From Russia with Love (Moscow, Russia April 9-13)

Ahh, Russia... In case you've forgotten, I feel I need to remind you the hell I went through to get there.

First, apparently you need tourist visas to get into the country. A week before we were scheduled to leave we decided to look into this. For the low, low price of 500 CHF (plus the cost of 4 trips to Bern) we had our visas. But not before getting our SWISS visas that had expired the day before so we, technically, weren't allowed to leave the country in the first place. I could go on and on about how many naughty words left my mouth that week but I won't.

You would think it would be a lot easier to get a tourist visa. Golly Moses! ALL I WANT TO DO IS VISIT YOUR COUNTRY, STAY IN YOUR HOTELS, EAT IN YOUR RESTAURANTS, BUY YOUR CRAPPY SOUVENIERS, AND PAY TO SEE YOU LAME ATTRACTIONS! I'm trying to give you $$$, why do you make it so difficult and be so mean doing it?

1,000 CHF later we have all the required documention to leave this freaking country. At this point, all I wanted to was set flame to all of Europe and go home to my DIET coke and heavily processed foods...but I thought I might get into a little trouble and already spent the money so we might as well go.

Needless to say, Kyle and I had a little bit of a bad taste in our mouths before even leaving our house.

So, to the day of the trip. Normally I try to schedule our travel so that leaving Switzerland we leave early in the morning so we have a full day wherever we're going and then a late flight coming back. That's not possible when there's only one flight a day entering the country. So we get the morning to relax at home and get to the airport for our 3 pm flight. We rolled into Moscow about 8. Getting through the airport was fine and we actually thought that all the horror stories we had heard weren't applicable anymore. All the signs at the airport and leading to the train with in both English and their crazy hyrogliphics.

**Language Side Note** OMG. Kyle and I do very well with any language that is based on the 26 letter English alphabet, but anything else? Not so much. To get to where we were going we'd have to figure out where we were. Then we'd say, OK, we're going to street 'Number 4, omega, Jesus fish, L, pi, backwards p, elephant, N with a curl, delta' - then we'd get to that street and have to do it all over again. It was a little crazy and very daunting.

Now, once you leave the airport that's another story - SCREWED! Our first experience with a real Russian was a mess. The ticket lady for the train into the city was not very nice. She did speak a little English...I guess. We got 2 tickets so she ran our credit card twice. Kyle signed one copy and then put the second copy he got in his wallet. Yelling ensued until we figured out what was going on. Then more yelling, apparently the train was leaving in 2 minutes and we needed to get on it NOW (the next one left in an hour). In our running to the train we never got any rubles - so no cash.

The train ride into the city was fine - we watched their crazy fashion closed circuit tv and tried to figure out where we were going once we got off the train. Once the train pulls into the station and we get off we need to get cash so we can buy metro tickets.

There are no ATMs. Kyle finds one on the other side of a barricade and goes to use it (after miming to the security guard that he's not trying to steal anything - he just needs the ATM) but it's broken. He walks around looking for another one while I stay with the luggage (already I'm glad that I made us bring the small stuff).

30 minutes later he comes back with no money. Now what? We have 2 options. 1. Walk around aimlessly and see if we can find an ATM that works. 2. Buy train tickets back to the airport and go get cash there. Let's go for option 1.

We walk back through the now closed gate that we arrived through so we could look around there. EUREKA! An ATM! Kyle puts in his mistro card, denied - puts in my mistro card, denied - puts in his commerce bank card, denied - puts in our credit card, denied - puts in another credit card, denied - finally, in the black whole that is his wallet he finds our Cap Fed bank card, APPROVED!

Now, to the Metro. We find an entrance and there is even a person working the counter! More hand gestures and we are now the proud owner of 2 metro tickets.

We take a pretty uneventful metro ride to our stop and then walk through these dark deserted back alleys to our hotel. I'm just silently praying that our hotel is where the map says it is - otherwise we're going back to the airport and sleeping there.

We finally get to our hotel and get all checked in. By now we're starving. The only place within close walking distance is the hotel restaurant - fine. It's so late at this point that they have to keep it open for us. I have some sort of half grilled chicken (really - they cut a chicken in half and put in on the grill) and Kyle had veal stew-type something. We had a nice long discussion over what exactly veal was and (once again) the powers of Google proved me correct.

After dinner we just go crash. It was such a long stressful day!

Now it's Friday morning. We figure out we can walk to Red Square (red mean 'beautiful' in old Russian) and where the English speaking tours are.

Once we ALMOST get to Red Square we run into the Kremlin and have to walk around. We decide to go right (wrong) since we can see the street from there. 30 minutes later we're there and this is what we see!

We walk around to get some more pictures:

This was not the first or the last time we saw a bride and groom walking through Red Square. At first Kyle thought it was weird and I reminded him about what we did in Vegas when we got married and that 90% of KC couples go downtown for photo shoots... Although all the brides and grooms look like they're about 12 years old.
St. Basil's Cathedral has recently been restored and thats why the colors are so vibrant. Originally, during soviet times, the cathedral was going to be demolished. The only thing that saved it from distruction is that the square looked empty and disproportionate without it (on the blue prints).

After several (so you can see) pictures of St. Basil's we moved on to get tickets to tour the Kremlin. We'll, apparently the Kremlin needs to know you're coming 24 hours in advance so we opted for the bus tour instead that day (Kremlin tour on Saturday).

After getting our tickets for the bus and Kremlin we had lunch at a cute little buffet around the corner from the ticket office - it came recommended. It was very neat because it was very far off the beaten path and never would have found it if we weren't told where to go. That meant that it was all locals, doing local things, eating local food.

Then we started our bus tour. Here's one of the pretty churches in the Kremlin. The domes are real gold.
This is an apartment building that is designed to look like a train (I think). These apartments actually have double walls that the KGB would hide between and listen to people's conversations - and make arrests if they felt necessary.
This is Moscow University on the top of the hill. This was one of several buildings built during Stalin's time.
We stopped for souveniers and the view a little later. It was not uncommon to see several tables of this (notice the Winnie the Pooh, Spongebob, and Simpsons dolls). You'll see the ones we picked out later.
After our bus tour we were dropped back off in Red Square. Kyle thought this monkey was cute because he was wearing a leather jacket.
This is Lenin's Mausoleum. This has been his home since his death in 1924. Normally there is an ungodly line waiting to view him but he was getting bathed the week we were there so we didn't get to view him. Apparently he was only supposed to be on display for a few weeks after his death but has been here ever since because he's such an attraction. Next we headed over to St. Basil's. The next several pictures will show you that it's just as colorful on the inside as it is on the out. The tickets to get in here were also the prettiest pieces of paper I have ever seen (I hope they made it to my scrapbooking things).
I'm a sucker for miniature anything. Here's St. Basil's inside of St. Basil's.
Kyle was apparently a little tall.


This was just some random ceiling in a really obscure place of the cathedral.
Next was a trip to Gum (we were cold at this point and the sun was going down). Do NOT pronounce it 'gum'. It's pronounced 'goom'. This is the main department store of the Soviets, although it looks like and is laidout just like a shopping mall.

Kyle and I had a long discussion about the glass ceilings. We thought they were absolutely ingenious - especially in the 1800's. We were there in April and it was winter coats season still. I highly doubt that there is much use for outdoor shopping centers like Town Center. But, in the summer it is light for a looong time because of the latitude. This way they get the sun in the summer (cutting down on engery I would assume) but are still warm in the winter).
Saturday was the tour of the Kremlin. 'Kremlin' is another one of those words that you associate with a particular place (think Acropolis) but can actually be anywhere. 'Kremlin' means fortified city in old Russian so there were Kremlins all over the USSR (or whatever it was called waaaay back in the day). It just happens that the main one where all the REALLY important people were was in Moscow.

Here is one of the entrances to the Kremlin - just thought it was neat looking.
To be honest, I was very disappointed. Not only did I have to wait 24 hours to go in (because they only let so many tour people in a day) but I thought we were going to be seeing something cool (WHAT exactly I wasn't sure) but all we really got to see was a bunch of churches - I think there are 5 within the walls. This church was where all the men were buried, this church was where all the women were buried, this church was for weddings, this one for funerals... I thought here should have been something a little neater behind those sacred walls.


Sunday we headed out to the park north of the city. This park is freaking massive. I think they call it the Disney Land of Russia because it's so big. First stop was the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. We didn't actually go into the museum part because there was a long line but the statue is pretty cool!
Then we headed to the 'All Russia Exhibition Centre. This place is MASSIVE! Again, it was built during the time on Stalin. We spent the rest of the afternoon among the Russians enjoying their nice Sunday.

You name it you could find it here. Camels, Ice Cream, Rollerblading, Street Performers, and this thing:
What you don't see in this picture is the 45 kids on roller skates holding on to the back of this being dragged around. We even saw one of these train things stop, back up, then go again to try to get the kids off of it!
Sunday night we went to the Moscow State Circus. This is a government funded circus that performs every night! It was very neat - very Cirque-du-Soleil. The one ring circus had an interchangable floor. It started as a big LED screen then they pulled that out and put in the ring of death (you know, where they put 17 motorcycles into a steel globe), then they put in a pool.


Here's a picture of the Emcee. He was crazy, and a little scary, looking.
The absolute weirdest thing about the circus was that when it was time to clap for a performer the emcee would start it (most of the time) and you would all clap at the same time (think slow clap). We even saw parents show their children the proper way to clap when they were just clapping whenever they wanted (like the US would do...)

And that was our trip to Moscow, Russia. We did make a few observations along they way:

There were what we would call police officers everywhere. And it would always be a pack of them; 5-6 at a time. But I would actually watch people walk completely out of their way to stay away from them. They didn't seem friendly at all - they were always just talking amongst themselves. And they all looked very young. Kyle's comment was 'If you can't beat them join them, I suppose.'

Also, our trip to Moscow was not as relaxing as other trips (not to say that any of our sightseeing trips are really 'relaxing'). We were always just a little bit uptight - not completely sure of our surroundings. I would like to think that we're a lot more adventurous then the 'average joe' but we found ourselves - because we weren't real comfortable - going back to the same places, eating at familiar restaurants, and staying in tourist-y spots. This is not our usual style.

And NO ONE spoke English (other then our English speaking tour guide). She told us it was because in school as children people were scolded for not speaking proper English. They were told if they don't speak perfectly to not speak. I suck at all languages (including English) and yet I still make an effort. I have found that even a few key words can make everything go smoothly. I feel like the younger generations were 'bucking the system' and were learning English through movies and music and were a little more open to speaking but even that was few and far between.

It also make me realize just how difficult it must be to come to America if you don't know English. Everything in the US is in English and English only (much like Moscow's Russian). Being on the other side of the fence it's really terrifying...

Oh, and now to the pretty part: OUR RUSSIAN DOLLS! I am so excited about them! We ended up spending a pretty penny on these but, really, how many people can say they purchased Russian dolls in Russia? We really liked how every doll was the same but a little different and on their bellies are scenes from around Moscow. I can't wait to be able to display them in KC (nothing is displayed here - it's all just in a box waiting patiently to come home).