Russia Part II: Moscow I

After the exhausting overnight trip and the frankly scary arrival and journey to the hotel, we headed back to the metro to go right into the centre of Moscow, getting off at the stop next to Red Square.

Statue of Marshall Zukhov, hero general of WWII, near Red Square

Despite my pleas we did not enter Red Square immediately and instead embarked on a tour around the outside of the Kremlin. The Kremlin itself looked very impressive and is very imposing - constructed as a fortress it is at the centre of the city and located on high ground.

I'd recognise this anywhere

Right outside Red Square is a McDonald's, which would no doubt make Lenin spin in his Mausoleum. Interesting you had to pass through a metal detector to get inside, which is probably due to all the issues with terrorism Russia has been experiencing. I never actually went in, but friends told me that the staff didn't even know the word 'big mac' in English when ordering food!

Roads in Moscow are quite chaotic

After a while we came across one of the big highways that ring the city. It's quite an experience crossing these as drivers do not always stop at red lights, but we made it over in one piece. The strange thing is that most of the cars in Moscow seem to be one shade - grey/brown because of the dirt. Even the newest cars are coated in thick mud and dirt. The same goes for the streets - our shoes and trousers became filthy after walking around the city. If everyone cleaned their cars the city would seem like a much brighter and colourful place!

Church of Christ the Saviour

We made our way to the biggest and probably most impressive of the many churches in Moscow - the Church of Christ the Saviour. It has an interesting history - demolished by the anti-religious Stalin, with the aim of constructing a giant statue honouring Soviet leaders. Due to WW2 this never happened and the massive hole dug as the foundations was turned into one of the biggest open air swimming pools in the world. Thankfully, the church was reconstructed in the 1990s following the collapse of the USSR and is now the main church of Russia. Inside it really is beautiful and absolutely huge, but unfortunately photos were not allowed.

The main shopping street

Having not even eaten a real breakfast yet, we were hungry and headed toward the main shopping street to look for somewhere appealing. It's an interesting street - one side packed with shops, bill boards, advertisements and colour, the other lined with dull, grey Communist-looking apartment blocks. It really does reflect the recent history of the city.

Eating in an American diner...in Moscow

Most of the restaurants seemed to cater for fast food, so we settled on an authentic American diner, mostly for ironic effect (and definitely not because I love hamburgers). Interestingly, none of the staff spoke any English and the menu was entirely in Russian. Definitely a strange mix!

Too many choices!

In some cases the Russians seem to have over-done the whole capitalism thing, with a worrying array of billboards as can be seen above. Another strange feature of the street was that they were playing pop music down the whole length. It was a weird experience to be walking through Moscow with the Black Eyed Peas as the soundtrack. [Shaky-cam video]

One of the many street traders

After more walking we headed for a historic pedestrianised street (the name escapes me) and explored some of the souvenir shops and stalls. Here we experienced one of the unfortunately common bursts of Russian rudeness when a previously-nice stall owner told us he hoped we 'didn't come back' after we said we didn't want to buy anything at that time but might the next day. Anyway, we were tired and thirsty so it was time to look for somewhere to have a coffee...

One of seven 'Stalin Skyscrapers' or the 'Seven Sisters' depending on which name you prefer

...and we couldn't resist Moscow's Hard Rock Cafe. Despite another rude waitress who actually huffed at us as we came in, it was a nice place to have a drink and they were playing Radiohead, my favourite band on all the screens as we entered so that made me feel at home.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

We walked back toward the Kremlin, passing the Tomb of the Unknown Solider on the way, which honours the millions of Soviet soldiers who died in WWII. There is still a very military feel to Moscow, with many soldiers in uniform on the streets which almost seem to outnumber the police.

St Basil's Cathedral

We finally entered Red Square, which was very impressive and definitely the nicest part of the city. On one side there is the Kremlin and Lenin's Mausoleum, the other side is a very upmarket shopping centre and at the end is the strangely-attractive St Basil's Cathedral. [Video]

Our 'Russian Bar'

After an exhausting day of sightseeing we headed back to the hotel, stopping to buy some drinks on the way. The beer was quite cheap, at least compared with Finland, but the vodka was ridiculously so. We had heard many horror stories about fake Russian vodka but this was from a proper supermarket so we decided to take the risk. However, we did later find that all the beer we had bought was more than 2 months past its sell-by date! The consumption of said alcohol and playing of cards ended our first day in Moscow.