Friday 22nd March 2013
Vorontsovsky Hotel : Red Square
Today we are travelling to Moscow, Russia. We have two flights. The first is from Chania, Crete to Athens and the second one will take us to Domodedovo airport in Moscow. There is only a short time between the first flight landing and the second flight departing. But as both flights are with the same airline, our luggage has been checked all the way through to Moscow so we should be fine. We quickly followed the ‘in transit’ signs at Athens airport and were dismayed to find ourselves in the main concourse. We rushed past the queue at passport control muttering apologies, explaining our flight was boarding. For once Dave’s camera was not dismantled at security and we arrived at the gate as the line of people started to board.
The flight was only a quarter full. As we neared Moscow, the scene below resembled a black & white patchwork quilt. We could see snow covered fields and forests of deciduous trees, which appeared black without their foliage.
We were scheduled to land at 2pm. At 2pm we had cleared customs and passport control, exchanged some euros for roubles and collected our luggage – excellent!
We purchased train tickets from a machine and made our way to the railway station directly outside the airport. A temperature gauge read minus 7 degrees Celsius, but with the wind it felt colder. The train took just 35 minutes to reach the Pavlensky railway station in Moscow. There are a number of railway stations in Russia’s capital city; this one is the closest to our hotel.
We were approached by an unofficial taxi driver who quoted 700 roubles for the short journey to the hotel, after a little bit of bartering; he agreed to settle for the lower price of 400. We had researched the taxi fares in Moscow on the internet and had expected to pay around 320.
With a mixture of English and Greek, one or two words of Russian along with smiles and laughter, we eventually managed to reach the hotel. The driver did not know where the hotel was, only the area it was in, luckily Dave spotted it as we sped by. During the journey, we were both managing to read some of the signs, as some of the Cyrillic alphabet is similar to Greek.
However, when we checked into the Vorontsovsky Hotel and the receptionist handed us a room service menu, apart from the word ‘calat’, (which we correctly assumed was salad), all seemed incomprehensible. The receptionist spoke very little English, she repeated every word we said, and then proceeded to type it into her computer and pressed a button for a translation.
We are pleased with the room; it is very clean, spacious and has everything we need. We quickly unpack; grab a coffee and head out, we are eager to start seeing the sights.
The nearest metro station is just a ten minutes walk from the hotel. I went to the ticket window showing all ten fingers to the cashier, to indicate the number of tickets that we required. We stood for a minute, watching the passengers swiping their tickets, and passing through the turnstiles. Then we did the same. There were three different lines at this metro station, we showed a young lady a metro map in our guidebook and pointed to which station we wanted to go to and she helped us by pointing to the platform we needed. Similarly when we got off the metro, we showed one of the many kiosk workers a picture of the historical museum and she pointed us in the direction of the correct exit. There were many kiosks in the metro stations, selling many things, ranging from a packet of crisps to hats and gloves, toiletries and newspapers.
As we exited the metro station named ‘Kitay Gorad’ which is just a short walk away from Red Square, we had our first glimpse of some of the wonderful cupolas and I said my first ‘WOW’ (there were to be many times that we turned a corner, looked up, or entered a building and exclaimed ‘WOW’).
We were stood on one of Moscow’s oldest streets Ulitsa Varvarka. Four beautiful blue cupolas with gold stars surrounding a larger gold cupola belonged to the Church of St. George; other church domes were also close by.
We were hungry and there were no obvious signs of any eateries. A while later we came across a board on the pavement advertising soup, we went into the building, but there was no one inside. Further down the same street, we saw a menu; we tentatively entered the dark building, two security guards stood inside. We asked if they had an English menu, one of them replied ‘maybe, wait 15 minutes’. We decided to leave as the stairs from the entrance led down to what appeared to be a very dark and gloomy room.
Continuing to look at the buildings as we passed by, a robust Russian lady carrying packages into a building asked us what we were looking for and asked if she could help. She informed us with her little and heavily accented English that the best place to eat in the area was ‘GUM’ and pointed us in the right direction. Many years ago this building was home to a huge covered market but now it is a large shopping mall named ‘GUM’. It is a magnificent building, with a huge glass domed roof; it is hard to believe that it is just a shopping centre. We found a small café and ordered pea soup (which didn’t have any peas), jacket potatoes with beef ragout and a couple of beers.
We came out of ‘GUM’ and walked around the corner into Red Square and some of the major sights in Moscow. I felt that St Basil’s, with its domes like colourful stripy ice cream cornets, looked as if it belonged in a fairy tale or in an amusement theme park.
We stood in front of one of the Kremlin towers. We could just make out the magnificent building, which is the Historical Museum at the other end of the 500 metres long square. It was snowing and beginning to get dark. We wandered for a while, watching the buildings become illuminated as the darkness descended. It was very cold and we could not bear our gloves off for long while we were taking photographs. At one point we went back inside ‘GUM’ to get a hot drink and to warm up before wandering again.
Subsequently, we made our way back to the same metro station and returned to the hotel for a much-enjoyed hot shower.
We have had a fabulous day, travelled to Moscow and seen Red Square – WOW
lindaruddstravels.com 