Russia - Moscow

We were staying about 10 mins walk from Red Square. As with the hostel in St Petersburg it was very difficult to find, advertising seems to be non existent and they are always on one floor of a delapidated apartment building. We used the first morning to do washing, check emails and update blogs. While looking for the hostel we met a guy from Singapore and one from Hong Kong, Joe and Wilson.

We had some breakfast with them in a coffee shop and when we parted they gave us their emails so that we can contact them if we would like to see a friendly face later on in our travels. After blogging we popped down to the legendary Red square.

It was smaller than i had imagined, The Kremlin and Lenins Mausoleum opposite and St Basil's to the left. I soon realised, while looking around the square that the building opposite The Kremlin is The Goom, which according to Karl, is much like Bluewater. One of my tutors (Ben Adams) told me to research the Goom for my thesis design project, which I obviously didnt do that well not realising it was on Red Square. Anyways, the Goom is a shopping centre which has grown since it was simple market traders stalls. It was moved away from the Kremlin at a later date when a fire amongst the stalls set light and burnt down a previous wooden Kremlin. Apparently the present Kremlin is Moscow's 4th. The Goom is gorgeous inside seperated into 3 huge 3 storey atriums with shops, bars and restaurants on every side. Fantastic. Later that evening Karl and I decided to venture out for a walk. We thought an evening walk around the Kremlin's walls would be a great way to spend the time.

Unfortunately it proved to be a quite expensive walk. At the far side of the Kremlin we got stopped by a local Copper who blatently wanted to earn a bit extra. They told us that our registration should have been done by that time (lie) and we would have to pay a fine. The arrangement could be done privately or at the station, no uesses needed for which we chose. What a waste of money! Clem thought it was a little amusing.

The next day we ventured into the Kremlin and had a nose around, very nice, although it does seem to be a reoccurant theme that the authorities do try and make things difficult for visitors not allowing us into certain parts which we were supposed to be able to get in etc, ie the Armoury. We decided to leave it for the next day.

We transfered to the hotel after two nights at the hostel which was the start of our Russian Experience Trans-sib tour. A nice lady, Lina showed us around some of the city. It was a fantastic way to learn about the city particularly areas untouched by the bloody tourists. We saw some of the older parts of the city and went to an area thought of as Mosocws equivalent to Covent Garden. Next to it is the evidence of Stalin's meglomanic visions for Moscow. He cut through all the historic streets with a huge road bordered with concrete highrise blocks which the locals seem to refer to as the Teeth. One of the day's highlights ad to be the Moscow Metro, pictures below!
We got picked up by a driver to go to the station the next day and boarded the train to Yekaterinburg. The train took about a day and a half to journey through the rolling scenery in which time we joined in some vodka drinking with some locals, tried to communicate with a Russian sharing with us and entertained ourselves with cards, reading and music. I thought that a train ride of this length would be difficult, but the time flew by.

I will upload photos when i can.