From Russia with No Love

31st August 2008


Like the hostel in Irkutsk, the hostel in Moscow was equally hard to find because there were no real signs to indicate where it was and has a Hostel - The Movie-esk feel to it. Once we found the place, it felt like we were knocking on someone's apartment, which I think it was. It was basically run by a Russian lady, Nina, who spoke no English and these people who were apparently workers there some of the time. Nina turned out to be my favourite Russian, kinda funny in a sweet way.

Compared to Irkutsk, Moscow was a 'nicer' place, people in restaurants spoke English but there were still a fair number of uber rude people that didn't need to be that rude. Russian's seem to have not learnt the international language of gestures and prefer to shout at someone and point in some wild direction yet they have mastered the English word for 'no' and at the same time I learn 'no' in Russian pretty quick. It was incredibly frustrating and quite soul destroying to be shouted at for asking where the toilet is. Trying to get my Belarus transit visa was probably the rudest someone was to me, all he could say to me was 'no' and 'I don't know'. I did get it but with no help what so ever from the receptionist man.

Skye and I's last day together was a little crap, we failed to meet up again from the morning of going off to do errands. We saw each other again in the afternoon and went to a final dinner out to My My where everything was cow printed, felt like I was in some MK concrete cow restaurant. I did successfully meet up with Sarah on our first day in Moscow.

It was a very expensive city, comparable to London, they have no concept of queuing rules, instead they push-in, shove until they are served. The prettiest building in Moscow was St Basil's Cathedral in the Red Square, very colourful and nice shapes on the outside. Russia is Orthodox so the inside of all the churches and cathedrals I went inside were heavily decorated in gold and massive wall/ceiling paintings. I also got to see my first pickled communist leader in the form of Lenin. It was quite surreal seeing him lying down looking very waxy. People carry things around in plastic bags as well as having a normal bag. There were also lots of monuments all around the city, the biggest one we found was of Peter the Great holding a golden scroll, a little un-tasteful, but certainly made a statement.

Sarah and I spent an evening going around different metro stations looking at the architecture, it turned out to be a fun, cheap evening. The escalator ate the back of my flip flops which wasn't very fun. Some of the stations were very nice, nearly all of them have the Soviet mark of the hammer and the sickle as well as Lenin, a war type scene and scenes with very manly things such as planes or tanks made of mosaic. The bigger stations are more like places to hang out and meet people. Probably associated with the 24 hour flower shops, there seemed to be a lot of guys around with big beautiful bunches of flowers or couples with huge single roses, I thought that was pretty sweet.

Going inside the Kremlin was nice, there were lots of churches and a pretty garden. We tried to go into the Armoury but didn't have tickets, once we waited till everyone had gone in and they let the excess in, the counter wouldn't take credit cards so we had to wait till the next time slot. Other people I spoke to also found Moscow and Russia generally to be quite a rude place but the same people also said that St Petersburg was a nice place to visit but I don't see myself coming back to Russia any time soon.