00:05 left St Petersburg for Moscow on the overnight sleeper. The sleeper appeared to be almost brand new and we had the upper two bunks whilst the bottom two were taken by two Russian women who we thought didn’t speak any English, that is until the next morning as we were coming into Moscow and they started to talk to us.
The compartments are very compact, but despite that there is plenty of space to store all our luggage on a ledge which runs above the corridor ceiling. The bunks were reasonably comfortable and bed linen, duvets, pillows and towels are all provided. We both had a good night’s sleep and were woken by our carriage attendant 40 minutes before our arrival in Moscow at 8am. The wake-up call was followed by piped radio, presumably to be sure that we wouldn’t go back to sleep.
All the carriages have their own uniformed attendant who stands to attention beside the carriage to welcome you and check your ticket and passport. The attendant also rides in the carriage for the duration of the journey and ensures everything runs smoothly – not that we saw much of her.
The weather in Moscow is gorgeous – sunny, blue sky, no clouds and around 24-26 degrees C. That’s more like it!
We were met at the station and taken to the hotel which is a long way out of the centre (7 long stops on the metro as it turned out). But it is quite interesting to get out into the suburbs rather than be in the centre of town again, it gives another perspective. The hotel itself is quite austere as are the gray apartment blocks which surround it, but the area itself is quite leafy and we are on a wide street with a central promenade, grass verges and lots of tall silver birch lining it.
We are quite close to the tube and the local shopping centre where there is huge clothes market at least two supermarkets and lots of small-cabin type shops around the metro station most of which seem to sell magazines, alcohol and fast foods.
In the afternoon we met up with our personal guide who took us into central Moscow and gave us an orientation tour. We spent three hours taking in some of the best known sights including the Kremlin, Red Square (closed for an national holiday and much smaller than expected) and KGB headquarters as well as the not so well-known. Moscow is a much more attractive city than we expected and like St Petersburg there is a lot of building work going on both in terms of renovation and new construction. There has also been a lot of reconstruction of old buildings that were torn down by the Soviets.
Here there are ice-cream sellers every few feet particularly in the parks and squares. But they are no ordinary ice cream sellers – they also sell hot dogs and beer on tap! So it is quite common to see people wandering about with a pint of beer in a plastic glass!
Apparently there are 277 fountains in Moscow and we saw a few of them today. The most unusual are on either side of a footbridge that crosses the Vodootvodny Canal. On the bridge itself it is a tradition for newlyweds hang a padlock on one of several metal ‘trees’ and then throw the key into the water. There must be hundreds of locks, all inscribed with the names of the couples who have hung them there. In fact it is quite common to see wedding parties wandering around various locations having their photos taken whilst their guests drink champagne.