Bushcat's Moscow

Moscow in late october is apparently grey, cold and wet, except when it snows.

• The cathedral with the onions at the bottom of Red Square. The square itself is full of people selling postcards or instant photos, fur hats and other stuff. The Kremlin is to the right: the chain fences are to control the lines of people waiting to see Lenin each morning.
• Many churches in the city are being rebuilt of refurbished, and buildings are now illuminated at night. This church, in the corner of Red Square, contains many icons. The exterior has been finished but the interior is still being painted.
• There's a lot of traffic in Moscow, and most of it won't stop for pedestrians. Locally-produced cars are the Lada, Moskvitch and Volga. The Moskvitch factory is running at very low capacity, while the Volga is regarded as an obsolete design. It's larger that the other cars, though. The Lada is well-liked for its reliability and repairability. The Moskvitch is seen as very unreliable. I saw a lot of dead cars along the roads, but Muscovites frequently stop to help each other.
• To get a taxi, simply stand by the kerb with one arm held out, palm down. Cars will start pulling up to ask where you are going. If the destination is OK, then it's time to haggle about the price. There are also "real" taxis out there which cost much more. While in Moscow itself it's normal to use private cars as taxis like this, it's a bad idea to get a non-licensed taxi from the airport.
• Seat belts are seen as assaults on masculinity: each time I strapped in, my driver insisted he was safe. I soon learnt to say that I trusted him, however the other traffic scared me. One of my drivers, incidentally, had been in a team preparing for the Paris-Dakar Rally. Unfortunately, they crashed before the starting line and didn't actually take part.
• The Kremlin costs 1,000 roubles (18 cents) to enter if you're Russian. Once inside, each cathedral can be entered either free if you're Russian, or for 30,000 roubles ($5) if you're not. There are 12 cathedrals in there plus the Armoury and other administrative offices. While the walls of the Kremlin are red, the colours inside are mostly white and yellow.
• Inside the Kremlin, the world's largest cannon. It was such an awesome site that the enemy supposedly ran away without it ever being fired. One has to wonder at the time needed to reload the thing: the cannon balls are about 1.2 meters in diameter.
• To prove how cosmopolitan Moscow is, hosts are likely to try and take you to McDonalds. Avoid this! There are vastly better places to eat: the "bistro". This is actually a type of fast-food joint selling buns stuffed with various fillings such as cabbage, onions, potatoes and meat. Each type of bun has a characteristic shape. Unlike McDonalds, the bistros also sell vodka. It's all good, cheap, and combats the prevailing weather wonderfully.
• The older Metro stations are indeed the famous palaces mentioned in all the guides. The newer ones are just concrete. Many of the trains are quite old, but they have a reputation for travelling fast. While I was there, the metro was swarming with police due to recent bomb attacks, and just after I left an American was gunned down at a metro entrance.
• Everything's being rebuilt, including the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It was first built in the last century over 44 years. Stalin knocked it down in 1931 (well, not him personally) and turned it into a swimming pool. Moscow decided to rebuild it in three years, starting from 1994. The domes were in a fit state to guild in April, 1996. Originally, 312 kg of gold were needed to guild the domes, but this time around only 20 kg are needed. There are several reasons for this: firstly, covering everything with gold leaf would take 5 or 6 years, which is too long, so they decided to use titanium nitrate covered with gold laquer. (The Stolichny Savings Bank, incidentally, has offered 53 kg of real gold.) The bells are being made by the ZiL factory. Hmmm: they can't make cars very well, so I wonder who selected them to make bells?

Return