The flight was out of Frankfurt, so Shanna, myself and our friend Katia caught the train from Stuttgart up there, got checked in, and met up with our friends Penny and Adam, and Penny's friend Tara. You might remember Penny & Adam from previous trips they've done with us to Croatia and London. Before we knew it, we were Moscow bound! Or so we thought. As we approached Moscow, the pilot came on the over head and said that the weather wasn't great in Moscow, so they were going to circle around for a bit so it could clear. 15 minutes later he comes back on and says that they need to refuel, then they'll fly back to the main Moscow airport. There are 3 airports in Moscow, so I just figured we'd land at one of the other ones. But instead, they fly us 400km outside Moscow. We land, and begin refueling at a remote airport. Shanna was right, it looked a lot like the airport we use when we fly back to in her home town.
After 30 minutes, the pilot comes back on and says that the weather has gotten so bad in Moscow that the airport was shut down for the day, and that the air traffic controllers in Frankfurt had told them to come back to Frankfurt. Since that required more fuel, they kept refueling. About 45 minutes later, the pilot came on again and said they'd found buses to take us to Moscow. We were relieved, because at least we'd make it to Moscow. Had we flown back to Frankfurt, Shanna & I had no intention of staying with the tour. We were already talking about finding a last minute vacation deal at the Frankfurt airport.
After taking forever to get through Russian customs, we finally made it outside the airport, only to find the "busses" were actually little 15 seater vans. They had no room for luggage, so we had to stack everything in front of the seats.
Google Maps said it was 400km. In Germany, assuming most of that was interstate kilometers, it would take about 4 1/2 hours. But Google Maps factored in traffic, and that we'd be driving through some remote small towns...and calculated 8.5 hours. I was hoping it was wrong, but sadly...it was dead on. We left the airport at 10pm, and didn't pull into Moscow's airport until 6:30am the next morning. We then met our local tour guide with a bus who took us all to the hotel. In Moscow traffic, what should have taken 20 minutes, took an hour and a half. So we finally pulled into the hotel around 8am...a full 14 hours after we landed at the airport in the middle of nowhere.
Thankfully we got in early enough to still get breakfast at the hotel, as well as take a much needed shower. At 11am we all met in the lobby, got in our tour bus, and took off.
We started off driving around downtown Moscow. We got to see all kinds of neat buildings, including the former headquarters of the KGB. We eventually arrived at the point I was most looking forward to, Red Square. We've seen a lot of neat things since we've been here, and as a history buff, I've loved it. But with the exception of the Berlin Wall, all the things we've seen have just been history I've read about. Red Square is something I remember from when I was a kid. I'll never forget Peter Jennings reporting from The Kremlin, or videos of the Soviets having various military parades on Red Square. And whenever a reporter was in Moscow reporting, they were most likely standing in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, which is on Red Square. When the bus parked, that was the first thing you saw.
St. Basil's Cathedral was built in the mid 1500's by Ivan The Terrible. Legend has it that after the building was complete, Ivan had the architect blinded so that he could never create another cathedral like this one again. While it's called a single cathedral, it's really seven different churches in one building...each spire is a single church.
After we walked past the cathedral, we were on Red Square. The Kremlin was to our left, as was Lenin's tomb. Our tour guide then gave us time to walk around and see the sites by ourselves. We were to meet back up in an hour so that we could enter the Kremlin. I hadn't realized until we arrived that The Kremlin is not a single building, but in fact is a giant walled off area...practically a fortress. Inside the Kremlin grounds are buildings and churches. All the Soviet leaders had their main office there, as well as the presidents of Russia who presided after the Soviet Union's collapse, right up to President Putin today. We weren't allowed to take pictures in some of the churches there we went into, but they were beautiful. One area we walked by was blocked off by the police. Our guide said that usually happens when Putin is about to arrive in his Helicopter. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, we heard a helicopter approaching. We never saw him, but based on all the cars that came flying up with lights flashing, and the TV crew waiting outside the Kremlin, we're pretty sure it was him.
After that tour, we got on the bus and the rest of the afternoon was a tour of the city by bus. After the long night we'd had, that was fine with us. We drove by a giant statue dedicated to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. It was neat, but to me looked like a statue of Buzz Lightyear.
We stopped along the river that runs by the Kremlin, and got some neat shots of it across the water. We stopped at a few more places for pictures along the way, including a bridge that has a great distant view of Moscow and the Olympic Stadium. We also drove by (but didn't stop at) a giant park that is also a World War 2 memorial. They had a neat statue that showed Russian warriors through out the ages. One was a soldier from Medieval Times, a soldier from the war with Napoleon, and a WWII soldier. The park, memorial and museum there are dedicated to the 27 million Russians who were killed in WWII. That number is no exaggeration and shocked me. I knew they had suffered heavy losses, but I had no idea it was anywhere near that much. For comparison purposes, US losses were approximately 416,000.
Finally we arrived back at the hotel. At this point, everyone was beyond exhausted. We hadn't stopped moving since arriving that morning from the overnight bus ride, so everyone called it an early night.
The next morning we all met in the lobby, loaded on to the bus, and headed to Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius in a town called Sergiev Posad. Along the way we passed several missile defense bases. During the Cold War, had the US launched a strike on Moscow, these are the bases that would have had the job of trying to shoot the missiles down. It's a huge monastery, and I had looked up pictures of it before we left. It looked beautiful...of course, with how our luck had been so far on this trip, it should have come as no surprise that some of the prettiest buildings would be completely covered in scaffolding for renovation. Next year is it's 650th anniversary, so they are getting everything all cleaned up for the celebrations.
The scaffolding aside, it was a beautiful monastery. The entrance alone was breathtaking as you walked through.
Our guide from the previous day, Edward, gave us the history the place as we entered, then stopped for a brief bathroom break. While I was snapping pictures, I noticed several Orthodox Priests walking around, including one guy that really stood out. He was a mix of priest and someone off Sons of Anarchy with his leather motorcycle jacket on. The long beard added to the biker look too.
We walked through the various buildings, which were impressive, but was really neat was the actual Church where they held services. I've attended church services for various religions, but Russian Orthodox was not like any other that I'd seen. When we walked in, there was a giant room where women were standing around singing while a priest did...something. I'm not sure how to describe it. He just seemed to be walking around a statue of Jesus on the cross, and chanting. One thing we learned was that the altar is in a separate room from the worshipers. In all of the Christian churches I've been in, the altar has been at the front of the church, and the people sit or stand facing it while the priest is up there giving the service. For Russian Orthodox, everything done at the altar is in a separate room that the worshipers can not see. The priest walks in to the room, performs the rituals, then comes back out.
One reason we always like personal guides instead of audio guides is you get stories that bring the history to life that you don't get otherwise. This was a perfect example. Our guide told his his father was an adjunct professor Moscow's main university. In order to reach a level that high, he had to join the Soviet Communist Party. That also meant renouncing all religion. So when Edward was born, they snuck away to his grandmother's village, and had him baptized in secret there. That way he could be part of the church without his work colleagues knowing. He also mentioned that during Soviet times, it was primarily only the elderly who went to church. Young people, and those of working age couldn't afford to attend publicly because it would hurt them socially, professionally and ultimately, financially. When people retired, they started openly attending church because they no longer had to worry about work or school colleagues.
After walking through the large room, we got to the altar room. To call it stunning would be an understatement. The gold and art were amazing.
That was it for the tour of the monastery, so we headed over to the gift shop area and bought a few things. We then walked outside where there was a huge market set up. Vendors were there selling all kinds of souvenirs. Some of it was junk, but some of it was pretty neat. We walked across the street and found a hole in the wall restaurant selling food called "Pattys". It was potato bread with all kinds of stuffings. You could get it with a hot dog, meat pudding, cheese, apples, sugar, and more. We bought several different kinds and loved it.
We had been there most of the day, and it was now time to head back to the hotel. We got to enjoy some more of Moscow's finest traffic jams, and it took awhile to get back. On the way back, Edward offered to arrange an outing if people were interested to take us to see a Russian Folk Dance. Shanna & I weren't interested, so we passed. Adam, Penny, Katia and Tara were, but when we got back to the hotel, we had 3 hours or so to kill. Initially Shanna & I were just going to stroll around the part of town we were in. While out, we ran in to Penny & Adam, and decided to head to find a pub nearby. We ended up finding this cozy little pub up the block and ordered a few drinks. The one thing about Moscow...stuff isn't cheap. The average cost of a beer was $9. I've paid that much (and more) for a beer before, but it was usually specialty beer, like an American Microbrew. This was standard fare Russian Pilsner. It was still nice to sit and chat around a cold beer, though. One thing a lot of restaurants had in Russia were giant picture menus. Shanna noticed a tray of six watermelon shots, so she ordered that for the table. They were actually fairly refreshing on a warm day. They had a watermelon flavor, plus an actual wedge of watermelon in each glass.
Here comes the funny part...our waitress didn't speak much English. So after finished these, she came over and said something that none of us understood. We assumed she had asked us if we liked it, so we said something like "Yes, it was good, thanks"! Five minutes later, we see her walking around with another tray of the shots and we laughed, thinking someone else had ordered them...until she came right to our table and dropped them off. So lesson learned...make sure you know what the waiter/waitress is saying before agreeing. We stayed there for a bit longer, then headed back. Penny & Adam went to the show, and Shanna & I called it a night.
The next day was our last day in Moscow, but it was going to be a LONG day. The plan was check out of the hotel, load our luggage into a bus (this time a bus with a luggage area), and sight see all day. At 11pm we would be dropped off at the train station, where we would take an overnighter to St. Petersburg.
Our first stop of the day was at one of the famous flea markets in Moscow. This place was HUGE. Shanna ended up getting some neat souveniers, including a few Santas. In Russia, they have a custom of taking a block of wood and carving it into a Santa, then painting it. Some are hand made, others are cheaper and only have stickers on them. We first discovered these at some of the bazaars and Christmas Markets they have around Stuttgart, but they were always way to expensive. Some of the really nice ones ran almost $1,000. Here, though, we were able to find ones of the same quality, but for a fraction of that cost. Shanna is good haggling...I hate it. I'd prefer they just give me a fair price and I'll pay it. I eventually had to walk away and let her haggle, because I didn't know if she really didn't want it, or was just using it as a tactic. She'd say things like "I don't know...I'm not sure if I really want it". I'd think she was worried about the price, so I'd tell her to just get it...which the vendor would leap at. She was much more successful at bringing the price down when I wasn't standing there.
After we finished walking around, we headed across the street to what appeared to be a giant castle area. I'm not exactly sure what the point of the place was...they had stores, but most people were closed. They had some really neat buildings inside the courtyard area, but there was almost no one there. No employees, no visitors, nothing. We took some pictures and headed back to the bus at the meeting time. From there we headed to metro entrance. I didn't realize this before our trip, but Moscow is famous for it's intricate Metros. They have beautiful mosaics, sculptures, stained glass and so on. The really fascinating part was most of the decorations were put in during the Soviet Era, and the artwork reflects that. There were Hammer & Sickles everywhere, as well as pictures of Lenin, the common peasant, the field worker, and all the other Soviet symbols of "the people".
We visited four or five stations, taking pictures at each one. We finally ended in one of the shopping districts in Moscow. It was a pedestrian street that had shops, cafes, and stores lined all the way up and down it. They also had an amazing amount of American chains. Adam was excited about his cup of Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee, and I was excited about our Wendy's for lunch.
After we finished up there, we headed to the Tretyakov Gallery, which contains a large collection of Russian art. At this point, I was beat and my feet were hurting, so I wasn't really interested in an art museum. Shanna walked through, though, and took pictures that are in the pictures link at the bottom of the page.
Our last stop in Moscow was back at Red Square. We got some great pictures of Lenin's tomb, St. Basil's Cathedral, and the Kremlin walls with the sun setting. We then found a great beer bar right near our bus and just relaxed for a few hours. This bar had a GREAT selection of Belgian and Dutch beers. They weren't cheap, but were so worth it. Shanna & I each got a 1 Liter (33 oz) glass of Belgian beer that cost $20 each...but was worth every penny.
From there we took the bus to the train station, and got on to our train. The standard cabin had 4 bunks in it, but we had paid to upgrade to a room with two beds. I'm glad we did, because apparently the size of the room we wasn't any bigger, it just had 2 beds instead of 4. As you can see from the picture below, there wasn't a lot of space. It would have been miserable with 2 other people.
They hadn't turned the A/C on yet, so we were miserable in our cabin. Then someone walked by and said the diner cabin had A/C going, so we all headed down there. Turns out we weren't the only ones who found out...about half our tour group got word, so we were all in there. It ended up being a lot of fun. We ordered beer, and because it was Russia, we ordered some Vodka. What started off as an attempt to cool down ended up lasting a few hours. We eventually made our way back to our cabin, went to sleep, and woke up shortly before pulling into St. Petersburg.
I split the post up into two, but the pictures are all on the same page. I'll link to it here, as well as at the end of the St. Petersburg post.
To continue reading about St. Petersburg, click here.
To see the pictures from the trip, click here or any picture above.
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