Day 1 17 August 2019

Modern but austere would be our first impression of Russia’s capital city. Our arrival at 6am local time was to a cool 12 degree grey and drizzly morning. Customs was easy – our visa’s seemed to pass the pan faced emotionally guarded muster and we exited a very boring and clinical customs area to see our meet and greet with our name on a card. We were told in thickly accented and limited English to wait whilst she phoned our private taxi- transfer.

Our transfer arrived in a modern Renault and drove us skilfully the 35 minutes through light traffic along modern roads and motorway to our hotel. Georg ( we nick named him) spoke about as much English as we do Russian (which is none), which was a shame as we couldn’t get any commentary along the way. He was content to drive, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the view making our own observations.

Ironically the only splash of colour at the airport was the brightly coloured KFC advertising. Really? Along the route we saw several McDonalds, Burger King’s.  European and Asian cars dominate the roads; car sales yards in abundance such as Skoda dealership, Kia, Mazda to name a few. It just doesn’t seem right to have American food outlets in Russia, given the propaganda we have been fed growing up by the media. This has been the first surprise; how very modern and western it is over here.

People are mainly Caucasian and a mixture of fairer skin with predominantly  brown and light brown hair, and also some very dark haired and olive skinned people. Generally we seem to be amongst the land of the taller finer featured Nordic types together with a some who are shorter and appear more akin to the Russian Babushka dolls. There are few older people out and about; we have only seen one person over 60 (doorman at hotel) The ones we do see are often dressed in designer clothes and very well groomed except for us tourists.

The scenery out the window passed through woodlands with lots of silver birch and other tall trees that I am not sure the name of. No farm animals or wildlife. Quite a lot of apartments from the slightly industrial to the more modern. The roads are of a very good standard, sometimes up to 4 lanes into the city and well behaved drivers. Albeit it was 6:30am in the morning with not a huge amount of traffic. There were a couple of orthodox churches and some distinctly Russian blue and green coloured traditional tall and high pitched wooden houses with white trims.

We arrived of course before check in but the nice English speaking reception said that she would try and have a room ready by 10am, so we were welcome to leave our bags and have breakfast. We were so longing for a shower, but figured caffeine and more caffeine would be a good start to getting used to the time zone. Breakfast would not be a hardship even though we weren’t really hungry. Breakfast is included in our tour package but this one was not as it was before check in. It ended up costing us $45 each – eeeeek which was probably the most we have ever paid for breakfast. But we got free wifi and unlimited caffeine, so could relax for the next few hours and get used to firm ground again; in the big picture that was ok with us. We also figured we would not need lunch, and justified the price being two meals for the price of one, plus the fresh fruit snack we pocketed for laters….

Both breakfast and the coffee were good. Russians are really big on pickles and mushrooms. The latter we are not fond of, although I can venture to button mushroom on a pizza in very small quantity, and some of the small pale unusual Asian ones are ok. We both like truffle but that is not strictly a mushroom I don’t think? There were about 4 different types of pickled herring, a salmon mousse, butter fish (never had it before – nice delicately smoked and buttery and creamy to the palate in texture and taste), and 4 types of pickled mushrooms to name just a few of the items. There were two types of kefir drinks, and a baked milk drink – like kefir, sweet cheese pikelets and Perogi showcasing a few of the local foods. We managed to spend the 2.5 hours leisurely eating and drinking until our room was ready. Wow the bliss of that shower when we finally stood under the steady warm jets – magic.

At 12:00 our driver picked us up for transfer to our 2hr river cruise taking in the major sights of Moscow. Along the way we must have seen about 300 police and military in various levels of uniform and riot control gear plus equipment in the central city. It was a bit unsettling and didn’t inspire us to go off wandering like we usually do. In the news prior to our departure we were aware of some regular large protests in the weekends lately and we wondered if this may impact our activities. We didn’t see any protestors, but figured the police etc were getting ready incase, and clearly they meant business.

The Raddison hotel group own a very flash fleet of boats that go up and down the Moskva river 365 days a year – including when the river is icy and snow covers the city. The Raddison Hotel Ukraine is a landmark building along the river where the cruises depart. The clientele of this luxury hotel are confirmed by the range of Bentley’s, Rolls Royce, and other elite stable of vehicles surrounding its entrance.

A brief google detour on this fabulous piece of architecture found that it was in fact commissioned by Stalin and is a beautiful example of the neoclassical Stalin-era “Seven Sisters” style. In he 1930’s a new architectural style was formed in the Soviet Union, later called the Stalin Empire style. Its characteristic features were the massiveness of the buildings. The decoration was eclectic: along with the use of classical orders, modern symbols were used such as images of sickles, five-pointed stars and generalised images of Soviet workers. For a while the 198m, 34 storey hotel was the tallest in the world.

Commissioned in 1947 by Stalin, building commenced in 1956 and was completed in 1957. Construction on the low river bank meant that builders had to dig well below the water level. This was enabled by an ingenious water retention systems using a perimeter of needle pumps driven deep into the ground.

Back to the boat tour. Food, coffee and meals are available for purchase on board but as we had eaten so well at our breakfast-brunch feast we just opted for a coffee each (not that we actually needed more caffeine).   I had fun, but no luck in trying to communicate that I wanted almond milk not cow milk in my cappuccino. I tried drawing a cow, got lots of nods, but my almond nut did not register. I tried hard to communicate a nut, however stopped that quickly as I was getting nowhere and didn’t want to get kicked off the boat for odd behaviour.

The reality of actually being here in Moscow is starting to sink in, especially when we saw the imposing black 98m high “Peter the Great” monument and onion dome Orthodox Church domes. Seeing the huge glistening gold domes gave us a rush of excitement and reality that we are actually “here” and ticking off a long time bucket list item.  It is still hard to comprehend that yesterday we were home, and now we are all the way over the other side of the world, behind the mystery of iron curtain.

The scenery was nice on the cruise, but not as impressive as the Seine river cruise we have done in Paris. A large park lines a good stretch of the river together with  “Gorky Park” which is an amusement park.  There is a distinct lack of people out and about for a Saturday and virtually none of the usual social congregating areas and promenades that you see along riversides in other major cities. The city in fact seems rather empty for its size – weirdly empty. There are a few pretty bridges but not on the scale of other cities we have seen. The really spectacular things are the churches and some of the other Stalin sky scrapers. I am looking forward to being on foot and building my perspective in the next few days.

After the tour we were picked up and taken back to the hotel. We are holding up really well with zero jet lag, however decided not to see the Fallen Monument Park like we planned as the walk was too far. Instead we made use of the spa area downstairs and had the big pool and jacuzzi all to ourselves, under the watchful eye of the very stoic male spa attendant. I had got a chill on the boat from taking photos outside (as you do)  so it was welcoming to soak and warm up a bit.

When I was back in our room I noticed that I had incurred a black eye.  I don’t know how it happened but saw that a little capillary under my eye must have burst, resulting in an amazing black eye look. Poor Vern is going to get some weird looks for the next while!

We could get 20% off our dinner at the hotel but it was pricy and not enticing so we googled and found a highly rated, moderately priced place 400m away specialising in Georgian/Azeri cuisine. It also said good for English speakers (right) int are review. The area we are staying in is central city, upmarket and there are lots of eating options around every corner.

The streets are kept very clean with no graffiti, no homeless, not much of anything too lively actually lol. Buildings are grand stone or brick with various decorative embellishments (don’t forget to look up when you are out walking) and the streets are wide – up to two lanes each way in some places. Modern and funky store fronts abound speaking affluence;  wealthy young Russians quietly go about their designer and stiletto way. There is nothing old worldly or medieval feeling here.

The restaurant we chose was called Barashka. It is very funky and once seated we were provided with a complimentary thyme and herb tea, pickled something (grapes or tiny lemon?), a warm roll with some cured spicy meat. The menu had English but the description was very limited- like “kebab”, ok, what is a Georgian kebab? LOL. The waiter tried to help us but his English was also extremely limited. No worries, he made some recommendations and between us we just went the lucky dip and enjoyed the ride.

We ended up enjoying a Lamb shoulder with baku potatoes (baked), flat bread with cheese, and chicken kebab. It was all very nice, but lucky dip style ordering resulted in the portions being too big and a lack of vegetables. We saw another table order a salad first, then go to mains. Tick. The breads here are so nice – like a genuine filo – crossed with the borek style dough. Soft, slightly stretchy, and with body which indicates egg and or good oil OMG. Nom nom award for the flat bread with cheese.

Inside was stretchy gooey and non salty cheese like a very new halloumi. Forget the image of the abomination of stuffed crust pizza – this is from another planet. The chicken was marinated and seasoned in some interesting flavours and came with a yummy tomato sauce – also with some flavours I couldn’t pick in my tiredness. Suffice to say it was very very nice. The flat bread with the kebab was like a mountain bread; thin and just able to be wrapped even though it was crisp. The kebab was served with onion, tomato and parcel leaves (parsley and celery cross herb). Totally fresh and fabulous. The lamb shoulder had tarragon flavours and was enough to feed two of us alone (probably four people).

We washed all of this down with sparkling water from Khazan somewhere and then feeling braver wandered the quiet streets to find a convenience store to find some more water to drink (don’t trust tap water here according to travel advice). They also had some alcohol in the shop so we tried a Spanish cider which was very nice. Something  to cut through the heavy meal and aid our digestion! Home and the bliss of an early night in a stretched out horizontal position on land. Noice! (Kiwi for nice)