Mother Russia Part 3: Til the (Mos)cow comes home

Time for another lazy copy/paste update. I've already written a lot on the photo album, and if I write now, I'd be making up most of the stuff anyway. So here goes:

So I have been unknowingly putting off the upload of this album for almost 2 weeks now, and memories have become more romantic and less accurate, but just as long, so as always, proceed at your own peril.

I reached Leningradskiy station in Moscow a little after 12, after nearly missing my train and being on the wrong carriage for almost half the ride before a nice man who spoke some English told me what to do. Anyway, I met my host, Anton there to prevent the St Petersburg incident from happening again. He took me around the city a little bit in his car, to see the seven Stalin skyscrapers (there was to be an 8th but it was never built), and art galleries and such, and where I could go, and what I could do.

I also learned from Iya that there were 3 train stations, Leningradskiy, Kazanskiy, and Yaroslavskiy, which just means "towards Leningrad, towards Kazan, and towards Yaroslavl" which explains the name of Moscovskiy station in St Petersburg. Yaroslavskiy station is also the one that serves the Trans-Siberian Railway to Beijing, and ends near Vladivostok, at the Japan border.

Anyway, Anton and Iuliia (@ippobnb on Instagram) were a super interesting couple who have travelled the world for a year and a half, being to places even I haven't been to, and I had a wonderful time drinking tea and talking about our travels. They also were fans of anime and manga, so we had lots to talk about. The room was very, very cosy, and done up with nice little touches, like a "welcome home, Justin" written on a little chalkboard and hung on the door. And there was water in the room, as well as 2 files with suggestions of what to do in Moscow, as well as in the vicinity. 

Leningradskiy Street. The main street of my Airbnb hosts.

The vicinity

Downstairs of the airbnb apartment

I looked through the files, settled on World of Shashlik and decided to head out and walk around the neighbourhood. I ended up not finding what I set out to look for (which is becoming sort of a pattern in my travels) and instead arrived somewhere else, also pretty awesome.

-Intermission-

At this point, I'd like to interrupt my own story and fit in this little story about a nice Russian lady in a random cafe helping me to find a place to change money. I wanted to buy her a coffee as thanks, but I was broke at that point in time. When I went back after changing money, she was gone. Many thanks anyway, person who will never read this!

-Intermission over-

In any case, somewhere else turned out to be Ilya Muromets, a restaurant serving traditional Russian style food. I had tea and blackcurrant jam, as well as leg of rabbit. The way to drink the tea with jam, as I have shared, was to put some jam in your mouth, and drink the tea through it. The flavour was slightly sour, slightly bitter, yet strangely pleasant. The rabbits leg, for a rabbit lover, would probably taste like infinite tears of disdain, helplessness, anger and sadness, but for a normal meat eating human, it tasted quite pleasant, not gamey, and complements the cream sauce quite well. There were also real singing canaries in the restaurant! All in all a good dinner.

Ilya Muromets setting. On the top left corner is one of the canary cages.

Menu

Tea with blackcurrant jam. Totally the Russian thing to do. Thanks google!

Leg of Mr Hoppity with a la King sauce.

Singing canary, kept for it's song. Not to be eaten!

Then I went back for more tea and talk, more or less concluding the first half day in Moscow.

The second day, I left early for the free walking tour, borrowing a jacket from my hosts because it started snowing one month early. It was a good thing I was walking so much, because otherwise I probably would not fit in the jacket. Anyway I couldn't find the walking tour meeting place (see?) but I couldn't just "end up" somewhere else, so I found it in the end, slightly late

Had a great walking tour by our guide Marina Vinogradova, who was very interesting and very informative! Learned many things, which unfortunately now exists in bits and pieces in my memory, freshest of which is the demolition of Hotel Russia (to the delight of all Moskovites), claimed to be one of the ugliest hotels ever to exist. Also met Mr Lenin (really his preserved corpse), who was smaller than I expected, and also possibly has a fake hand, according to urban legend.

Saw St Basils Cathedral and the Kremlin from outside, and really all the attractions were around the red square, so it was quite a central location to be in. After a recommendation for lunch, I hung out with a couple of new friends from the walking tour, and headed about the city with no real direction. Managed to see KGB, Bolshoi theatre and a super grand supermarket, as well as get some hot chocolate in a cafe to escape from the cold. 

At grave of the unknown soldier, Alexander Gardens
L to R: Mandy, Maite, Me, Grisha, Marina (our guide), Janire

Bolshoi Theatre
L to R: Mandy, Grisha, Me, Maite, Janire

L to R: St Basil's Cathedral, Janire, Me, Kremlin

Same location. L to R: Mandy, Janire, Maite, Me, Grisha

Atas supermarket. We later realised it was an attraction. Kind of the Harrods of Moscow

At night, we went to take the metro to look at the old, grand, metro stations. They were really cool, and mostly done up in marble and mosaic. It seems slightly less spectacular in the face of modern architectural marvels, but it must have been amazing when it was first built. It was well after midnight when I returned to the airbnb.

One of the metro stations: Grisha, Me, Maite. Janire had tendinitis in her knee and went back first.

The next day, I cooked chicken rice with/for my hosts for lunch, which meant that the morning was mostly spent bumming around in the room, which I kind of enjoy. There was also snow, and Iuliia liked that, so after cooking and eating the chicken rice (which turned out pretty good), she decided she was going for a walk, and I could also head out at the same time, so she could show me where I could get a pen that I liked.

I also tried looking for a Russian doll with little luck, and ended up heading back to the Red Square to meet Jimmy, my old walking tour friend from St Petersburg. We were intending to head to Gorky Park, with Janire and Maite from yesterday. Long story short, Gorky Park was closed, with some construction going on for an upcoming event, and I could not create memories with Winds of Change playing in the background. The winds also dictated that we change our location to indoors, so more hot beverages, and a huge spider at Garage Museum that is also on display in Guggenheim in Bilbao (the ladies hometown) later, we headed back to our hostels, rather late at night. 

Aragog.

Maite and Janire, somewhere over the Moskva

Snow at Alexander Gardens. Photo by Jimmy

The next morning, as I prepared to leave, early in the morning, I was thinking, "Already huh?" I also think I'm pretty lucky when it comes to having enough resources and opportunity to travel, but if we had to store memories and experience in luggages, I'd be broke trying to fly back with them.

The trip back was uneventful, and when I saw the welcome home sign in Changi Airport, it was somehow not as welcoming as the one hung on the bnb door.

Oh well, spasibo Russia! Uvidimsja!

TL;DR

Russia was great and I want to go again.