Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After an overnight train from St Petersburg...in which not much sleep was enjoyed and a lot of Vodka was consumed, much to the annoyance of our provodnista (carriage attendant) we arrived in Moscow at the crack of dawn and our expected minibus to take us to the hostel wasn't there- our guide (Nadya) rang around and after much heated and ridiculous Russian conversation the sorry conclusion was reached that we would be walking...not ideal lugging a big rucksack on your back trust me!
Hostel is OK...all 8 of us in the same dorm which with 2 couples is a little disturbing on occassion...Moscow itself was the most amazing city, even though id been before on the same trip as St Petersburg i appreciated it so much more this time, we were there for 3 days and did the usual Red Square with St Basils cathedral, Lenin's tomb and  Kremlin tour. Went to a market aswell called Izmaylovo market outside the centre where you got the chance to test your Vodka drinking abilities against hardened Russians over a game of Chess! absolutely ridicuolous how much those folk can drink, but was all in a friendly manner too.
The next days hangover quickly disappeared though with a trip to the private baths (a proposterous £1 entrance fee for a full day) at Sanduny where the water was piping hot and the pseudo Roman surroundings not quite like the originals to say the least!
On the last night however came the undoubted highlight, an innocent couple of drinks were touted before the mammoth train journey to Irkutsk, so we headed to a bar called Bar 30/7Â that we had heard was a decent spot and quite likely to have ex-pats there. Me and the 2 cockney lads head there and this is where we meet the Spanish ambassadors daughter- Liesbeth, with my D-Grade A-Level spanish ability we manage to wangle our way into there seating area where there are a load of expats aged between 16-18 who live out there, a mix of English, Spanish and Canadians welcome us with open arms and we proceed to get absolutely leathered on a mix of Vodka (of course) and Baltika beer which is absolutely gorgeous and apparantly available in the UK...we shall see! But anyway it comes to the end of the night and Liesbeth is apparantly allowed to bring people back for a few more drinks, we wangle an invite and find ourselves in a taxi headed out of Moscow?? the residences are all in a compound outside of the 5th (yes there are 5) ring road, so when we get there, we are all frisked and asked to provide ID, me being the genius have left my passport at the hostel and the copy in my other wallet, pleading doesnt seem to work (in spanish or english) and my driving licence wont do either! the only other thing i have is my expired Manchester Uni Card, and upon showing the bloke this he seems to light up- he used to live in Manchester and follows United- salvation and after a bit more pleading he lets me in! The residence is amazing and we dont get back to the hostel till 5am, with our train at 10!
So we left Moscow with heavy heads, was better than St Petersburg and Kiev put together... and have spent the last 3 days solid on the 'Rossiya' train to Irkustsk officially going into both Asia and Siberia,lots of reading, catching up on sleep and eating stale bread. Arrived last night so havent done a great deal, off to Lake Baikal tomorow which is the biggest lake in the world, weather is nice so may be able to regain the tan that grey Russia so cruely took from me after Turkey!
- comments