Last week, on Tuesday, we took a night-train to go to Moscow. I was really excited about this trip. I had heard a lot of different opinions about Moscow, some people told me that they didn’t like it, because it was too big and crowded and people were rather gloomy, others told me that Moscow was really cool. I couldn’t wait to go there myself to get my own impressions.
Taking the night-train was quite alright. The old, big lady sleeping very close to us was snoring quite badly all night long, so I didn’t really sleep well. We met girls from Moscow with whom we chatted for a little bit befor the lights in the train were turned off. It felt so good to just be sitting there and having a talk, which made me realised that my Russian had indeed improved. Our trip started off really well.
In Moscow we found the way to our hostel without any problems. It was quite interesting. We basicually stayed in a private flat that must have some kind of licence to be a “hostel”. There was one private room with a double-bed (Carina and Markus stayed there) and two rooms with bunk beds. Students of PR from some Siberian city (and I am sorry for not recalling the name) stayed in the hostel, as they participated in some PR workshop for students from all over Russia.
We were really lucky as far as the weather was concerned. It was colder than in St. Petersburg – or least it felt like that – but the sun was shining. It was nice weather to walk around.
I was a tourist in every possible way. Spending three days in Moscow is quite little time and although we did a lot of sightseeing – yeah, we went to the Red Square and Kremlin – we didn’t quite manage to cover all of the important sights and landmarks.
I went to a really nice underground art store, where former Soviet objects are re-used and either new commodities or design objects are created. I bought a really cool bag, individually designed (actually sprayed) by some young Russian artist.
It’s really hard to say what it is, but somehow being in Moscow felt different to being in Piter, and I am not sure if it was only due to the fact that I was a tourist in Moscow and thus had a different feeling or attitude or if the two cities really differ that much.
Moscow is definitely worth a trip and I have already decided that I have to go there again, because there is so much more to see and I just liked the first impressions I got from it. Moscow has definitely caught me. It’s a cool place.
Back in St. Petersburg we had a really cool weekend, throwing a party (ветеринка) with lots of people in our small, but very cosy dorm room and lots of dancing. Carina made delicious “Topfenknödel” (curd cheese dumblings) on Sunday, that were so delightful that they are worth being mentioned here.
(anna)
