russia: moscow with a visitor

I like having visitors, particularly those who are already independent travelers in their own right. This is important because visitors need to be able to entertain themselves during the day while I'm at work.

Sometime in early summer my friend Rachel messaged me asking about potentially coming to Russia. She'd found dates with cheap flights, and was keen to come. I was thrilled, as Rachel has lived in numerous countries as well, as well as having done lots of other international traveler.

It wasn't hard to get the paperwork she needed for her visa, and we got the dates set, and life was good. Rachel's flight arrived Monday evening, it was easy for me to meet her at the airport after school finished for the day.

The next morning Rachel slept in a bit while I worked, then met met at lunch. We had lunch with a couple other teachers, everyone got along well. After lunch we walked to Red Square. I've been there plenty of times, but I'm always willing to go back.

Every visitor to Moscow should see Red Square, it's one of the iconic spots in the city. It seems to me that many international media broadcasts about Russia are done from in or near Red Square. The photos of St Basil's cathedral at one end are well known, everyone takes one.

We also checked out GUM, the state department store on one side of the square. The mall is always decorated for the season or holiday, I like seeing what the current decorations look like.

After GUM we walked to Zaryadye Park, one of the newest parks in the city. Fun to wander around, partly to people watch and partly just to walk. Much of the park is carefully landscaped, and there are regular decorations put in, so it's always interesting to see.

After leaving the park we walked toward Christ the Saviour Cathedral, which is big and has gold domes on top. It's a fairly new church, though there is a long religious history in the actual location. I don't know why, but the doors were locked when we got there, argh. Oh well.

The next day Rachel did a bike tour around the city while I worked all day. Thursday night we had drinks at a bar near work, then went to a diner for dinner. Yum.

That weekend we took the train up to St Petersburg, arriving back in Moscow Monday morning. Dinner Monday night was at Cafe Soup. This place does have 'real' food on the menu, but the focus is the 44 different types of soup. They even have the option of a 'soup flight' like you can get a beer flight at a brewery.

I'm happy to admit I liked my dessert soup even more than my main course soup, which was already pretty good.Tuesday I did my normal teaching in the morning, then met Rachel again for lunch. We went to an Asian restaurant I like, enjoying huge bowls of pho.

From there we hopped back on the metro, going out to Izmailovo. I've been there enough times that I'm not a huge fan anymore, but I do think it's a neat place for visitors to explore. Izmailovo has a great market for souvenirs, though since the weather wasn't great while we were there, and it was low season, there weren't as many vendors as usual.

Far better than the market area is the park, which is basically across the road. (Thought you have to go a long way around to get into the property.) It was still raining, but I Rachel was okay with walking in the rain if I was, and I didn't want to hold her back on her last day in Russia.

We walked around the island in the middle of Izmailovo park, and ended up with a decent sunset looking back over Izmailovo market.

From there we went to another great dinner at a place called Lepim i Varim. Rachel loves researching places to eat when she travels, while I don't give it as much thought. Since the soup place had been so awesome I had no trouble following her to what she'd picked out for this last dinner.

Lepim i Varim specializes in pelmeni, basically Russian dumplings. I'm not a huge fan, because most of those I've had in Russia have been from a place where the smell is always slightly off. Going to this restaurant totally changed my mind.

Both of us ordered two main course bowls of pelmeni, and a dessert bowl of pelmeni. YUM. (And Instagram worthy, hee hee.)

The next morning I was sad to put Rachel in a taxi to the airport. Since her visa is good for three years, I hope to see her again in Russia before I move out of the country.

russia: moscow: st basil's cathedral

Since our train from Yelets back to Moscow arrived just before 0800 on a Sunday, we decided to eat breakfast then go see something in Moscow before going home. All three of us knew that if we went home to take a nap, we probably wouldn't make it back out of our flats at all.

After breakfast we walked from Paveletsky train station into the middle of the city, just because we could. Never turn down a chance to enjoy nice weather in spring in Moscow. Our walk brought us to the back side of Red Square, so we took a team photo in front of St Basil's Cathedral without too too many people in our way.

Since our plan the weekend before hadn't worked out, we decided to try again to see (go in,) St Basil's Cathedral. The first time I saw it was in 2003, when I was on a tour with a German group. Back then I remember not understanding a word the guide said, and I couldn't read anything locally, so I basically had no idea what was going on. I have vague memories of thinking that the outside was fantastic, but the inside was really boring.

That being said, St Basil's is a recognized sight, all over the world. We figured if we live in Moscow, we really should see one of the world's most famous sights.

The official name is the Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed, but I'm pretty sure no one would recognize that name. Basil is the English version of the name Vasily, which explains the slight variation in names. It was built from 1555-1561, with Ivan the Terrible giving the orders for construction. Rumor has it that the architect was blinded so he could never again design something so beautiful, but that isn't true.

The building is said to resemble the shape of a bonfire rising into the sky, a shape that doesn't exist in the rest of Russian architecture. 

The Soviet state took over the building in the 20s, since they weren't fans of religion at all. It has been run as a museum ever since.

The entry fees change, depending on the time of year, and I think your nationality. Russians pay less than foreigners, something that drives me batty. Just because I'm not originally from here does not mean I have more money. Argh.

We paid our fee, our tickets were checked, and we were in. Almost as soon as you enter you see a small room with an iconostasis on one side, and glass walls on two sides. In this room there is often a service taking place, so we heard singing as well. 

You're not supposed to take photos or videos of this, we honoured that request.

The rest of the first floor is what you'd typically see in an Orthodox religious museum. Crosses, icons, etc... Each slightly different, most with explanations written in Russian and English. The rooms are small, it can get rather crowded trying to move around, and make sure you see all the rooms.

There is a set of stairs tucked into the corner of one of the rooms, this is the only way for visitors to get up to the second level. There is a sign stating that you can't come back down once you've gone up to the second level. The exit from the whole thing is from the second level.

I liked the second level a whole lot better. It was less crowded, but there was still plenty to see. There are a few more iconostases on display, and you can see the painting on all the walls. Very very nice. I also really liked the windows on the second level, you get to look out over Red Square, and toward the Kremlin as well. 

After taking heaps of photos, and learning a little, we decided we had seen everything. We exited onto a crowded Red Square, enjoying the amazing spring weather.

We took the metro to a restaurant Claire and I had visited once before and really enjoyed, an Indian restaurant. It's the kind of place where you don't know what you'll be eating ahead of time, you just eat what they put in front of you. SO GOOD.

russia: moscow but not the way we planned

When we planned our year of traveling, we left a few weekends for exploring Moscow. This weekend we planned to see a couple major sights in the city, but it didn't turn out the way we expected.

Claire, Angela, and I met up at a metro station then made our way up to ground level. 

Our first planned sight was St Basil's Cathedral. This might be the most recognized sight in the entire city, and of the city around the world. Legend says the man who designed it was later blinded so he could never create anything so amazing again. This probably isn't true, since he is credited with other architectural work around the country.

We got to the edge of Red Square to discover it was completely blocked off, and empty. We weren't the only people surprised by the closing, argh. We had no way of figuring out why it was closed, or when it might open again.

Hoping that St Basil's might be open by another entry, we made our way through GUM, the former state department store. Unfortunately, as we walked out the other side, we found Red Square blocked off on that side as well. The other side of St Basil's was also fenced off. None of us know enough Russian to ask why it was all closed, or when it might open again.

Even though we wanted to be on the square and in the church, we took advantage of the empty square to take a couple photos, since it is quite rare that it is totally empty.

To get back to where we wanted to go, we went through the mall again, and decided to take part in an old Russian tradition: eating ice cream. We're pretty sure the cones had been scooped out while a while ago, but the taste wasn't too bad. It was another example of the Russian disregard for queues, we saw people coming to the window of the ice cream stall from several different directions.

After our ice cream we tried to get to our next destination, but were foiled again. The entrance to the state history museum is just inside the gates to Red Square, and they were closed. Argh.

After some discussion, we decided to walk to Lubyanka Square. The name Lubyanka struck fear into the hearts of Soviets for decades, because the building was the home of the NKVD/KBG, and now the FSB. All were secret police organizations, with no public transparency. There was a lot of fear that if your loved one disappeared, they had been taken to the basement of Lubyanka, which meant you weren't going to see them again.

In the middle of a small park on one side of the square is a large stone. This stone came from the Solevetsky Islands, it is a memorial to those who died in the Gulag system; the first such camp was in the Solevetsky Islands. It's a small memorial, put there in the 90s. (Side note, there is another such memorial in St Petersburg, which is a lot closer to the islands.)

While we were taking our photos Claire was google-ing and wikipedia-ing, and found out that one of the world's worst serial killers used to live in a building on this square. When you start clicking on links you never know what you'll find!

Darya Saltykova was responsible for the death of more than 70 people! This is definitely not widely known Russian history, for obvious reasons.

Since our original plans for the day had already completely changed, we came up with something new to do for the next few hours: seeing more of the city's metro system. I convinced the girls to ride the southern half of the dark green line, getting off at each stop just to see what the station looked like.

The most interesting station turned out to be the very last station, Alma Atinskaya. The station is pretty new, it was opened in 2012. 

The original name of the station was Brateyevo, the neighborhood in which it is located. The name was changed for reasons of international relations: Kazakstan had renamed one of it's stations in the old capital of Almaty, to Moskva, to honour relations between the two countries. Russia decided to do the same.

I liked the decoration of the station, just because it was different from other stations. The sculptures spaced along the station made me think of giant ice scrapers, like those used to scrape off the windscreen of a car.

From there, we made our way back into the city center and found a new (to us,) restaurant to try, a place with Korean BBQ. Yum.

Another successful day with friends, yahoo!!

russia: september, my first month in moscow

I moved to Moscow, Russia!! The move sortof fell into my lap, it was something I'd thought about vaguely ever since moving to Kyiv, Ukraine, but hadn't pushed for in any way.

I arrived in Moscow at an airport, my employers had booked a taxi to pick me up and drop me off at a hostel in the city center, not too far from school. My very first afternoon/evening in the city I went for a walk, since I was temporarily staying in the city center. I wanted to go see Red Square, because I now lived in Moscow. Unfortunately, when I got to one of the entrances, I found security, and a ticket booth. It turned out that an annual military band show takes place around this time of year, so the square is blocked off.

Even though the square was blocked off I got to watch one of the international bands in town for the show, as they stood around in an informal practice session. Bagpipes galore, what a welcome to the city.

I also stumbled upon a changing of the guard ceremony just outside the Kremlin walls. It was fun to watch, I don't know how often the ceremony happens, or how much the uniforms change throughout the year.

The next evening I went for another walk, I got to see the sunset, which was lovely. I was already discovering that Moscow has quite a few lovely skyline views. During this walk I crossed a bridge over the Moscow River, I love bridges. Just on the other side of the bridge I spotted one of the so called 'Seven Sisters,' (which is how foreigners know the buildings, locals have a different nickname,) the one now known as a Radisson Hotel. It used to be called the Hotel Ukraine. All of the Seven Sisters look generally the same, the shape of the buildings is rather iconic.

During the first few days we had meetings at school, and I figured out accomodation.Taking a chance, I decided to live with another teacher at the school. She had just moved to Moscow as well, after living in another Russian city for four years.

We figured it would be a bit cheaper for us to live together, and we hoped we'd get along. (I already have one story of a bad flattie, I hoped she wouldn't be the same.)

The first weekend in September, we moved into our new flat. Moving meant bringing my pack, purse, and day pack. I'd sent everything else by post from Kyiv, I just hoped it would arrive, and soon.

The worst part of moving is the time it takes to get settled into your new accomodation: figuring out where to put things, where to find a grocery store, where to find public transport, etc... When you find a grocery store you have to do the first buy, which always ends up costing a fair amount, as you have to buy things like salt and pepper. 

They don't cost a lot, but all the little costs add up, and when you first move somewhere you don't typically have a lot of money laying around. At least I don't.

Obviously, I went for a few walks in my new neighborhood. I had a fantastic view of Moscow State University from my bedroom window, I wanted to see what the rest of the area looked like. Much of Moscow State is in one very very very big building, it's more than a little impressive.

I walked to and from school a few times in the first month. The walk was under two hours, and the weather was good, so why not? A chance to burn calories and see more of the city.

During the month some of the stuff I'd shipped from Kyiv arrived, yahoo!! I got notifications at school that there were packages waiting for me at the post office, so I went there after school one evening. I had to order a taxi to bring everything to the flat, thankfully the four big bags fit in the trunk.

I was very used to the main post office in Kyiv, which is very grand; the post office I went to this time was not at all grand. It actually took me a while to find, as it is in a building behind the building on the street. 

That probably doesn't make any sense, but I was the same amount of confused in finding the office. At least it wasn't too far from school.

My school schedule this year gives me Monday mornings and Wednesday afternoons off. I intended to make use of these half days off to see the city as much as possible.

One of the Wednesday afternoons in September I walked to an area called Moscow City, which is basically a business center. A whole bunch of office buildings, with modern architecture. The weather involved low clouds, which covered the tops of the buildings, I loved the way it all looked.

During this month I got to see a number of beautiful sunrises. Absolutely gorgeous. These views made me fall in love with the city pretty quickly, and it's always good to love the city in which you live.

Another Wednesday afternoon I walked from school all the way to a museum reserve area called Kolomenskoye. It was originally a royal estate, now mostly open to the public. I went into a couple churches on the property, watched a sunset, and realized I'd only seen a small portion of the estate. Royals in Russia used to have quite the life!

On several of the weekends I got caught up in watching tv shows until late each day, but managed to get myself out of the flat for evening walks. One of those walks I went back to the university area, as the building is lit up at night. There is a big pond on one side of the building, I liked seeing the building reflected in the black water.

This side of the building was not too far away from an overlook giving an amazing view of the city. I could pick out some of the Seven Sisters, I could see a convent, I could see the river, and I could see a sports stadium. Awesome.

Another nighttime walk I went in the other direction, ending up at Park Pobedy, (known in English as Victory Park.)

Many parts of the park were lit up, and I had another city view. There was a museum on one side of this area, something military I think. I was way after closing hours, but I hoped to return and see the museum at another time.

There were several fountains still running, with lights making the water different colours. I loved the way everything looked. Even though I felt like it was fairly late on a Sunday evening, there were still plenty of people out and about, enjoying a great city at the end of the weekend.

Even though it was only September, the view from my bedroom showed me how quickly fall comes in Moscow. The leaves started to change colour pretty quickly, I had the best view possible for watching it happen. There was a park directly across the street from our flat, so my bedroom view showed the trees. Sooo pretty.

I love Moscow, I can't wait to see more!