Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Moscow - Red Square, Red Tape, Red Sauce



I'd like to say that we burst through the red tape to eat red sauce in Red Square but that would be a slight manipulation of the truth. We did however manage to negotiate all the red tape involved with gaining access to Red Square, The Kremlin and to visit a waxy looking Lenin in his crib (Mausoleum). This was all done whilst painstakingly avoiding the document-demanding, power-tripping, bribe-hungry militsia in their ridiculously oversized hats (hope none of them are reading this or it's the Gulag for us!)

As for the red sauce (not particularly interesting, but necessary for the title to make sense); the traditional Russian hostel we were staying in (Godzillas) had kitchen facilities so we were straight onto standard budget-travellers rations of pasta and red sauce for 3 nights.

But before all of that, we survived our first train experience on the sleeper from St Petersburg to Moscow. Actually it would be technically incorrect to call it a "sleeper", as no sleep was had due to the ear-splitting snores emanating from the World Snoring Champion in the bunk opposite.

Cribbage Update: Still going with serve, Jools 1 Kev 1

Friday, August 25, 2006

4 (thousand) Weddings and a (cool) Cathedral


It seems that on Fridays and Saturdays in St Petersburg, tourists fight for prime photo space with busloads of Russian wedding parties. At every turn in the Summer Garden was another blushing bride being photographed next to a rude statue - while the wedding party (Russian mafia types in suits) milled around downing vodka and talking loudly about the latest furry hat on the market.

Escaping the bridal parties, we stumbled across the simply named Church of the Savior of the Spilt Blood. This has to be the coolest looking church we've ever seen - a gynormous jumble of golden and multi-coloured spires and cupulas. Apparently it's modelled on St Basil's in Moscow but we prefer this one.

The rest of our time in St Petersburg was spent cruising the city's maze of canals, exploring Peter and Paul's Fortress and generally getting lost and confused following signs written cryllic.

Other random thoughts in no particular order:

Wasn't expecting to encounter mosquitos in St P's but had we done our research properly we would've known that the city was built in the middle of a bloody great swamp. Jools took a couple of hefty bites to the face on day 1.

Appears to be a bit of a beer culture over here, so we're struggling to integrate. 90% of the population seem to wander the streets clutching a bottle of beer. But clutch your bottle of beer in the wrong place and you'll be frog marched off by the local militsia - as we witnessed.

Dozvedanya.

Kev and Jools

PS Current cribbage score is Jools 1 Kev 0.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

St Petersburg


Apologies if this post is jibberish - I'm typing on a cryllic-alphabet keyboard.

As any self-respecting Scotsman worth their salt would do, I've located and drunk my first bottle of Russian Irn Bru. Oh, and St Petersburg's nice too. Will post again when we have more time....

Kev and Jools..

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