07.26.08
Moscow - The start of the Trans-Siberian
 So after the wonders of Novgorod we arrived in a little Russian backwater named Moscow. We were on the look out for a few things here … The Bolshoi, The Kremlin, Red Square and .. The Police! Still scarred by the St.P experience we entered Moscow in the dead of night hoping to make it in unnoticed. We stayed in a fairly central location, in a casino hotel of all places. The Kremlin was about a forty minute walk away so we were well placed for all our tourist activities. Having turned up at two or three in the morning we were lucky to have our rooms allocated 12 hours before check-in. We only had three nights so we had planned to make the most of it.
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Our first day was spent familiarising ourselves with the city. We wandered down to the Red Square area to have a look and also to book some tours. We’d been advised that getting into the Kremlin could be quite time consuming if we chose to line up for tickets. It was quite true. The lines stretched all the way to St.P. Our first stop was actually at the site of the Bolshoi Theatre. Unfortunately it was closed for renovations so we had to make do with the Russian Youth Ballet instead.
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The next few days were spent touring the Kremlin, visiting Lenin’s Tomb, taking hundreds of photos of St Basil’s and exploring the Arbat.
We actually did make it out of the centre as well to visit a state park which celebrated the achivements of the Soviet Union. The highlight of this would be the 100m high titanium monument to the Russian space program and the dodgem cars. The remainder of the park was about as interesting as the Soviet architecture. The Arbat is a bit like Las Ramblas in Barcelona but without the trees and the gypsies .. at least I didn’t notice any gypsies. It’s a nice touristy stretch with plenty of restaurants and cafes. The highlight here for the girls would have been Starbucks … when we first stepped in Kelly was in such a hurry to get her hands on a coffee that she abandoned human communication and resorted to pointing at a picture and making seal sounds. Not surprisingly the person behind the counter could speak english and probably served us with one hand on the alarm button.
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The ballet was a bit disappointing as it was quite amateurish in comparison with the performance of Swan Lake we attended at the Mariinsky in St.P. It probably didn’t help that we were in the front row and could see every mistake at close range. Ah yes, in my many decades as a ballet critic …. no but really it was obvious to us so I’m guessing thos of you in the know would have cringed too.
We also experienced another aspect of Moscow culture - Face Control. We attempted to walk into a fairly well visited restaurant with some of us wearing thongs. I was standing at the back so found it quite funny when the conversation went a little like this
Us: Hi, a table for four please
M’d: Of course .. anywhere down here
Us: Could we have a table upstairs please
M’d: <glances down at the footwear> I’m afraid it’s full
Us: How long is the wait?
M’d: about 30 mins
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So at this point the girls decided to head back to the hotel change footwear, freshen up and come back. We almost made it again except as the new guys said he would check upstairs the previous FC turned up and whispered somethign to him and suddenly it was full again .. surprise surprise. We were directed to the restaurant next door instead where we headed up to the roof-top terrace. Here we were greeted by a waiter in livery making it look like a 18th century ballroom. Water here cost more than the alcohol in our usual haunts. We did have quite an enjoyable night though so much so that Lisa and Cara were caught eating the serving dish that came with our desserts.
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All in all Moscow has been a success since we have not been arrested, although we did have two drive-bys. So now we’re finally on the Trans-Siberian route .. our next stop will be Suzdal - famous for cucumbers apparently. From there onto Nizhny Novgorod the town formerly known as Gorky.