Moscow

Soooo....it seems as though we are not very disciplined with this whole blogging business! Or we are having too much fun to sit down and write (yeah, let's go for that one!)
Next after St Petersburg was our trip to Moscow, which now seems so far away.
The sunshine, exquisite architecture and clean streets of St P were a stark contrast to the gloomy weather,
chaos and 'big-city' vibe of Moscow.
We will keep this one short (if we are ever gonna catch up with the blog)...so here are our top 3:

Things we loved about Moscow:

1. St Basil's Cathedral: predictable, I know but this Cathedral feels like the heart of Moscow (and is in fact the geometric center of the capital). To start off with it's in the Red Square, with the Kremlin Walls and Lenin's mausoleum right next to it. The queue to get in was surprisingly short, and the Cathedral consists of  9 separate chapels with beautifully painted walls and ornate ceilings . However, for me the outside made the biggest impression with it's swirling colourful domes. It reminds Sav of Disneyland!

2. The Tretyakov Gallery: We went to this gallery as Sav's grandfather had often told us a story about one of the paintings which made a lasting impression upon him. It is a painting by Repin called 'Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan'. Her grandfather used to say that legend has it that this painting of Ivan the Terrible right after he kills his son and heir also called Ivan (just to confuse matters) is so realistic, that one visitor to the gallery became distressed and put a knife right through the middle of the canvass. It really is a very compelling painting, and the despair in Ivan's eyes upon realising what he has done feels very powerful and authentic.

3. We also really loved a little cafe called 'Люди Как Люди' http://www.ludikakludi.com/ which I think means 'People as People'. It was really close to our hotel (more about that later) and was just about the only place in otherwise extortionately expensive Moscow where we could get reasonably-priced food and drinks. They also did really good coffee and tasty salads and cakes.They also had free wi-fi, which is pretty much available everywhere in Moscow.

Things we did not like about Moscow:

1. Our hotel 'Russian Dream'...by now most of you have probably heard the story about this hotel, but I think it's worth commemorating in the blog. So we arrive in Moscow and our taxi drops us off in front of this derelict building...we look for a sign for the hotel, and can't find this anywhere. Eventually, our driver asked some people and it turns out the 'hotel' was in the building on the second floor.  We dragged our bags up to be told by a teenage boy with bleached hair that the double room we had booked was 'broken' until tomorrow, and that they could offer us the 'twin room'. Words cannot describe the size of this 'room', so it's best that you just look at the picture. Suffice to say that Sav's shoulders could not fit in the space between the wall and the bunk beds and we had to put our backpacks on the top bunk, while we were on the bottom one. There was also no window or any kind of ventilation! Surprisingly we actually managed to get a few
hours sleep there. The next day we were moved to the best room, which was a more normal sized (although still dirty, with suspicious stains on the wall) room. To be fair, the hotel was very cheap for Moscow standards (£30 a night), so I guess you get what you pay for.

2. Which brings me on to the prices...I think Moscow is 1.5, if not twice as expensive as London. You cannot get away with less that £50-70 if you want to see anything. One day we walked into an average-looking restaurant to hide from the rain, and the cheapest item (a bowl of soup) was £45! Apparently, Moscow is also the city with most billionaires in the world...




3. The bureaucracy: this was probably our pet hate in Moscow and was perfectly exemplified by the procedure for getting tickets to the Kremlin Armory. So, we queued in a massive queue in front of the Kremlin for around 30 minutes and were keen to get tickets to the Armory and the Diamond Fund. Once we arrived to the front of the queue, we were told that limited numbers of tickets to the Armory are only sold 3/4 times a day, half an hour before the 'tour' of the Armory and that we need to come back in an hour and a half. We were also told that tickets to the Diamond Fund are sold in a separate building altogether! At the end, we just got a 'general' Kremlin ticket as the thought of coming back and queuing again with no guarantee of getting Armory tickets was a bit much. I guess if we'd done better research, or gone with a tour things might have been easier, but hindsight and all that :)


All in all, although we loved certain things about Moscow, we were very glad to get on the Trans-Mongolian train on our fourth day!

St.Petersburg

Ok, so we’re finally going to update our blog starting with beautiful St Petersburg (known as Leningrad during Communist times). We were so lucky to start our journey in such an amazing city,  the cultural capital of Russia. One of the first things we noticed about St P were the many canals and the elaborate and colourful architecture of just about every building in the city. 

Our hostel was very central and we could easily walk everywhere. The hostel was amazing, and easily the best hostel we have stayed in . You can check out Sav’s review of the hostel here

 

 
On our first day we climbed St Isaac’s Cathedral, which after about 100 winding stairs provided superb views of this amazing city. 



  
Inside, the Cathedral was both ornate and elaborate with paintings, mosaics and an incredible iconostas. This Cathedral interior was our favourite in St. Petersburg by far.

St. Petersburg is one of the cleanest cities we have ever visited. 

We noticed that cleaning of the streets took place daily, which we had not seen before in such a major city. This really adds to the welcoming feel of the city, which is evident throughout.

We later went to the Hermitage Museum, which alongside the British Museum (and possibly the Louvre) houses the most rich collection of treasures.

 There probably are no words in which to describe this museum that do it justice. The interior is like a palace, with the Jordan Staircase and the Golden Peacock Clock (designed by British clockmaker James Cox) rooms being two of the loveliest spaces there (pictures).

 The artworks in the Hermitage are astounding: Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse and even Michelangelo’s sadly unfinished sculpture ‘The Crouching Boy’ are housed in there. 

The low points were the cafe, which was tiny, crowded and sold horrible food, probably the worst tasting tuna ‘salad’ sandwich I’ve had for about £5 . 

 The other funny/sad part were the hordes of tourists (which we fondly call ‘Walkers’ after the zombies from the series ‘The Walking Dead’), that swiftly passed through rooms and rooms of priceless art, only told by their guide ‘This is the Van Gogh room’ and slowing down enough so that they could snap a picture or ten. 

The highlight of the next day was our visit to Peterhof Palace and Gardens, which did not start very smoothly. We were told where to queue for tickets for the 40-min boat ride, and ended up in the most disorganised “sardine-factory”-like queue that would have left most British people in utter dismay! We were squashed from every direction for about an hour, while just trying to purchase two tickets, with people constantly trying to push in. Once we obtained the evidently much sought-after tickets, we then walked freely for about 5 meters, to then once again be squashed into another queue to actually get on the boat. This is when we met a hilarious, pushy, and entitled Russian woman with a mullet haircut who proceeded to shout and push her way through approximately 100 tightly-squashed people to the front of the queue. This was all well and good, however although she achieved her mission eventually, her husband and child remained at the back of queue, looking helpless and embarrassed. This only got worse as she then proceeded to shout and wildly gesture at them to do the same, and did not stop until they meekly followed her to the front! Everyone was shocked at this behaviour, even the Russians, who are quite used to similar shenanigans!   

We have to say that the mad queues actually were completely worth it, as Peterhof Palace was out of this world.

I think the word palace is sometimes thrown around lightly, but Peterhof really does live up to it. It is one of the most lavish and beautiful places we’ve visited, and certainly with the most exquisite fountains. The gardens were also very pretty and surprisingly peaceful. 

 

 

In the evening, we also visited the world-famous Mariinsky Theatre to see the ballet (‘Le Corsaire’). Although we booked two of the last remaining and cheapest seats, which were quite far back, we loved the experience, the dancers were so talented and elegant, the music was first-rate, and the costumes were amazing!    

On our last day in St P, we visited the State Marine Academy where my grandfather completed his Navy training. It was an emotional experience for me, but I could really see why he always spoke so highly and lovingly of St Petersburg, which completely exceeded our expectations in every way!

Testing 1,2,3..is this thing on?

Hello World!

We are finally going to start updating this blog with some impressions from our travels. Look out for our first post in the next day or so. Until then please enjoy this beautiful landscape , which can be found in Mongolia ;)

Amazing Mongolian Steppes