We woke disorienated and confused - where were we? why were we rocking from side to side? Suddenly the piped music was turned on and Ra-ra-rasputin was reverberating around the carriage. It all became clear, we were on a train, and we had made it to Moscow! And no, there was not an off-switch to be found.
Next minute we were scrambling for our bags and racing into the tiny narrow corridor to be the first off the train. What now? To be perfectly honest it was really early in the morning so we just transferred to our hotel, left our luggage trustfully in reception and were introduced to a new system of trams, buses and trains. We were tired but our courageous leader would not let us lag behind. She was over the moon to be introducing us to her beloved home.
After tiny Scandinavia and meticulously-planned St Petersburg the sheer scale of Moscow was overwhelming - a city of 13 million people sprawled haphazardly as far as the eye could see. After catching a tram to the station we were introduced to the Moscow Metro system - nine different lines crisscrossing the city and trains packed with people coming every on to two minutes. The pack of people pushing onto the train proved too much, and it was panic-stations for a minute as we realised that Megan had been left behind on the platform - luckily however she managed to catch up with us two stations later, otherwise Kate would have earnt the tag "worst friend ever" for losing Megan in the underground warrens of the metro.
After this brief scare it was time to emerge into the bright daylight of tourist central - the Red Square and begin to do what we do best by taking lots of photos. After offloading all our bags and cameras on our tourleader, we were fasttracked through our first queue of the day, for Lenin's mausoleum. We were given a stern warning and led trhough metal dectectors before walking along the walls of the Kremlin. Along the way we passed more guards, and were vetted again at the entrance.
The unspoken rules of seeing Lenin seemed to be, do not walk out of line, do not speak, do not look at the wall (only at the displayed corpse), do not pause or walk at too slow a pace, do not run or overtake people walking at a slow pace, do not smile at any of the guards who stand in every corner enforcing these imaginary rules with furiously furrowed eyebrows and squinty eyes and do not think that once you have passed through the mausoleum you can walk off the path. Disobeying any of these rules, or the extensive list of rules that are plastered over the entrance will result in... I don't really know but we weren't willing to find out. We walked past the graves of Russia's procession of Communist Party Leaders and then emerged free at the other end to visit the grand and ever colourful St Basils Cathedral.
Inside the Cathedral were 9 separate churches. This gave the opportunity for more walls that could be painted excessively and not one but 9 impressive altars. They were very small however and the windy corridors confusing to navigate. We were happy to head back out and into the sunshine to gaze once again on the famous Red Square.
The thing about today was that we were matching. In St Petersburg we had innocently stumbled into the clothing enterprise equivalent to Jay Jays and found a range of t-shirts sporting the phrase "Happy Days" , so frequently coined by our Topdeck tour leader that we couldn't resist the purchase. To make these souvenir shirts even more exciting we needed to find a place worthy enough to take photos on our first day of styling these fashionable items. The red square it was - here is one shot that will be remembered by us both for as long as we think of Moscow.
By this stage food - and more importantly coffee - was becoming a priority. However, it was back down into the Metro for a tour of the stations. A strange thing to do in a city, you might be thinking, to spend an hour or so just travelling underground to different platforms. Then again, most metro systems don't have chandeliers, marble and granite walls, mosaic pictures of the revolution or vaulted ceilings. CityRail take note: you can expect a letter of suggestions when we get back home...
Finally it was time for a lunch /coffee break before heading up to Victory Hill and the WWII memorial, where Megan climbed a tank (or 3) and we discovered that we both needed more caffine. By this stage it was almost time for the evening's entertainment so we said goodbye to our tourmates and went off to satisfy our immature urges and pay a visit to the Moscow circus!
We were in heaven. Before even buying our tickets - a calculated event involving stalking others to find the office, loittering casually outside to check seats were available, discreetly whispering about what coloured monopoly money notes we would need to produce and finally, pointing at a picture and producing cash whilst holding up two fingers and courageously suggesting 'dva' as a Russian word for 2 - we were jumping up and down excitedly because of the sheer number of toddlers and young children. This was clearly going to be a show we would enjoy.
Outside were clown statues that we subelty elbowed Russians away from so we could get our own photos. Inside animals lined the circular big top posing for photos. Gorillas, orangutans, leopards and poodles and bears! We dodged the popcorn sellers and found our seats just in time. These show was a merry 2 hours of fun. Tightrope walkers, body contournists, ribbon climbers, clowns, horse riding, cats and ferrets and an amazing finale of jokers with springboards and on stilts. We left feeling very giddy and full of energy.
Heading back to our hotel we passed numerous signs of Moscows night life just starting up. Bands set up anywhere the acoustics sound good for anyone to rock up we some beers and enjoy good music. A Soviet Exhibition Park with an enormous ferriswheel court our attention, but like all things Moscow the distance we needed to walk was far greater than expected and we were so tired upon our arrival at the gates that we realised the walk to the actual ride would take away all the fun of getting there. We went back to the hotel that night feeling like we had barely scraped the surface of such a fascinatly huge city.
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