On one end of the pedestrian-only Arbat street, arguably one of the oldest surviving street in Moscow is a colourful wall built on the theme of international friendship. School children were asked to paint each tile of the wall back in the Soviet times, now the wall is covered in graffiti (and chewing gum).

I was travelling with a Spanish couchsurfer and he mentioned that on his hometown in Spain, there is a similar graffiti-filled wall. Perhaps I will check it out when I get some offers for cheap holidays to Lanzarote.

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Russia is among the few countries in the world which imposes conscription on male citizens, although there are a number of ways to avoid military draft. One can easily see a large number of soldiers in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

As I was walking in the Kremlin, a large number of guards appeared in the central court out of nowhere. There was reassignments and lot of movements which I image was for changing the guards posted at various administrative and military buildings inside the Kremlin.

I find it quite strange to see so many youngsters in the military during peace times (Russia has over 1 million troops). In any case, this ratio is nothing compared to Israel, where soldiers walk everywhere with their guns. It was quite scary initially (I hadn’t seen a real gun until the age of 26) but then I got used to it.

Peace, comrades.

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The Church at Bogolyubovo, near the Golden Ring city of Vladimir

Situated to the north eastern side of Moscow are a number of ancient towns that were key to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church. These cities are collectively called the “The Golden Ring.”

The exact number of cities that form the Golden Ring is unclear. I visited a number of these places, all day trips from Moscow and conveniently connected by public transport.

Sergiev Posad

Sergiev Posad is one of those simple towns: an important temple, one central street and little houses around the vicinity. Since its located just outside Moscow (60km), a short day trip is easily doable. I’ll recommend going in the evening and attending the Orthodox mass – with full fledged bell ringing and vocal chanting – its a wonderful spectacle.

Vladimir

I only passed through this city in a friend’s car, stopping briefly to marvel the beautiful domes of this church. “Its the same inside”, my friend said, to which I nodded in approval.

Suzdal

Suzdal was the third city I went to and boy the timing couldn’t have been better. Little did I know that, as birds were flying home for the evening, I would be listening to a mind blowing performance of orthodox church bells at sunset. It was quite a performance! Suzdal was probably the only place where I did not find any McDonalds restaurant (its a craze in Russia)! Neither did I see any visible signs of westernization such as glossy stores.

Pereslavl Zalessky

I went to Pereslavl Zalesky during my last few days in Moscow and by then church fatigue had hit me hard. I had seen so many Russian churches, that I grew tired of them. They all started appearing the same after a while just what I faced after two weeks of Bhutan’s Buddhist monasteries and Peru’s colonial churches.

Worth mentioning Orthodox churches (although not in Golden Ring) are Bogolyubovo’s Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, Istra’s New Jerusalem monastery and Dimitrov‘s.

These cities are located on the outskirts of Moscow and it is fascinating to see how the scenery changes from hectic urban to leisurely rural, with people smiling at you, cheap food and overall relaxed pace of doing things.

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Dmitrov (Дмитров/द्मीत्रोव) is a town on the northern outskirts of Moscow and close to the Sheremetyevo airport from where I was scheduled to fly out to Mumbai. This town was not in Lonely Planet guidebook and so I didn’t know about it at all. When my friend Evgeny suggested this place he had heard, I was delighted.

Me: “What’s there?”
Evgeny: “I don’t really know.”
Me: “Super, lets go!”

We drove there and, to my surprise, Dmitrov turned out to be a cute little town – with a high embankment around the Kremlin and statue of a giant with whom I battled fiercely.

I had fun time here:

• First, walking on top of the embankment and watching the church in the shallow trough was quite a change in scenery; very different from other towns I had been to.
• Second, trying hard to find a restaurant to eat until we saw that the only restaurant in the town that was open was, guess what, Mc Donalds. PS: people still love eating there, but obviously, we refused!
• Third, walking in the market, the go-to place for groceries, meat, clothing, shoes, kitchenware, hardware, art, flowers, tea and what not.
• Fourth, eating a shwarma in Russia, which I never wanted to try, but I am glad I did.
• Fifth, haggling and buying trinkets. I have the Matryoshka dolls, big maces (my dad was terrified because mother kept it!) and other random stuff. I can’t believe I left it to the last day to buy these souvenirs!
• Sixth, eating my last treat of sweet cheese. I don’t know what its called in Russian, but for some reason I called it Wonnderbar.
• Seventh, I bravely fought a huge warrior as seen in the image below. Clearly I survived to tell you the tale. PS: The statue is that of Yury Dolgoruky, the founder of Dmitrov and Moscow.

PS: I had entered this picture into @foxnomad’s cheesiest photo contest

To conclude, I’m really thankful to my friend Evgeny for driving me here, and this is just another instance of the wonderful things you discover that aren’t in guidebooks (it can’t possibly list everything). What’s the next big resource? Are travel blogs taking over?

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↑ Charming onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square.

↑ Red Square. The illuminated building to the right is the GUM department store, while the red building to the left is the Kremlin wall.

↑ St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin wall (Savior gate tower) with Lenin’s Mausoleum at its centre.

↑ Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the tallest Orthdox church in the world.

↑ Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge on river Moskva and Kremlin at the back. You can see some Administrative and Religious buildings such as Great Kremlin Presidential Palace, Annunciation Cathedral, etc.

↑ Monument of Peter the great (on a ship) to the left and a children’s park at front.

↑ Neighbourhood near the Kremlin. So red!

↑ Kremlevskaya naberezhnaya embankment between Kremlin and the Moskva river.

↑ Borovitskaya Tower of the Kremlin behind me.

↑ Luzhniki olympic stadium (PS: The neighbourhood around it is quite interesting)

All these pictures were taken the one night before I departed. It was cold and quite deserted in the downtown area. Moscow is very enjoyable, I would go there again!

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I rode the Moscow metro on my first day in Moscow and my initial impression was a mixture of nervousness and excitement. I was at the Komsomolskaya subway station, one of the major stations on the network, wanting to go to Park Kultury station. Several things I experienced on this maiden ride didn’t make sense to me until I got used to them few days later.

Dark tunnels: Let me begin with the long and narrow tunnel leading from street level to the metro station. Water was seeping through broken pipes, light bulbs were flickering, paint was falling off and there was a distinct smell. Being rush hour, the tunnel was packed with people who were walking very fast, going about their business. I got a cold and grim feeling since there was nobody chatting, smiling or laughing. For some reason I also thought that everyone was looking at me, haha, but that was only because the guidebooks said that’d happen.

Buying tickets: At the subway entrance, there were imposing windows with pigeonholes with the word ‘касса’ (meaning ‘ticket window’) written over them. Since everything was in Russian and transactions were happening at a brisk pace, it was a bad time to ask questions. I simply handed over three hundred Roubles and said “десять” (ten), meaning a 10-ride pass. The lady gave me change and a blue metro card and looked at the next person in line. That was my cue to move.

Getting in: Entrance to the metro is tightly guarded by expressionless babushkas (older women) who man (rather, woman) the entrance machines. You show your metro card at the reader and the door opens. On most of the times there are no doors (or they stopped working and are always open?), so you simply pass. At other times the doors will refuse to open. In such a case, you go to the babushka and grumble so that she can open the door manually. That’s why she is there.

Then, you are led down a tunnel, in a single or double file, only to disappear in darkness.

Escalators: I was quite shocked to see people form a single line and enter the escalator, almost in an army (prison?) like discipline. The escalator took a long time, what seemed like an eternity to me. It was a long, narrow tunnel drilled deep to protect against an American nuclear attack. There were 3 escalators – one going up, one going down and the middle one was shut off. People were standing in their respective escalators as the belts hummed their way down. Most people were silent and appeared to be very serious, looking straight ahead or at people on the other escalator (or at me). I quickly put my camera back inside. Someone with claustrophobia would have a tough time here.

As the escalator moves down the tunnel, you look down and you see nothing, you look up and you see nothing – it feels like you are on stairs running from the sky to the center of earth. The humming sound of the machines, artificially and insufficiently illuminated tunnels, policemen and people around me gave me a very uncomfortable feeling. I had never felt so disconnected.

Police: On the platform, all I saw was policemen. There might have been three policemen for every hundred people but that ratio was abnormally high for me. Then there were men dressed in military uniform all over – I thought they were police too but later I learnt that they were simply going to or coming back from duty. The literature you read online makes you believe that the sole purpose the Russian police exist is to stop and harass foreigners. Naturally, I was worried since I had not registered my visa yet (I was supposed to do it within 72 hours of arriving in Russia), and I didn’t want trouble.

Train: On the platform, being morning rush hour, people will bump into you if you stop walking. I had momentarily stopped under a signboard that said which train went where and it was enough to make it evident that I was a lost foreigner.

After I spent many minutes trying to read a few words from the board and looking at my map to make sense of it, I found my platform. I went there and saw a train coming. It was extremely crowded (by Toronto standards). So crowded that I automatically found myself inside the compartment once the doors opened. The crowd had shoved me inside. haha! People were tightly packed inside the train, arms, elbows, blond hair and stern faces all around.

Missed my station: The next challenge was getting off the subway. When my station Park Kulture was announced, I was ready to get off. But the people ahead of me were in no mood to make room. I tried to force my way through and even said a feeble “Извините, Я хочу Парк Культуры!” (Excuse me, I want Park Kultury!). Heads turned, obviously that phrase was incorrect but made sense. It was too late. The doors closed and the train moved. I missed the station!

“You should poosh” the guy standing next to me said thoughtfully, in heavily accented English, “otherwise you miss.”
“Yes, yes,” I said.

Conclusion: Those 30 minutes were enough to remind me of the aggressiveness required to negotiate the crowded train system in Mumbai or sunday morning buses in Israel. Once I was prepared mentally, rest of the metro rides were quite fun and enjoyable. I loved traveling in the subway trains thereafter. Suddenly, the metro became real and lively, not grim and scary at all. I even stopped imagining that the police were after me (despite the fact that I didn’t register my visa until last week!) Fun times!

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It was about 4pm and I was starving. I did start looking for lunch around noon, but then I went wandering around the Kremlin and the next thing you know, three hours went by. I decided to go to check out GUM, previously a soviet department store now a swanky mall, that flanked the north side of Red Square.

Considering how pricey GUM is (its like a museum of expensive brand stores – a window shopper’s dream) I was a bit skeptical of this restaurant. However, in Sochi, I had eaten in its sister concern – Stolovaya No. 17.

Canteen at the GUM

“Stolovaya Number 57″ simply means “Canteen No. 57″. In soviet times, these were government run restaurants where people could go for a hot meal, “ofcourse, after enduring long queues,” added a friend later.

While the restaurant I went to in Sochi was full of babushkas, the Moscow one was full of hot devushkas. But since nobody is paid to smile, and its not in their job description, and they don’t get tips, don’t expect a north American “how may I help you?” look.

Me: Привет, как дела? (Hello, How are you?)
She: Blank stare (I was glad that Russians are not the only ones that get confused by this question. Indians too!)
Me: Скажите, пожалуйста. Это говядина? (Tell me please, is this beef?)
She: Hе знаю. Cпросить ее (Don’t know. Ask her – pointing to a babuskha who was standing at the corner, supervising.)

Anyway, waiting in line and watching all the food made me salivate. The total bill, which you discover at the end, was quite large. This place is not a cheap eat but still its quite affordable by Moscow standards. There was a babushka at the cash register – probably those young blonds didn’t know how to add? She was using a calculator to my surprise (in Sochi, they used an Abacus!!)

Salads (with cranberries), Mushroom soup, grechka (buckwheat), oily chicken rice, chicken kievskaya, bread, some drink and dessert!

How apt to say ‘my plate is full’. I met a Muscovite couch surfing friend in the middle of my feast. “I didn’t know this place existed!” he said.

Thus, I ate to my heart’s content in a Soviet style canteen, and let out a loud burp proclaiming a satisfying supper. Go here if you go to Moscow.

Restaurant: Stolovaya No. 57
Location: Third floor of GUM, Red Square, Moscow.

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Moscow subway stations are swanky and grandiose

Look at these platforms and hallways for example:

Komsomolskaya

Belaruskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Kievskaya

Kievskaya

One could easily spend an entire day stopping at major stations and marveling at the beautiful architecture, sculptures, paintings and other art installations.

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St. Petersburg’s Metro system conveniently serves downtown and central tourist areas

As is the case with most Soviet-era underground rail systems, you have to first enter the subway station platform which is a whole 2.5 minute ride from the top on musical escalators. After a while, one gets used to the constant hum, clit-clat sounds, and the meekly audible human voice. There is no scope for fainting, rushing or panicking, since once you set foot on it, there is nothing you can do till it stops. Babushkas watch you closely and will give you a look if you take a picture.

Journey to the center of the earth

Quite minimalistic – two belts for operation and one standby. No elevators, no stairs, atleast in theory.

St. Petersburg’s metro was built in 1955 and is one of the deepest metros in the world and also among the most elaborately decorated. I got off at the Admiralteyskaya subway station, 105 meters below the surface, and the escalator seemed to take forever to get to the surface.

Claustrophobic, mysterious, authoritarian, spooky

The subway stations in downtown have an interesting construction. In order to prevent flooding, the stations are completely enclosed by doors and walls – one can’t see the train or the tracks. Once the train stops, the doors open and one enters the train directly.

So far I had only heard of such systems. They were planning to do this in Toronto – not for flooding, but to prevent people from committing suicide by jumping on the tracks.

Subway station is like a room with many doors. The train stops. Doors in the room open. You directly enter the train.

I kept a token from the transit system for memory. Its a simple round coin with a big “M” written on it.

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Kazansky Train Terminus, Moscow, Russia

Russia has a significant rail network that is affordable and convenient to use – and people actually use it.
Diesel engines

I took a 30 hour train journey to Sochi, on the Black Sea, in a second class compartment. It was fun!

Train terminal

Ofcourse, everything from the Soviet times has to be grandiose and beautiful.

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