Well, firstly, thanks to anyone that's reading this. Internet access in the hostel is pretty good, except my myspace page won't let me write a "blog" for some reason so I'll be using this one instead.
I arrived in Moscow at 1.30am Moscow time, which is three hours ahead of GMT. Having been on the go from 6am that morning our time I was completely knackered and sick of being herded around by airport staff. One thing that doesn't change from country to country is that travelling through airports is a completely unsavoury experience.
I flew out from the much ridiculed terminal 5 of Heathrow, but I have to stress that my bags arrived at Domodedovo no problem at all, so well done to them for getting that right. Terminal 5 is a pretty impressive building it has to be said, but then it should be for all the millions spent on it... the most exciting thing there though was meeting Cliff Richard and Gloria Hunniford - I didn't expect that when I got up that morning! After going through a ridiculous amount of security procedures and waiting around my flight to Budapest left and arrived on time. Waiting in Budapest airport was much the same as Heathrow, except on a smaller scale.
When I arrived in Moscow I was treated to the first difference between British systems, and Russian ones. Getting through passport control involved a stampede of people - I mean people sprinting to get through one gate - and pushing eachother out of the way. Even being next in the line didn't guarantee that you were next to the desk, as I was forcibly pushed out of the way by a tiny Russian woman who just wanted it more than I did. I learnt my lesson however and made sure that didn't happen again.
What happened next can only be described as a slightly terrifying experience. As soon as you have picked your bag off the carousel you get accosted by a myriad of "taxi" drivers wanting to take you into the city centre... a 65km drive. It truly is intimidating being surrounded by 4 burly Russian men shouting "TAXI?! TAXI?!" in your face. One fella was a lot less pushy than the rest (although, don't read that as not-pushy at all... he simply didn't physically grab me like the others) so I went with him. He wanted 2000 rubles to take me to my hostel but I managed to get him down to 1000 (about twenty quid). He spoke very little English, but through our monosyllabic conversations on the way I found out he was 35 and had 7 kids. He will never be a tour guide for Moscow however, as despite living his whole life in the city he declared he "hates Moscow" and that it is a "dangerous dangerous place". Very comforting for a newly arrived lonely tourist.
Despite him claiming he knew where the hostel was, he had no idea at all. Most of the hour and a half long journey was spent with him getting out of the car and running around the streets looking for directions from passers-by. We eventually found it though and I succeeded in waking up the person at the reception desk for enough time to check-in. The hostel itself is pretty good, very central and clean with friendly staff.
The next days I took a trip down to Red Square, and it can only be described as beautiful. Moscow as a city is drab and grey (although completely litter free), but as you enter Red Square it's like another world. The Kremlin, the GUM, the State Museum and, most impressively, St Basil's cathedral all announce themselves on you with a huge amount of fanfare. St Basil's is absolutely amazing, the most impressive piece of architecture I've ever seen. There's a story about it that Ivan the Terrible (great name eh?) commissioned it, and was so pleased that he then had the eyes of the architect that designed it put out so he couldn't make anything that approached it's beauty again.
Today I've spent picking up my tickets for the Trans-Siberian Railway. First stop is Perm, which is sat in the foothills of the Ural mountains and was the setting for Dr. Zhivago (Boris Pasturnak's novel). Despite having been ridiculously excited to get to Moscow, the feeling I have is that my trip starts properly once I'm on the train. Getting the tickets was an experience to say the least - finding the station proved difficult. However, this introduced me to an act of kindness from a stranger that I didn't expect at all. Obviously looking lost standing on a corner holding my map, a young Russian woman came up to me and asked if she could help. She then didn't just give me directions, but took me to the steps of the station, despite it having been back in the direction she'd came from. Who says Russians aren't friendly?
The station itself is a depressing place. Home to hundreds of people who've came to Moscow with the hope of a better life, only to realise that they can't have that and then living day-to-day outside the station. I've never seen so many homeless people together in one place, and spending the money I did on tickets made me feel nothing except guilt, even though it didn't cost that much.
Ok, so that's the first couple of days. Reading this back I've clearly been taken over by the excitement of blogging and this as a result is ridiculously long - so kudos to anyone that reads it all! Don't expect the same thing each time as the novelty wears off is all I'll say!
Take care, I'll write again from Perm.
x
