I spent my first three hours in Russia on the passport checking queue in one of the Airports of Moscow. There were two russian couples drinking whisky. They were completely drunk on the inmigration line. They were really noisy, singing, dancing and making jokes. Most of the people completely ignored them, including the police officers. I also saw some old Russian people yelling like crazy at the police officers. Those police officers I’m speaking about looked like the stereotipical Russian bad guy from the movies. After some minutes fighting I realized they were complaining because the line was really slow and some closed counters had people inside but they were not working just looking at the people.
Picture this situation in your mind: Big police officers with big guns. Drunk people. People yelling to the police. All of this happening on the inmigration check queue, a place where people is always quiet and try to not to show off.
But not here. Russia is different.
There is a lot of people working in the red square dressed up as communist trying to get some Rubles from the tourists. Here is Stalin.
Once in Moscow Downtown I met Dimitry, my host in Moscow. Dimitry is a Russian friend I met the year before in Chennai and I had not seen since then. Dmitry picked me up on the station and we went together to his place. This was my first ride in Moscow subway. The subway is massive, clean and beautiful. It has really deep stations. People move fast in the corridors and scalators. Trains are very frequent. I used a lot the subway and I never need to wait longer than 2 minutes for a train.
We went to the Red Square to meet some Dimitry’s friends. My first time in the Red Square. I was surprised because there was not a lot of communist parafernallia. We went for a walk around the Kremlin. I remember I really liked St Basil Cathedral. The building is really beautiful and original and it’s the most touristic photo shot you can take in Russia. It has also a myth. St. Basil Cathedral was built by Ivan the terrible to celebrate the military victory over the Tartar empire. When the Cathedral was finished, he was so impressed with it that he took off the eyes of the people that worked on the building so they could not build anything of the same beauty on the future.
As you can imagine this Ivan was very aggressive and outcome driven, but not very charismatic in the Russia of the time.
Moscow metro stations are awesome
At night we went for some drinks with Dmitry’s friends. They told me how dangerous taking trains in Russia is. The picture really bad situations but I was not really worried. I read a lot of bad stories on the internet. Moreover none of those upper class Russians ever took any train on the Transiberian route. Most of Russians don’t travel inside their own country because they thing .“there is nothing to see there”
This is the massive cannon inside the Kremlim that never worked correctly
When the next day I went to downtown something weird happened. Right at the exit of the subway the guy in front of me dropped a visa card on the street and keep walking. My first reaction was taking the card and run after him but a couple of seconds later I throw the card to the floor. It didn’t look like the guy dropped accidentally the card, it was more like he throw it. I looked clearly as a tourist and I was the only person that saw what happened. I still don’t know if I was a bad guy or if I somebody try to scam me. After all It was my first day in Russia.
I went to do my Russian visa registration. This is official procedure here inherited from the Cold War time. There are people that think it is not a required procedure at all because the police don’t enforce it you but I met people that told me that police stop a tourists just because they want an excuse to get some extra money. As I didn’t want to have problems when leaving the country at the ot Mongolia border I procesed the registration in a hostel. 800 ruble. Ouch!
I also bought a MEGAFON sim card, so I could enjoy cheap national calls and messages. This is a MUST if you are traveling in Russia. I took a travel SIM with me but it was a very bad idea because when I’m traveling I mostly use SMS but sending SMS was too expensive.
Kartroska is my favorite Moscow fast food. Simple, tasty and cheap
I met some Couchsurfers in Moscow. We met at Marina’s, one of the most popular Couchsurfers in town. I met here an American couple that were up to start the transiberian trip the following day. They decided to start in Moscow, and they planned to travel all the way to South East Asia and that’s not all, the guy had plans to continue the trip alone till the China-India border. And listen, this is the coolest part, the guy was studing and living in Dharamsala, the community where the Dalai Lama lives.
The Couchsurfers I met in Moscow
I could have asked him lots of stuff about buddism, about how the life with the Lama is or about his motto to have such an interesting life. Instead I asked him how tall the Lama is. He told me the Dalai lama is as tall as me. And he made me happy.
Another couchsurfer I met is Emilia. She is a Polish couchsurfer that showed me around the entire city. We started in the Kremlin, which I thought it was going to be much more interesting that it really was. Then she showed me the rest of the Moscow attractions. I visited the church of Christ the Saviour. There is an interesting story about this place. The chuch is just a reconstructed chuch located in this same spot. Stalin didn’t like the original chuch and flattened the place to build the biggest public swimming pool ever. After communism the swimming pool was demolished to build again the original church.
Emilia also showed me her favourite place in the city, a bridge where couples go to put a lock with their names on a metalic tree. This is popular everywhere but specially in Russia. I saw similar places all over the country.
St Basil cathedral with Emilia
Before leaving Moscow I visited Lenin in his Mausoleum. It was impressive to walk next to the red bricks of the Kremlin wall heading to the Lenin mausoleum. From here you have the most potent perspective of the Red Square. St. Basil Cathedral in the background, the Lenin mausoleum in front of you, the wall of the Kremlim at your right and the tombs of Soviet leaders at the left. Here I felt the weight of history, The same feeling I experienced visiting Machu Picchu, the Wall of Berlin and the Great Wall.
Inside the Maosoleum there is a deep atmosphere. It’s like when you open the freezer and cold air impact on your face. There is no decoration, only a couple of empty corridors with low lights. And then you reach the room where Lenin is. Sleeping relaxed. Lenin look a little bit dry but it seems he is going to wake up at any moment. I hope he never does. He would not be happy with modern Russia. I think it is better for him to keep dreaming.
In my last day in Moscow Dmitry went with me to the station and helped me to print the ticket for the train. He was an awesome host and I hope to see him again soon. He is an smart young Russian leader with a bright future! My next stage was St Petersburg. I was in the station with the train ticket so I only needed to get into my first Russian train… but in Russia, things are not always so easy…
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