and what seemed to be the entire gay population of Moscow jammed the smoke-filled club. Chris and I drank a sufficient amount of vodka and the three of us all felt compelled to dance for a few hours, while shirtless men..... well, it was an interesting glimpse of the Moscow club scene.
After a few hours spent with Nadya, I bid farewell to her yet again, as I had done just about three weeks prior, and I set off to do some internet research and try to figure out how to get out of Moscow (or Moskva, as the Russians call it). I figured I would take the night train to St. Petersburg the next evening, giving me another 24 hours to kill.
The next day I explored the city the best way I know how. Alone again for the first time in a while, I set about exploring my metro and foot, spending a few hours in a nice park along a bend in the river enjoying the great weather, until the schitzophrenic Moscow climate changed and it began to pour down rain. I saw some other places until finally it was time to return to the hostel, grab my bags and a quick snack, then head to the train station for the relatively short 8 hour journey that does not warrant mentioning. I got on a train at 10pm, went to sleep, and awoke upon arrival in St. Petersburg at 6am.
And that's the Moscow pooooossssst!
