Come Along Journey: #3 Moscow

In the third installment of our Come Along Journeys, we will travel to Moscow, Russia. And we will continue to try to evoke at least some of the feelings of traveling to a new place! I am going to try writing in first person plural (i.e. we and us) , in order to hopefully help you envision yourself actually there, but allow for me to be there as well. Feel free to let me know whether you prefer the first person plural or the second person construction. I have based the narrative on my experiences, but for the sake of flow some events may be combined or altered slightly.

We are all packed and ready to go. We have left plenty of time to get to the airport on time. As we get into the Uber to take us to the airport, we feel the excitement welling up inside us. The ride to the airport doesn't take too long, although it can take a long time when there is traffic. Thankfully, there is not much traffic today, so we get to the airport even a little earlier than we expected. We check in our luggage at the Delta counter and receive our boarding passes. The attendant at the check in counter also checked our passports and ensured that we have the proper Russian visa in our passport. Thankfully, we took care of that several weeks ago. After checking in and getting through security, we find our gate. Immediately, we hear a cacophony of voices speaking Russian. Russian can sometimes sound quite harsh, but at times it can be beautiful. Any if one doesn't understand the words, the poetry of Pushkin can sound beautiful.

Once on the plane, we settle into our Economy Comfort seats, which have slightly more legroom and slightly more recline. Even though it is not a lot more of either, it makes a difference and we are grateful for any extra comfort. The flight from New York is about 10 hours, but it goes relatively quickly after we watch a movie and then fall asleep. A while after we wake up, the pilot announces that we are making our initial descent into Moscow Sheremetyevo. The airport used to be divided into two primary terminals, one on the north side if the runways that was for domestic flights and another terminal one the southside that handled mostly international flights, but the airport has been expanded a lot since then. The experience is a lot more pleasant now. The lines for immigration used to move much more slowly and there was much less natural light in the airport, making it feel much less inviting.

Leaving the airport in the middle of the day is much easier than it would be during rush hour, but there is still plenty of traffic getting into central Moscow by taxi, where the hotel is. Despite sleeping pretty well on the plane, we are still pretty tired, plus we have our luggage with this, otherwise we would go sightseeing right off. As we head down Leningradskiy Prospect, the traffic gets heavier and heavier, after passing a train station on the right, the road transition into more of a boulevard and you almost immediately see a Marriott and a Sheraton hotel, they look pretty nice, but we found a good deal for a different hotel, one that is a little more iconic. The taxi driver explains in decent, but not great, English that he will not charge us more, but he is taking us a way that may take longer, but that allows us to see one of the main thoroughfares of the city and get a peek of Red Square and the Kremlin.

As you approach Pushkin Square, the driver explains that the nearby McDonalds was one of the original three in the city (and in Russia). He also explains how when it first opened one would frequently see a line around the block, just to get a chance to eat at the restaurant. As you approach the Kremlin area, the numbers of shops seems to multiple. The driver points out another of the three original McDonalds closer in.

As the driver onto Mokhovaya Street, we get our first glimpse of St Basils Cathedral on Red Square and the red/maroon walls of the Kremlin. Although we had seen some many pictures of Red Square, even just after a glimpse of seeing in real life, we feel a certain amount of excitement.

The driver continues down Mokhovaya and we turn at what the driver identifies as the Lenin Library. The driver continues to point out various landmarks, like the Ministry of Defense building and a cute little church.

At one point, he points off to the right at an intersection and tells us that the US Embassy is just up the "Garden Ring" a bit. And then as you approach a bridge, he calls the Noviy Arbat bridge, you see the Russian White House building, which is where the Prime Minister and his cabinet work. This is the same building that was shelled in 1993.

On the other side of the bridge is our hotel. The building is one of the "Seven Sisters" as they call them, wedding cake shaped buildings in Moscow. This one was known as the Hotel Ukraina, a name is that is still commonly referred to as, but it is now a Radisson hotel. There is a square in front of it, then an embankment road and then the Moscow River. It is basically directly across from the White House.

The driver lets us out and helps us with our luggage. From there, a bellhop comes out to help us to get our luggage into the hotel. As we entered, we go through a metal detector with a security guard standing nearby, but we are waved through even though we set off the metal detector. We continue back through the lobby and the elevator bank to the reception at the back of the building.

After checking in, we go up to our fancy rooms. After a small rest, we decide to head back to Red Square on foot, relying on Google Maps. We walk across the bridge, and continue up a bit of a hill, until we get to the "Garden Ring", where we decide to turn and explore a bit. Google Maps shows a pedestrian road a bit south that seems to have a lot of shops, etc. So we walk around to Stariy Arbat, which is the pedestrian road that we saw. Near the corner is the third original McDonalds, across from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is another of the "Seven Sisters". Along the road, we see the Hard Rock cafe, a Starbucks and a whole host of souvenir shops, theaters and various other cultural buildings of interest. It is interesting to contemplate what this road would have looked like before the dissolution of the USSR, without the western restaurants and shops.

We continue walking, having to consult Google Maps several times. We end up at the Lenin Library. From there we cross the road and walk until we approach Okhotniy Ryad, which is where we caught our first glimpse of Red Square from the taxi. We proceed towards Red Square, as we step onto the square itself, it is exhilarating. We see St Basils across the square, the Kremlin and the Lenin Mausoleum off to the right. GUM, the state run department store (basically a mall) is to our left, the underground shopping center and a national museum are behind us. As we cross the square, we hear a lot of English, Spanish, German, but still it's mostly Russian. Some of these people may be local Muscovites, but others, even of the Russians are probably from other places in Russia. Russia is enormous, but it is easy sometimes to forget that many Russians are tourists in Moscow as well.

After some time exploring the square, it is dark now as we proceed back across the square and turn right towards the Bolshoy Theater, the most famous Russian theater and perhaps one of the most famous in the world. It is a massive building with some uniqueness, but for the most part it is lacking in any dramatic architectural surprises. We intend, if possible, to attend a ballet at this theater during our stay in Moscow.

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But for the time being, the jetlag is catching up to us, so we want to hail a taxi and head back to the hotel, preferring to ride than to make the long walk back. But by this time, it is evening, and the rush hour traffic is horrendous. We are tired but still somewhat adventurous, so we opt to try the famous Moscow metro system. It is a very extensive system with deep tunnels and often very unique architectural designs.

Google Maps informs us that the closest Metro station to our hotel is Kievskaya. From Red Square, we need to figure out which metro line to get on. Thankfully we have Google and many of the signs are also in English. We see that the best station for us is probably Ploshchad Revolyutsii, which appears to be on the same line as Kievskaya. First, we figure out how to purchase a ticket. It may be possible to buy a 24 hour ticket, but for the time being, we just want to get back to the hotel and we discover that tickets are cheap, less than the equivalent of a dollar. After purchasing tickets, we follow signs and navigate to the correct station and wait only a couple of minutes for a train. The platform is crowded, and as a train approaches that we realize that the train is also overflowing with people. We decide not to get on the first train that comes. We opt instead to make sure that our belongings are secure and well protected before getting on a train with so many people squished into it. That turns out to be a move, as the train that we eventually get on is crowded enough that people are touching us on every side. And the smell of body odor is tangible.

We ride several stops, before we hear Kievskaya announced, but at each station, people got on and off, so we are no longer near the doors. We end up basically having to push our way off of the train and we almost get separated. We do manage to get off at the correct station. We decide to make a plan of what to do if we get separated, like if one of us is able to get off and the other is not. We make this plan as we try to navigate out of the station.

We come out facing a big shopping center and turn right towards the hotel. We navigate through a park and then under a road and back to the hotel, we go separately to our rooms. We zonk out for the night, hoping to be ready for another big day tomorrow.

We will continue our journey in Russia on Wednesday...

*I thought that it might be good to add some end notes. The hotel mentioned in this post is actually quite nice, but also not cheap most of the time. As I said in the introduction, I have combined experiences, so you may notice that these pictures were not all taken on the same day. Most of them were taken about seven years ago. I really enjoyed photographing Red Square in the different times of year and in different weather conditions. Moscow is a fascinating city that has a lot of interesting things to see, way more than I can cover in two posts. But feel free to reach out if you have questions about Moscow or Russia in general. I lived in Moscow for about sixteen months twenty some odd years ago and have been back a couple times since. I also lived for two years in various towns in northwestern Russia.