Sunny Moscow

Well, we arrived in Moscow yesterday morning at 5am on the overnight train from St Petersburg. We shared a cabin with two Russian men, one snored lots and the other was very friendly and translated between us and the provodnik (scary woman that guards each carriage and sells bedding).

Our last day in St Petersburg was spent metro hopping and checking out all the amazing underground architecture. And we did the same here this morning. Apparantly it was part of Stalin's great plan - to build a socialist underworld. It's crazy - some of these stations are like ballrooms. Here are a couple of Moscow's finest...





It's still pretty damn freezing here, although i think it has warmed up a bit. More like -20 now. But in Moscow it feels totally different. In St Petersburg the roads were cleared and the wind blew away any fresh snow, so only really gardens and parks were white, but it felt so much colder there because of the wind. Here all the roads and pavements are covered in compacted snow and ice, so it looks more wintery, but it gets pretty treacherous! Walking into the metro is like being at Glastonbury indoors, it's so slushy!

We stick out a bit. wearing our ski clothes, looking like we were about to hit the slopes while everyone else wears jeans and fur coats. But we are toasty warm inside! My god, I have never seen so many animal skins walk the streets. Elle MacPherson seems to be the preferred fur model here, she seems to be in every magazine wearing a black mink. To say the least, I haven't managed to pull off the Russian Dr Zivago chic that hit the catwalks before I left home. I have, however, been snapped up as the star of the latest Michelin campaign.

Had a bit of a contact lens incident yesterday morning and ended up in an eye clinic. In and out in 5 minutes, for about 4 quid. He had to tweezer out lots of little shredded pieces of contact lens. Luckily we had a 'buddy' for the morning (as part of our Russia Experience trip) and she took us there and translated for us. Buddy Lina walked us around the city for a few hours and told us loads about recent Russian history, what it was like to bring up kids during the 80s when there was no food, and how much the country had changed in her lifetime. Usually i get a bit bored listening to guides, but this was really cool, i was really interested.

Tim finally got to say, 'Gremlin's in the Kremlin', and hasn't stopped doing so, in the obligatory Russian accent. Which sometimes doesn't sound that different to the Mexican attorney voice. The Kremlin was pretty cool. Lots of beautiful old buildings and churches. And we wandered around the Red Square too, saw St Basil's cathedral and Lenin's mausoleum. We might go in tommorrow morning, although I reckon if it's anything like Ho Chi Minh's body, it's definately come out of Madame Tussauds.

The imposing walls of the Kremlin (and Putin's official office)

St Basil's Cathedral - well, a bit of it

Cathedral of Jesus Christ our Saviour (originally intended by Stalin to be a swimming pool)

I always said I wanted to see a ballet when i was in Russia, so last night we went to the Kremlin State Palace Theatre to see Giselle. The building's really retro, with mosaics of the hammer and sickle everywhere. It's where the Soviet Parliament used to meet in the days of the USSR. Anyway, I only really wanted to see lots of pretty ballerinas in tutus like in Swan Lake, and all the costumes last night were a bit Robin Hood. And Tim was utterly bored anyway, having to sit through a ballet, so half way through we made our escape. At least we got a taster!

Anyway, time is nearly up in Moscow - 3 days is not enough! we are leaving tommorrow afternoon on another over night train to Ekaterinburg, but we have a lot longer on the train so will get to see some countryside scenery. Until then... here's Tim with his better looking girlfriend, Daisy...