Moscow for real

Moscow and St. Petersburg are big rival cities -- kind of similar to Pittsburgh and Cleveland if I think about it. People in Petersburg will go into long tirades about all the bad things about Moscow if you even mention the city. So, I headed into this trip with a fairly negative expectation about what I was getting into. I expected Moscow to be dirty, overcrowded, boring, etc. Instead, I was greeted by a completely different city.

First of all, it takes about 7 hours on the train to get to Moscow. We went on an overnight train, which was an experience to begin with. I've never really traveled by train and I kind of enjoyed it. We had compartments for 4 people, with a bed for each. It was fun to hang out and travel with my friends on a Russian train. It even sounds like an interesting experience.

The train got into Moscow at 6 am and we headed straight to where we were staying (a dormitory for the blind...it had a central location). We had a few hours to sleep and then we were off. The first thing we did was meet up with our old man guide for our first walking tour. Instead of taking us to Red Square first (which we actually couldn't do because it was Victory day and the military parade was going through Red Square -- invitation only), we went into the botanical gardens of Moscow State University. They were beautiful! Moscow, to begin with, is already tons more green than St. Petersburg. The city has made an effort to create tons of parks and green spaces, which makes it very appealing. While the parks in Petersburg were created for the royalty (so they are gated in and sometimes hard to access), every time Moscow took down a set of circular walls surrounding the city (3 times), they replaced that space with parks. So, you can actually walk all around the city by walking through these strips of park. After that, we went to Red Square and did more of a walking tour around the center.

In general, Moscow is a lot more of an American like city than St. Petersburg. The metro system is incredibly complicated (but therefore useful, unlike the one here), the city is cleaner, and generally fairly efficient. It almost felt like we were in an entirely different country because we had this picture of a Russian city in our minds from our Petersburg experience, and this was totally different. It's more expensive, but definitely somewhere I would prefer to live over Petersburg.

Other highlights of the weekend: a circus performance (of course! I was also notified of the mouse circus that performs in Moscow. If I make another trip there, I'm going to try to get tickets. It sounds like something not to be missed), a sculpture garden that contained old Soviet sculptures that have no homes anymore (lots of Lenins and Stalins), and going to a cemetery where tons of famous people are buried (Yeltsin, Khruschev, Shostakovich, Gogol, Chekov, Rostrapovich, Kabelevsky, Skriabin, etc.). The cemetery was incredible because the gravestones were so creative and unique. There were tons of Russians walking around and laying flowers at graves.

We also went on a tour of the Kremlin, and I visited one of the synagogues and the Contemporary History museum. That museum was actually really overwhelming and full of Russian pride. Despite the fact that Medvedev was only inaugurated a week ago, his portrait was front and center.

One of the best things was the fact that a restaurant where we ate a lot forgot to order food for vegetarians so we got to order from the menu! We found a great American tasting sandwich.

In conclusion, I really loved Moscow and was kind of disappointed to come back here. I'm hoping to make another trip (mostly because Lenin's mausoleum was closed and I feel like I can't leave Russia without seeing Lenin), but who knows what will happen. Possibly we just enjoyed Moscow so much because we're about ready to return to the States. It definitely made us realize the things we'll appreciate.

Only three more weeks to go!

P.S. My friend Katie was talking with her host mother last night about Putin. Her host mother expressed how great Putin is and how everyone loves him. When Katie said that many people in the U.S. don't like him, her mother said "that's because you have too much propaganda in America." We thought it was funny.