Moscow; an underground of marble & a nightlife of mayhem

With a bit of a late departure from Suzdal we were finally on the last leg of the vodka train! The bus transfer was about four hours…delayed by pretty heavy traffic coming into the city. The time was passed watching the rest of avatar followed by a Russian cartoon about a Girl and a bear; a little similar to Dora the explorer, which kept the bus driver happy as he sang along to the child tunes. With a brief cigarette, stretch your legs and food snacks stop it was a pretty passive journey. Coming into the outer city suburbs the tall monotone buildings reflected the soviet style you would expect, not differing much from one another and scattering the streets in all directions. Further into the city, park like plains separated the streets, well maintained and plentiful with tulips. We drove in circles for a whole before finally arriving at our prime location hostel; godzillas. 10 of us in one dorm leaving corn d and Jane in another. We plonked our bags, payed our registration and met our last honcho marina. With a fleeting half hour to clean ourselves up, the boys taking a little longer than usual in the hope to pull a Moscow lover…who’s legs seem to stream for days (epitomized with ridiculously high stilettos)! We made our way just a few blocks down to an affordable buffet style restaurant. An abundance of borsch was ordered and escorted by a few bottles of headache cheap sparkling and strong long islands. After dinner Marina pointed us in the direction of a bar that may be banging on the eve of an ordinary tuesday but unfortunately we walked in to see just one other quiet table and three drunk locals who beckoned us to follow them to crazy daisies. Jumping in three un marked cabs (just after Marina pledged us not to take one warning that they will rip us off) we thought safety in numbers, and ordered our final destination to crazy daisies.

An interesting place to say the least….full of what looked like underage, underdressed half naked teens dancing on bars and sweating themselves silly; it was our last night together after all so we did what the locals do! 5 shots of vodka later, you couldn’t get us off the bar!!! Another 5, we were Legless and loving the cheesy music! Feeling fruity and foreign the three of us got caught in a whirlwind and spread our wings; Eric heading for a fit frenchy, craines was swept away by a suave swiss (still on the scene) and I found myself a delightful Dutch. A strange stroll home, which is pretty vague but involved a fair bit of stumbling, another Aussie who was staying at the hostel guided us safely back. 
red square

True to form the group woke feeling more than a little under the weather, contrasting with the unusually brilliant Moscow weather. I was treated to an even more horrendous wake up call, when a particularly delightful member of the group decided it was ok to bring back a hairy Russian lover and love him loudly in the bunk directly beside me. Did I say loudly?
A patient Marina waited for us to get ourselves together and took us to breakfast for fantastic coffees, pancakes, bacon and eggs and to assess the damage unleashed the previous night. It wouldn’t be normal if i had come away unbruised, however, this one was quite unique and resembled a hickey in the centre of my top lip.  After brekkie we soldiered on to the historic and iconic Red Square. On foot we wandered through the impressive City streets, full of grand old buildings, cars, fountains and enormous green parks. Statues paying tribute to those notable in the arts adorned old buildings and public spaces, a nice change to the politically controversial. Marina explained that many historic buildings, for whatever reason, had been torn down by different governments during the soviet times only to be rebuilt exactly the same. 

The Red Square itself was an amazing place to be. With a grand red entrance opening up to the square, the Okhotny Ryad Shopping center stood on the left hand side offering high end shopping and cafes complete with cane chairs and white umbrellas in the sunshine. Opposite, sitting oddly and I guess a bit morbidly, was the body of Lenin in a strange little tomb building. Behind that was the government building and also the presidential residence of Vladimir Putin, who happened to be home. And at the end in all it’s glory stood st Basils cathedral. The landmark buildings boxed hundreds of tourists in, tour groups, schools kids and couples all snapping away at the sights, eager to capture the perfect photo. They were no different. When they were finally photoed out, Marina took us in, even more exquisite on the inside than the out. Here she showed uskremlina traditional soviet cafe, not only offering a typical menu from a cafe during the soviet times, but also genuine reproductions of the decore, right down to the toothpick holders. We feasted on chicken kiev, beet root salads, borsch, and ‘herring under a fur blanket’, all popular soviet dishes. After we made our way to the kremlin. Still feeling sore from the night before, only those pressed for time in Moscow went in while the rest of us opted to lay under the trees in the sunshine of one of the nearby parks. Marina told us about her twin sister who married an Australian man and now lives in Perth. She also told us about what it was like to be a young educated woman living in Russia. She is currently waiting for her visa to be approved for the UK.. Like so many of the other honchos, they are keen to leave the country. She explained that in the current condition, the educated who know better are getting out while they can. Our conversation in the park didn’t last long though, after an angry blonde policewoman marched over to us, yelling at us to get off the grass and sit on the concrete. It was all very bizarre in my hungover state and I still don’t understand what exactly we were doing wrong. I can safely say that was the worst and only encounter we had with the notoriously difficult Russian police. Marina told us during her first tour group, they were surrounded by 15 police officers who were threatening to imprison the group unless they produced their documents. When they tried to hand them over the police refused and would only leave after each member paid 10,000 roubles…. Steep. 

Rooftop bars have become a favourite over the duration of the trip and we soon spied one atop the glamorous Ritz Carlton. Looking not-so-glamorous, our group clambered into the glass elevator, hoping for a sweet view and maybe treating ourselves to one budget breaking drink. However, much to our amusement, the rooftop was closed for the all important launch of Zumba in Russia!

Back at the hostel, it was our last ‘official’ night of the vodka train. (Every night was a ‘last’ here on in.) Marina took us to another soviet style restaurant for dinner before we found a kind of underground jazz bar with sweet coconut cocktails and strong sheesha. We reluctantly befriended a sweaty moustached Russian who resembled a pirate and insisted on calling me Debbie. While we had plans for another night out, we all found ourselves floored by the sheesha and the love in the coconut cocktails. After trying a few kakdalas and dasvadanas on the good looking bar staff, we made our way back to the hostel to watch a movie, except we all fell asleep. On our last morning we enjoyed a coffee at one of the umbrella cafes in the square, running into Jane, Clare and Panda. I accidentally ordered a $20 pineapple juice, lucky it was pretty delicious and sprinkled with gold. We had photos in front of the church and lunch at the cafe, browsed longingly in the shops, watched the changing of the guards and didn’t make it into the kremlin. Despite the tour officially ending, we still continued to have dinner with remaining tour members and met up with them for a delicious feast at an art gallery cafe near the hostel. Most notable were the desserts, amazing miniature mouthfuls of delight. But even more exciting for me were the paper placemats and complimentary pencils and textas. I was quiet the entire night as she created a mind map of a our journey from Hong Kong, quite the work of art if I do say so myself.

We joined Panda, Clare and Jane the following day to travel the city on its an incredible metro system, ‘the ring of fire’ a must when in Moscow. Built during the Soviet era, the stations are galleries themselves, displaying intricate mosaics on the walls and ceilings, stairs and pylons constructed of solid marble and grand chandeliers hang above the railway lines. We got off and inspected some without leaving the station. At one we ventured into a souvenir market, a full frontal assault of babushka dolls and fur hats. At the next we found a cafe for a lovely lunch deal of soup, sandwiches and dips. Back on the metro our next stop was a ski jump, no snow insight at this time of year, but provided an amazing lookout over the city and a chair lift back. On our way home we picked up a relatively cheap supermarket dinner and some sneaky drinks to have in our alcohol free hostel before we got ready for one last night out in Moscow. Ready for a rager, we headed for the much hyped Rolling Stones bar with Jane. We saw the famous logo, could hear the chuuuuuunes, climbed the stairs only to find a next to empty bar. It didn’t deter us, after a few rounds of drinks the place started to fill, complete with sweaty underage half conscious girls grinding on the bar. We soon made friends with a group of Israeli guys in Moscow for four days on a buck’s weekend. I can honestly say they were the most respectable, dignified bucks I will probably ever come across. Dancing and chat and before we knew it, it was 3am. After some hesitation we decided against continuing the party with them and went home. (What’s happening to us?) 

Waking up to our final day in Moscow we had big plans to finally see the kremlin, however once back at the square less then lovely weather sent us back to the soviet cafe for an early lunch. We then ventured across the river to find the art district. After a pleasant coffee over looking the river, we ventured into what looked like suspicious rape dungeons to find galleries in what had once been a chocolate factory. The real winner was a Greg Gorman exhibition, with photos he had taken of Hollywood stars in the 80s and 90s. We explored the city some more before heading back to rest up and watch a terrible Reece Witherspoon rom-com at the hostel. Meeting up with Jane, Claire, Panda And Cor again for dinner, we decided to venture out of our area and found a lovely restaurant for our final Moscow feast. Keeping an eye on the time we picked up our bags from the hostel and followed Claire and Panda to the station to catch our final train in Russian overnighter to St Petersburg.