Out of the cold came Russia: Moscow

Arriving bleary eyed at 5am may not be the most glamorous way to start a visit to a new city, but sometimes it just has to be done.  We had caught the night train from Novgorod to Moscow and travelled third class (which basically means open bunks to the corridor).  I got a bit of sleep, but Adrian was so paranoid about being robbed again (shades of Serbian night trains) that he pretty much hadn't slept a wink.


We stayed at Hotel Vega, one of the hotels built for the Olympics, and they were amazing enough to let us all check in early so we could have a wee nap before starting the day.  Vega also had the best buffet breakfast of any we came across - it was actually quite incredible with everything ranging from soup to cakes, to fried cauliflower, to sliced goldfish (yes, you read that right) and salmon strudel.  That breakfast was probably the main culprit behind both of us having a slightly more snug pair of jeans than usual by the time we flew home...


We all reconvened and headed out on the incredible Moscow metro for a quick walking tour and orientation of the city.  The metro is incredible not due to its speed or efficiency (although the frequency of the trains was much higher than in London, leading to feeling like a sardine much less), but the beautiful decorations in the stations.  It's all chandeliers, mosaics, sculptures...  Every station is different and every mosaic tells a story which was really cool.  The below video (not my handiwork) gives you a really good look at what it's like:





But as fascinating as the metro is, what's above ground is even better.  Walking onto Red Square for the first time is just amazing - seeing St Basils at one end and knowing all the history of what's happened there.  We were lucky enough that Stalin's mausoleum was open that day (as it was closed for the rest of our time there), so we all dutifully filed down past his pale, waxy corpse and along the paths were all the other Russian leaders are buried.  It was really quite odd I must admit - he's very shiny and it definitely doesn't look like a body at all - hopefully he'll get buried up in St Petersburg with his mum as he wanted someday soon.

We had a delicious lunch at one of the communist eateries in the famous GUM department store right on Red Square (more beetroot!) and then went on a tour of a 'secret Soviet bunker'.  This bunker, 18 stories underground, was built in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood, totally on the sly, and was enormous.  It housed all sorts of information gathering people and machinery, but has now been opened up for tourists to visit.  We had a great time playing with the authentic stuff left behind!

Other things we did in Russia included a visit to the Kremlin where there are some incredibly ornate cathedrals (sadly no photos of the interiors but some are covered in frescoes from hundreds of years ago which have survived because they were only used extremely occasionally such as for coronations and that was it), a visit to a very quite and eerie sculpture park, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which had a whole other layer in the crypt which we nearly missed, the enormous (and quite tacky) monument to Peter the Great, Gorky Park (which had an amazingly elaborate ice-skating rink and some cool snowpeople), and walked right up to the top of one of the hills overlooking the town for a spectacular view.


The main point of being in Moscow though was to be on Red Square for New Year's Eve.  However, seeing as there had been a lot of protests there lately (and was another one that night in which several hundred people were arrested), it was completely different from normal.  Police absolutely everywhere - we would have gone through nearly a dozen different metal detectors - and very limited freedom of movement.  That turned a bit sour for some of our group who wanted to go to the toilet and then weren't able to make their way back to us, but Adrian and I had bladders of steel so luckily didn't lose each other!  The night ended back at our hotel hanging out with a group of 19 year old Russians who hardly spoke any English (and we speak no Russian at all!) who were having a huge party in one of the rooms down the hall!  Definitely an interesting experience!


Overall, the whole trip was incredible; I couldn't have asked for more.  I would definitely recommend Russia to anyone!  Click the image below to look at the rest of the photos:

Out of the cold came Russia vol 2: Moscow

Running for happiness

In Novgorod, there's a tiny wee church (surrounded by about four others - they like their churches there) which has a beaten path completely encircling it.  Apparently (so we were told), if you run on the path around the church three times, you'll have happiness for life.  So, obviously, we had to give it a go!  If you listen closely you can hear Pam squealing with joy as she runs in the opposite direction to us - getting some of that happiness already!

I've since found all sort of other rationales for the 'lucky' church, including this one about marital bliss.  Considering Pip was the only one amongst us even close to matrimony, hopefully the good luck will last for the rest of us a bit longer into the future...!

Out of the cold came Russia: Novgorod special edition

I totally forgot to tell you about the best part of Novgorod!

While we knew we were going to have a 'banya' (a sauna), we really had no idea of the key difference between a Russian banya and your run of the mill Swedish-esque sit around and get very sweaty.

Basically, the Russians are slightly crazy, and they've worked out a way to make the sauna a much more envigorating experience...  You start with the normal sit in the banya and get as hot as you can, then leave the banya and wake yourself up either by rolling around in the snow, or, as we did, tip a freezing cold bucket of water all over you. 

Then it's back in the banya, and that's where the fun starts.  The key difference is the use of moistened birch twigs (complete with leaves) which one person whacks the other with as hard as possible!  It sounds really, really horrible, but is actually good!  It's all about improving the circulation apparently.  It's also very tiring to actually give the slapping with the birch (exercise in a sauna has got to be an extreme sport), but you come out feeling totally awake and refreshed.  It was great for my cold - pretty much banished it.

I love trying different country's baths and having now done Russia, Morocco, Turkey and Japan and seen how extremely different they are, I can't wait for the next one!

Out of the cold came Russia: St Petersburg and Novgorod

It's been about a fortnight since we got back from Russia and I'm still absolutely raving about it to everyone we talk to.  And now I get the chance to do it all over again here!

So we flew in on Christmas Eve, got to our enormous hotel (Hotel Moscow, but in St Petersburg...confusing!), and had our group meeting.  I was apprehensive about travelling on a tour group, but our guide, Vladimir, and the other people, were all really great.  Vlad especially was so knowledgeable about everything - I was in awe of his demeanour and random facts, especially when we found out he was only 24!

We spent our first few days in St Petersburg and covered a fair amount of ground.  My favourite thing was The Hermitage, which was absolutely spectacular.  I had no idea at all about it really, and to see such beautiful art (especially the stuff I'd learnt about at school) was such a wonderful surprise.  The building itself (it's the Winter Palace of the Tsars) is stunning as well.  We also went to one of the summer palaces, the palace of Catherine I on Christmas Day (although the 25th of December means nothing there - Christmas is actually on the 7th of January in Russia).  It was ridiculously opulent and lovely to prance around in the snow for a bit.

Other highlights in St Petersburg was a folk dancing show which was quite hilarious and ice-skating afterwards in the middle of town on a rink nearly all to ourselves.  That's not to mention the food!  We had pancakes with caviar, delicious pies at a place called Stolle (cabbage and rabbit were the best flavours), dill flavoured everything (Adrian will tell you it was dill-icious...bada boom...), and obviously, vodka!

After St Petersburg we travelled down to Novgorod, which is about a four hour drive south towards Moscow.  It's one of the most historic towns in Russia, founded in about the 9th or 10th century.  We saw their kremlin (fortress), a very cool massive brass sculpture which shows the history of Russia, ran around a church (more on that next post!) and went ice-skating again.  I still can't stop very well, but Adrian managed to skate backwards pretty well which were all very impressed by!

From Novgorod we got on the night train down to Moscow...stay tuned for more adventures on that front!

But I will tell you about when we got back to St Petersburg so you can understand the rest of the photos.  We had a huge dump of snow which was great fun to play around in and we stayed at a very friendly hostel called Mir Hostel right on the main street (Nevsky Prospect) which was great (the link actually shows the room we stayed in - it was so cute).  We climbed up to the colonnade of St Isaac's Cathedral and looked out over the whole city, went to the Kunstkamera aka the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (which was a bit odd - not so keen on pickled babies - don't click through to the link if you're feeling a bit fragile!), saw the haunting monument to the Siege of Leningrad, and finally had a delicious meal at Chekov, a very traditional Russian restaurant, which included a crayfish salad and a magret of duck...mmmm!

Click below to see the photos.  Let me know if you can't see them!

Out of the cold came Russia vol 1

Happy 2012!

Happy 2012 everyone!

I hope it's started off in as fantastic a fashion as ours in Russia - we had the most amazing time and it's hard to believe that we're actually back in London and have to get back to work tomorrow (taking a sneaky extra day off after a holiday is always good).

We've got literally hundreds of photos to go through, so will spend a bit of time making sure we select the cream of the crop, and then post them up for you to peruse.

So all that remains to say is с Новым годом!

(Russian for 'Happy New Year' - kind of sounds like 'snovim goddim')