A Citidel and a Dead Guy: Moscow

I arrived in Moscow at Leningradskiy Station at around 10am. Once there I was supposed to amuse myself for the day, then find my host, Krishna’s, place. I had pretty good directions: get on the Metro, take the circle line until the correct station, turn right and walk till I hit an Italian restaurant.

I found the metro, but for some reason I could not for the life of me figure out how to get inside it. I walked around the building numerous times but all I encountered was markets, beggars, and about 300 dubious looking people hanging around the station, smoking, the ground a sea of their spit. Soon I found a map and decided that I would take the red line to where I needed to go and walked to the next metro station. I had decided that to fill in my time I would go and check out the Kremlin as I had a few hours to spare.

After finally getting a metro ticket (I walked away from the counter, forgetting it at first), I jumped on the train, decyphered the Cyrillic name for the closest station on the line to the Kremlin, counted the number of stops and headed on into the central city.

The Kremlin is closed on Thursdays.

I had no idea what to do. I had not seen one tourist office and my Lonely Planet map was pretty bad, but it did have the NZ embassy, so I thought I’d drop in there to see if they could give me some information. After a fourty minute walk (I’m carrying my pack here too) down the wrong street, I didn’t find the embassy, so I walked back. Right, it was only a few hours ’till Krishna said he was going to be home, so I decided to find his place and hang out and read a book.

This was the easiest thing so far, although the guy I asked for help at first tried to tell me that I needed to be back at the original station I had started at! I found Krishna’s apartment, rang the door bell, no one was home. So I sat down to wait. Pretty soon it started to get cold, and by cold I mean it was probably below 0 degrees. People kept coming and going but no sign of Krishna. I kept ringing the door bell just in case there was another entrance to the building. When he was 20 minutes late, I rang again and was answered by his flatmate, Katija. Finally! She let me in, it was an amazing feeling to be out of the cold. We sat down, had some tea and talked. Krishna didn’t make it home ’till 11pm! I’m very glad that Katija was there! That night Ben, the Australian guy I met in Estonia, came around for a chat. It was good to see him again and we made plans to meet up the following day.

Katija also had a very cute kitten!

Katijas Cat

In the morning Ben called to say that he wasn’t feeling so good; an allergic reaction to the chili in the meal which Krishna had cooked. He needed the day to rest but I decided to visit the Kremlin anyway and would meet him later on. I began to walk from Krishna’s into town, it’s about a 40 minute walk to the Kremlin, and passes by the majestic Cathedral of Our Saviour.

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Soon enough I made it to the walls of the Kremlin which borders Alexander Gardens and the entrance inside the citidel.

The Kremlin's Wall

After waiting in what Russians appear to call a queue, which is basically a mass of people pushing to be the first to the counter, I managed to get a studen ticket to get inside. Students pay one sixth the price of regular people. So in I went.

Entrance to the Kremlin

Cathedral Square

My ticket enabled me to wander around the grounds and check out the Cathedral Square in which four white and gold cathedrals stood proudly in the winter sun.

Inside, though, was where the amazement began to set in. Every cathedral was adorned from floor to ceiling with icons painted both directly on the plaster, and on wood facades. Colourful faces and gold halos were beaming from every direction. Lining the bottom of the walls were tombs of important Russian figures throughout history. Unfortunately you were not alowed to take pictures inside any of these places, otherwise I would have taken hundreds, it was astonishing.

The rest of the buildings inside the Kremlin were very St. Petersburgian. They were really the only buildings which I saw in Moscow that seemed to have been built in the same style as the Hermitage or Catherine the Great’s palace.

I still had a bit of time left before I had to meet Ben, so I went for a wander around, over the bridge which crosses the Moscow River to get a better look at the Kremlin.

The Kremlin

The above was the view from to the north. To the south was the sunsetting on the clearest night behind the Cathedral of Our Saviour.

Sunset behind cathderal

Soon it was time to meet Ben. We got some food then headed out to an “expat friendly bar” that I “had to see.” It was true it was crazy inside this place, it was like every kind of bar you can think of in one; club, sports bar, live music venue, cafe, sisha bar, and then later in the night was what Ben had wanted me to see. At aproximately 11pm, about 25 prostitutes just strolled on in. Apparantly they pay and exuberant entrance fee to get in and just act like regular patrons. They dance with you and then pop the question about having fun for payment. Crazy.

We visited a few more clubs and soon the night came to an end. When I got back to Krishna’s I was expecting to meet his other CouchSurfer who was supposed to be turning up that night. He wasn’t there. Ah well, bed time!

In the morning I got up bright and early as I really wanted to see this dead guy. You know, my father, your father, the father of communism: Mr. Lenin. I also realised that I hadn’t visited Red Square which would have been ridiculous. So in to the Kremlin I walked again and got in line for Lenin’s Mausoleum. I passed through the airport-like security checks, and started the slow walk to the building, pased the graves of many important Russian political figures. Soon I was at the mausoleum. This place is surrounded by numerous guards which ridiculous weapons, who loudly pronounce “sssssssh!!” every 3-4 seconds. In I walked, down into the tomb site, a temperature controlled pit of black marble. Next thing I knew I was staring at a very dead man, so dead in fact that he looked like he was never alive, but only a wax figurine. I began to speculate that maybe he still is alive and that this body is indeed wax. I hear they are thinking of closing the venue to the public, though, so maybe no matter the temperature control, he’s beginning to suffer the fate of human breath.

Lenins Mausoleum

Back into the sunlight I emerged and at the other end of red square, facing back towards the State History Museum. No tanks parading through today.

Red Square

My next stop was St. Basil’s Cathedral which is located on the west end of Red square, opposite the State History Museum.

St. Basils Cathderal

This cathedral was like a candy house. If Hansel and Grettle’s witch had been more wealthy, this is what she would have had. I ventured inside. You were also not alowed to take photos in here either, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone, and everyone was doing it, so I followed the crowd. Here you can also get an idea as to what it looked like inside the Kremlin cathedrals.

Inside St. Basils Cathedral

After St. Basil’s I had one last stop in Red Square and that was GUM, the high profile shopping mall with high profile prices, situated in a high profile building. Beautiful architecture, and full of crap that stupid people buy.

I headed back to Krishna’s once more and not long after I returned, the CouchSurfer who was supposed to come last night showed up. It turned out that the previous night he had gotten lost, had no phone number to call and ended up sleeping on the steets of Moscow! Now that is crazy! Apart from the fact that it was below 0 degrees at night, who knows what might have happened. But with a name like Phoenix Mourning-Star, I guess nothing is crazy for you. He was from Colorado and told me that he did his entire college life of five years living out of a car.

Anyway, shortly I was supposed to meet Ben again to go and check out what he had called an “airplane graveyard”, so I asked Phoenix if he wanted to come along too. And also another dude called Ben who had helped Phoenix find Krishna’s apartment. We met Ben (the Australian) and a whole bunch of Moscow based CouchSurfers and headed off on the Metro to an disused aerodrome from the Cold War turned insustrial area. The planes and helicopters were in sight but were surrounded by a large fence. Not to worry, at the price of 50 rubles each, we paid off the guard and he let us in to pretty much do anything we wanted.

There were huge helicopters, missiles, jet planes with afterburners, everything adorned with the sicle and hammer and beautiful handpainted red stars. If the cockpits were smashed, you could even get inside.

But my favourite part was the fact that they planes were parked wing to wing. So at one stage near the end (and I have a video of this), I started from one end, and began to run. Along the left wing (becareful of the flaps!!), over the fuselage, along the right wing, then jump! Onto the next plane’s left wing and so on over the top of around 15 planes in a row. I can only say it was a very interesting experience, running around on the top of warplanes.

Warplane Graveyard

That evening Ben, Phoenix and I met up with some of Ben’s friends including a Cuban guy from Miami who looked like Zorro except with an uneven moustache. This guy had one of the biggest egos I’ve ever met, but he also knew where to go out, so out we went. We only actaully managed to make three stops, the first being a pie shop. There I met Eric, a Nigerian guy who ran a promotion company in Moscow and brought in hiphop acts like Chingy and Jaz-Z and Timberland, he was currently bringing over Chingy at the time. These people didn’t understand how hilarious Chingy is, but anyway.

Our next stop was a student party, held in a student club where we all pretended to be students. The music was terrible, and they kept playing this annoying “king of my castle” song over and over again, which was only topped by a remix of the Pirates of the Carribean theme music which no one else seemed to find absolutely ridiculous. I was told that to get a beer you pay 15 rubles, to get a girl you speak English.

Our next stop was, according to Zorro, the best club in Moscow and a “real club”. It was called London, and had this weird theme of umbrellas and Ducati motorcycles going on. The drinks were horrendously expensive and they were playing the same terrible music as the student party. I think Russia has it’s own dance music where they basically remix anything that they can get their hands on. We stayed there until about 4:30am, and then Ben and I decided it was about time to leave, I was staying at his place and had to get up at 8am to leave for the airport, which I managed to do okay! At 10am when I left Ben’s apartment, it was -2 degrees, when I landed in Athens at 5:30, it was 18 degrees. Aaaaaaahhhh.

Tags: cat, cathderals, churches, citidel, clubbing, cold, CouuchSurfing, crazy, cyrillic, embassy, Kremlin, language, mausoleum, Russia, snow, sore, square, walking