The Reds - Blogabond

Right, Moscow. What's in store? i'd been prepared for nasty service and misery by the first night in Irkutsk. I wasn't expecting any help from anyone either, in any way shape or form. But i have to stop having these pre-conceived ideas cos, with the odd exception (see the end of this post), most people were pleasant, friendly and nice to us. We met our first native when we had to go to our apartment. a nice lady called julia showed us to our nice digs for the next 2 nights. The train from moscow leaves at 2250 so we figured we had that extra day without the expense of another night in the apartment. Cable TV, a nice-ish shower, great location and near a 24 hour convenience store selling a large variety of baltikas to boost our collection. we managed to find 3,4,6,9 and 0 here. We never actually found 1 or 2...maybe they are mythical and never really existed. who can say.

Now, after going for dinner at a really good blues club, where we paid about 1500 yen (8 pounds) to hear someone not famous sing two songs, we returned to the flat for a few goodnight beers. that night, i did not sleep well. I had tony snoring to keep me busy but also a mysterious throbbing pain in my big toe. Didnt get much sleep and i could barely walk when i tried standing up. Not good for a day of walking and sightseeing, really. I did the british thing and tried to ignore it as much i could. I had already diagnosed myelf with gout.

We went to red square. it was closed. st basils cathedral is in red square so that put paid to visiting that famous sight. i did manage to zoom my camera through the iron fence and get a shot that looks like i was quite near the cathedral. i was somewhat crushed though that i couldnt get into see the thing close up. as a great substitute we went to the kremlin instead...well, actully we stood in line to buy tickets for the kremlin for 120 minutes. the slowest queue in the history of queues. Maybe the chinese have it right. dont bother lining up, just barge to the front while shouting over your shoulder at your friend who is right behind you so when anyone objects, their voice doesnt register. Anyway, 3 weeks later, i stumble out of the ticket office, blinking in the sunlight and ready to look at erm...whatever is inside the kremlin. Turns out it's full of churches. Archtecturally beautiful churches that house the graves of dead tsars. Pretty cool in general. we even had the added bonus of seeing a quartet of orthodox catholics sing an acapella hymn in the hall. It sounded very religious and nice, with the acoustics bouncing the note perfect vocals around the place. Due to having spent 100 years in the ticket office, we had to whizz out of the kremlin after about 40 minutes because we had tickets to see the royal treasury. I'm not a historian (among many many things) but i know that russia has a long tsarist history with lots of opulence to counterbalance the oppression of its more recent escapades. It didn't disappoint as we walked (hobbled) through rooms full of diamond bible covers, fresco-ed carriages, solid gold plates as big as my body and bejewelled eggs (that might be the one and only time i get to use the word bejewelled...i can now tick it off my to-do list). Officially, russia had a golden age and they kept the best stuff so they could make us wait a millenium to buy tickets to see them. Beautiful stuff. By now, the orthodox vocalists were not the only thing singing. my big toe was singing up a storm. wow...must grin and bare it of course, old chap.

But by the time dinner came around, tony's stories were drowned out by the sharks teeth that were biting at my foot. But my pain isn't really a factor in this story...We ate in this recommended georgian restaurant. The former soviet republic that is. we didnt have grits and lard from Georgia USA. really good food. I had a meal that i had been looking forward to after reading about Tabaka in a book by a japanese woman with lots of russian experience called Mari Yonehara. I even brought myself to eat the meat from the bone. Very delicious. I have decided that i can eat chicken from the bone as long as i can use my fingers to do so. (another thing on my to-do list done, eat chicken from the bone)

The nect morning, I woke up with similar pains in my foot. we stumbled to red squere with our fingers crossed...CLOSED...i couldnt see e\lenins mausokeum either. so we had some lunch, then went to a pub to watch football. This we did this after trying hard to find baltika 1 and 2 in a posh department store which sold bottles of vodka that cost about 800 pounds. they didnt have our desired purchases though so we left vowing never to go there again. We watched 3 football games. torrid, dull games wth 1 goal in 270 minutes. Living it up in moscow. I drank water, just in case i had gout. yep, living it up in moscow....

Our final job was to get to Moscow Leningradsky station to get our overnight FIRST CLASS train to Helsinki, Finland. leaving russia in style. My final experience in moscow was a large woman shouting at me because she got me the wrong thing from the shelf and i asked to get the right thing. i asked for a BIG bottle of water in russian. Miserable cow had to drag her sorry carcass about 4 inches back to the shelf to get my big bottle of water. She acted like i'd punched her in the boob. not a nice woman so i decided to piss her off even more by asking for a snickers. i could see there were 2 sizes. "Big or small" she demanded in russian. "sorry, i dont understand" i replied, despite using the word for big in my previous request. "big or small?" she barked "sorry i dont undertsand" i calmly replied with my eyes sparkling. this continued back and forth until i thought she was going to start bleeding from the ears. i climbed on my train a happy man, knowing that i had made that angry woman even angrier. How dare she shout at me, a paying customer, for her mistake. tee hee

Next stop Finlandia. Dasvidania Moscow