We were only really in the Russian capital for about a day and a half... Our plane arrived on the 25th of September around 3:00 in the afternoon and our train pulled out of the train station at 9:30 at night on the 26th. In other words, we only had time to do a few of the main sites and pick up a few tips about surviving in Moscow...

 

Pour la version francaise (sans accents car nous n'avons pas sur le clavier russe!)  descendez la page 

 

 

1. It can get cold in Moscow! 

 

Although it was a whopping 5 degrees celcius while we were in the city, something felt decidedly off about such a cold temperature during the month of September...

 

We asked a Muscovite what he thought, and he told us that children in Moscow must go to school, no matter how much it is snowing or how icy the roads, if the temerature is over -35 degrees celcius... 

 

 

2. The Kremlin is closed on Thursdays...

 

I guess that we will have to come back again sometime.

 

 

3. Those crazy onions on the top of cathederals

 

Are actually made of forged iron... And all these years, John had thought that they were giant onions...

 

 

4. Walking around Moscow

 

We quickly learned that the most agreable way to walk around the city is not to take the main roads, but to follow the small alleys through the neighborhoods. Here you will bump into the most pedestrians, and best of all there are no cars driving around.

 

This photo was taken on the alley going to our hotel from the nearest metro station.

 

 

5. The Moscow Metro

 

The Moscow Metro is easily one of the best designed, cleanest (sorry Paris) and most beautiful metro systems in the world. First off, the tunnels are very deeps, so you get to take long escalators down through vaulted tunnels. Many of the stations are tastefully decorated with marble pillars, works of art and even chandaliers. Finally, it is very affordiable, costing about $1 per trip. Overall a great experience.

 

 

6. Finding the Trans-Siberian

 

Despite John's (very limited) knowledge of cyrillic, and having written down the details from the girl at the hostel, finding the Trans-Siberian train station and retrieving our "official" tickets was a real challenge.

 

First off, there are three train stations all in the same place... This is not so much a problem in and of it self because all of the trains leave from one of these three stations,which is really just one big station. The problem is figuring out which of the three has the ticket window that will issue you your "offical" tickets for the Trans-Siberian, which can only be retrieved in person.

 

With only a bit more than one hour before our train departed, we ran from one ticket window to the next, trying to find the right one. After waiting in line each clerk would send us to another station or window (one even tried to send us to a kebab restaurant) on the oposite side of the station!  What is more, we could not find a single English speaker to help us!

 

To make a long story short, we finally found the right window, which was actually just a machine, and we were able to retrieve our official tickets. We decided to celebrate with a beer before boarding...

 

 

 

7. Go pee before boarding your train

 

As it turnout out, our victory beer was not such a good idea.. 

 

Toilets on the Trans-Siberian are locked 10 to 20 minutes before and after arrival at a station. In larger cities such as Moscow, this might be one hour before arrival and one hour after leaving the station. 

 

It was a while before we could comfortably settle into our cabin.