Unfortunately, I don’t need the alarm’s 5:15 wake-up call for the train. I wake up at 1:30 in the morning and that’s it for the day. Or the evening. Or whatever; all I know is that time doesn’t ever pass as slowly nor filled with such loneliness than not being able to sleep all night long when the rest of the world is quiet and drifting in dreamland.
Off to the train station in the dark, and we find our assigned seats in the economy coach. The journey passes uneventfully, although it’s difficult to sleep sitting up and I try every position I can think of – the most successful is one I learned from my children: folded arms and spread on the lowered tray ahead of me (on the airplane – here I’m actually sitting as part of a 4-some around a nice-sized table). Finally snooze for about an hour, then we’re in the Moscow train station. As we disembark, some kind of fanfare is playing and I feel like I’ve arrived.
Through trial and error, we make our way to the metro, and ride to the 4th stop and emerge in the daylight, right in front of Red Square and the Bolshoi theatre. We’re staying at the Hotel Metropol, a grand dame of a place. Presidential, Art Deco, luxurious and definitely Old World. We chat with the concierge and make plans for the next two nights, and she regales us with a list of all the foreign dignitaries and pop stars who have also enjoyed their hospitality.
Lunch in the hotel pectopah (that’s restaurant to you), a delightfully simple affair, complete with grand chandeliers, formal waitstaff and delightfully fresh and yummy food. I head upstairs for a 2 /12 hour nap while Lance enjoys the live piano and attentive waitstaff in the tea area of the lobby. He wakes me up, which takes a bit, and I freshen up and we hit the street. It’s a very short walk to the area that holds the famous (formerly) state-owned department store GUM, and hard to believe how large it is. We stroll through the inside (with my coffee to wake me up):
and you can imagine the usual assortment of international couture shops, as well as ice cream vendors at every doorway. We exit onto Red Square, and I get a panoramic photo of the size of this store:
Hard to believe? Everything is super-sized here! So many of the buildings are large (palaces?), beautifully french stylized, and undergoing face-lifts. The cool thing is that those being worked on often have a large “drape” covering the outside, with windows and doors colored on, so thought it’s just a covering, the building looks lovely and finished.
At one end of the square is the iconic St. Basil’s church, build in the 1552 by Ivan the Terrible, to commemorate capturing Kazan, the stronghold of the Tatars (and each of the 8 onion towers/chapels represents a successful assault on Kazan. The 9th chapel was built to cover the grave of Basil the Blessed and resulted in a renaming of the church). Everyone in the world recognizes this building, but just in case:
We couldn’t go inside because it was about to close, but we continued our walk around, saving the Kremlin itself for our tour tomorrow. We exited the whole area, and continued to admire the grandeur of all of the buildings. One entrance to Red Square and a babushka woman out front:
Back to the hotel for a quick change, then walking along the route suggested by our concierge. We passed through some lovely streets, filled with small designer boutiques, and a park with little party/coffee carts and a bandstand with a pianist. How quaint! So much more going on here than in St. Petersburg. Definitely a more cosmopolitan atmosphere here. We enjoyed an outdoor photography exhibit and then found ourselves at the Pushkin (famous writer) Cafe. Oh, my. 4 women playing violins and bass,
staff dressed in period costume, super old and original bar, ceilings, all porcelain toilets with baby blue flowers on the bowls (inside and out)
and just heavenly ambience. And the food matched the quality of everything else; we had traditional Russian treats: pelmeni,
pike stuffed with vegetables and horseradish cream rosettes dotted with lingonberries,
and a lamb pierogi (miniature pie). We were so delighted! The decor and music added so much to the ambiance, we felt like we were in Old Russia (and yes, that’s Lance’s back on the far right of the screen):
After dinner, we walked further down the boulevard, again on the recommendation of our concierge, to a tall building – one of the 7 sisters, built for the arrival of Mao Tse Dung on the occasion of signing a peace treaty with Stalin and Stalin didn’t want Moscow to no appear cosmopolitan – and headed up in a very dated, tiny elevator to the 13th floor. There we enjoyed tea and vodka on outdoor patio – and like pretty much every other outdoor cafe, were supplied with lovely wool blankets to stave off the cold. A delightful time and a view to many of the lights of the city.
After conversation and laughs, we hopped on the subway and straight back to the hotel for a loooong night’s sleep. yay!!