Moscow

[map=184340 lat=0 lon=0 zoom=[object HTMLInputElement]]

As I boarded the Latvian plane to Moscow I felt my first jolt of pure excitement for the next 6 months. By the time I had made my way through the surprisingly painless Russian customs & taken my seat in a dusty silver taxi I was staring like a true tourist at the illuminated buildings we passed; from imposingly uplit government buildings to stretches of road decked out in moving neon like Vegas.

Moscow is a massive city & up by the university is a bluff where you can see one half of it stretched out beneath you, divided by 6-laned streets (That’s per side) and sprinkled with the gold domes of Orthodox churches that glint in the sun. Around the centre, Soviet style apartment blocks squat for miles in every direction. There are two ski-jumps leading off the cliff & snow can still be seen in piles in the sunless corners of courtyards, but I’ve been lucky enough to arrive in the first full week of sun since October.

There seems to be a general consensus amongst the Muscovites that last week’s snowfall was the city’s last for the winter & everywhere there are men slopping fresh paint onto lamp posts, railings and grates in such thick layers it will probably take all summer to dry. The public (read tourist) places around Moscow are kept spotlessly clean and not just because the city is shaking off winter. The army of cleaners is almost as big as the army of police & there are constantly women mopping down the marble banisters around the park in front of the Kremlin. This is a city that cares what its visitors think of it.

Fairly regularly in Moscow’s centre where I’m staying the traffic will be stopped with no warning & the blacked out car of a dignitary will approach surrounded by a large entourage of shiny black cars. These cars are pretty much the only ones in Moscow not covered in dust. Today I was walking past an ordinary looking building when the noise of the traffic dimmed and into the building’s hastily opened gates roared two police motor cycles, two cars and an impressive, probably armoured almost-limo. Outside the gates another five cars stopped in the middle of the road & out stepped a swarm of Secret Service alikes and two obviously high flying military types. The precision of the operation was really quite impressive & very Russian.

The Metro stops are also very impressive and very Russian (tenuous link alert!). The entrance to the stop nearest me is decorated with a bronze hammer & sickle mosaic & at the bottom of the escalators sits the first of many state security guards, their fleshy stomach resting on the shelf of their tiny kiosk. The stations themselves are all high domed & marble clad with plaster reliefs and chandeliers. They are all slightly different: One is famous for its stained glass artwork, one for its impressively ornate chandeliers, and another for the dark red of its marble cladding. My favourite is Ploschad Revolyutsii which has in its arches 76 full sized statues ‘the creators of the new socialist world’. I’m not really sure what that means, but the statue subjects follow traditional Communist themes – man with dog, farmer woman etc. & are all life sized & life like.

Well anyway, that’s all for the description, I’m having a wonderful time & met some really lovely people, much fun is being had!!

Love and REALLY cheap vodka

Carol x x x