We spent two wonderful days in the capital city of Russia, Moscow. We loved it from the very beginning – it’s full of life, rich and has many attractions that are known in the whole world. For this reason, it’s crucial to go there when visiting Russia – at least for a couple of days. Some things surprised us a lot and we didn’t expect them. What was that? Read more and find it out!
Day 1
How We Got To Moscow
We encourage you to read our previous note: Petersburg during World Cup 2018 – it was our stop before Moscow and we described there how we spent our time in Petersburg and how we got from there to Moscow. In a nutshell: we took a night train (very comfy, included in the price of the ticket to World Cup match).
We got to Moscow early in the morning and went straight to our Couchsurfing host’s place – Michael. He showed us his flat and had to go straight to work. As it was still early and we were a little bit tired, we stayed at his place for a while and took a nap to rest up :)
Moscow Kremlin
Kremlin was the first attraction for us to see in Moscow. We wanted to get the tickets first to go inside. We had to go at the rear of the Kremlin to get the tickets and we remember that there were many tills and many people were queuing. To get inside we had our bags scanned due to safety reasons (we bought the cheapest ticket – there were many different tickets and options depending on how many buildings inside Kremlin you want to see from the inside eg. exhibition, armoury, architectural).
Weather in Russia had no mercy for us unfortunately and when we were visiting Kremlin it was drizzling and it was very cold and unpleasant. But visiting Kremlin was something! Just look at the photos we took:
We got to see many cathedrals, architecture (Kremlin walls are red), took a long walk around to get the most of it, as it’s a very important historical and political place. We could also see the Senate building, the residence of the president of Russia. However, there are servicemen that wouldn’t allow to come too close. There was designated a path and lines that nobody was allowed to cross and whenever someone came closer, one of the serviceman warned to move back. We also saw a landing place for helicopters and well-kept gardens with colourful flowers.
Red Square
Next stop: Red Square. We don’t want to count the number of photos we took there :) Probably everyone does the same in this place. It’s impossible to resist a photo session and it’s impossible not to like it there. Saint Basil’s Cathedral is just extremely impressive – so colourful, looks like palace in a fairy tale. It’s one of the best-known attractions in the whole Russia and it’s not without a reason! We so loved this place that we spent couple of hours there (so keep in mind you may not want to leave Kremlin and Red Square when planning your trip :)). Not only Saint Basil’s Cathedral is colourful, the whole Red Square is like that. Buildings and architecture is admirable and it’s a great feeling to just stand there and think how many important events during the whole history took place there. Easy to fall in love with this place that is so exceptional and full of life.
Stolovaya
We already wrote about this cantina in our previous note about St. Petersburg, so we’ll only mention about it briefly one again. It’s a very cheap place and when being in Russia we went there all the time because the food was tasty. The only problem was that it was hard to find free table to it and the queue was quite long, but when you think about it, it’s actually understandable: good food, low prices and good location. Definitely something to recommend.
In the evening …
We got back to Micheal’s place in the evening and he also came back home. We were surprised because he also cooked dinner for us! We ate together, drank tea and were talking till late at night. He told us many interesting stories and made our stay in Russia even more enjoyable. It was a pleasure to meet him :)
Day 2
Lenin’s Mausoleum
We woke up early to go to the Lenin’s Mausoleum (it’s in the Red Square). The weather was finally better, which was a relief because we were queuing for about an hour to get inside (there is no entry fee). We’d say it’s worth to go there, it’s something really different and definitely something extraordinary. However, you can’t be in this place long – we just got inside, went around (they don’t allow stopping and looking) and had to go out. We saw Lenin very shortly (for maybe 1-2 minutes), but managed to take a closure look as we took very slow pace. We can tell that Lenin looks much like wax figure – as you can read on the Internet there’s not much Lenin left and they have to preserve his body all the time. It’s also not allowed to take phots there.
Also, what’s very interesting – next to Lenin’s Mausoleum there are graves of some other most important persons like for example Stalin. And he had even some flowers laid on his grave.
Red Square
Ok, so we were already in the Red Square and the weather was finally better. That’s why we just had to stay there a bit, take phots and enjoy the views. It took us couple of hours, but you can’t blame us – this place is fantastic. It’s obviously a touristic place so there were many other people around as well as shops with souvenirs. We visited one of them and it was a funny experience. We bought only a magnet because we had only backpacks with us and couldn’t take much but if we could, we would buy many things from this shops. They had everything with Putin – T-shirts, magnets, cups, face masks (almost everything – they didn’t have toilet paper with Putin, which was a very popular thing to find in Ukraine). They had also matryoshka dolls, Russian huts (ushankas) and even Stalin’s and Lenin’s busts. Visiting a souvenir shop had never been that interesting before.
Moscow City
Our next stop was Moscow International Business Center called Moscow City. It’s Moscow’s business district and if someone is a fan of modern architecture, then it’s a must see. Building are tall and impressive, everything looks very splendid and wealthy. Generally seeing this place didn’t took us much time, but we enjoyed it and were able to take pretty pics.
Evening
We spent the evening with our host again. When we were coming back to his apartment it was raining heavily and we were soaked wet again. We had to dry our shoes with the hair dryer again :) That day we were also lucky because there was already hot water so we could at least take a warm shower (the day before they were doing something with the pipes and there was only cold water in his flat. We could toughen up with cold shower after the whole day of unpleasant rains :)) But it was a funny experience for us and now we have something to reminisce :)
Day 3
That was our last day in Moscow, but we didn’t sightsee at all – we just went shopping to buy some food for the next 3 days. At 1:50 p.m. we had a Trans-Siberian train to Irkutsk (3 days and 9 hours ride!) We’ll write a whole note about this unique experience soon :)