Moscow - Day 1

We arrived at Belorusskaya train station in Moscow at around 10:30 in the morning and were greeted by a man holding a sign "McKnight/Cowley". I was immediately shocked at how warm it was. I was expecting highs of around -7 since reading forecasts regularly in papers along the way. Apparently it snowed only a week ago but they seem to be pretty confident about it being the last snow fall and insist that 6 months of freezing conditions is quite enough.

As the driver took us to our hotel which was about 30 minutes away from the city center, he handed me our Trans-Siberian tickets then used his mobile to make a call. After talking for a short while he handed the phone to Ali in the back seat allowing her to speak to our guide. She arranged for the guide to pick us up at the hotel at 2:00pm which gave me just enough time for a short nap. The hotel is pleasant if not exactly charming. The staff are a little on the unfriendly side and seemingly don't take much of a liking to foreigners. I dismissed the whole experience as hopefully being a misrepresentation of the city as a whole and continued to look forward to our tour.

Elena (our guide) took us on the metro to the city and started the tour with a walk through Manezhnaya square just outside the Kremlin. We then walked through Red Square where I saw the next big famous landmark of my big adventure, St. Basil's cathedral also known as The Church of the Savior (and nicknamed the Pineapple Church by Victorian travelers). This whimsical structure is probably as much a symbol of Moscow as Tower Bridge is of London. It's an incredible building with nine varying ornate domes painted in bright colours and patterns. Our guide told us that it was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to celebrate his victory over the Tators, and completed in 1561. According to legend, Ivan was so pleased with the result that he had the architects eyes removed so that he could never produce anything to equal or surpass it.

We passed the Kremlin but agreed that tomorrow would be a better day to visit the grounds within. Elena then took us along the main boulevard passing many other attractions along the way. She called her dealer and arranged 2 tickets for the opera tonight at Moscow's famous Bolshoi theatre. We got front row seats for Fallstaff. It was a choice between opera tonight or the Bolshoi ballet tomorrow, and taking into consideration that I had already seen Bolshoi's Swan Lake performance in Chicago, I decided opera would be my personal preference and Ali kindly agreed.

I have noticed several things that are, for me, starting to characterise and summarise the city of Moscow: dirty Lada's (like most of the cars being driven around here, they are filthy from the never-ending snow and slushy roads), drinking on the streets (I guess because there aren't really any bars here), ridiculously cheap vodka (around 3 pounds and upwards) and finally, the most ornate underground metro stations I have ever seen with trains to match - we are planning to visit as many of the more notable ones tomorrow night.

Russia is still evidently depressed - both socially and economically. Shopping malls are a relatively new concept here in Russia and Moscow only has two of them.

Elena conveniently ended the tour stopping at an intersection on the boulevard offering all kinds of places to eat. We chose the Mongolian BBQ which was good except I was under the impression it was all you can eat and filled my bowl with a modest sized portion only to then discover that this wasn't the case. Still hungry, we had just enough time for coffee and a dessert at a nice place down the street.

Opera was amazing. If I wasn't appreciating the orchestra below, or the view of the singers from my binoculars, I found myself very relaxed thinking about all kinds of different things. We saw Guiseppe Verdi's Falstaff (La Scala Milan production 1980). The interesting thing about this production is that it wasn't the usual dramatic telling of a sad story that I had come to expect from opera but more a very light hearted comedy. After reading notes about the show, I discovered that this particular production was very different not just in terms of content, but construction which basically meant that regular opera fans would find it difficult to follow because it doesn't follow the same structure of traditional opera. From my perspective, it was still very enjoyable and I had a great time.