Last known location: London, England

Archive of posts about Russia


11
Oct
4

Москва, Россия

by Dan & Gem | RussiaRussia | Moscow


 
Still struggling to get to grips with the Cyrillic alphabet, the above is “Moscow, Russia” for those who don’t know it (including us!). So far we’ve mastered Кафе (cafe), Бар (bar) and Ресторан (restaurant), but not much else!

Despite that, we managed to make it from Moscow to St Petersburg on the train, on The Krasnaya Strela (Red Arrow). It was far more luxurious than our previous overnight train. We had a cabin with two other people, a comfortable bed that I could almost fit in and announcements in English from someone who’d clearly taken English lessons at Buckingham Palace. The other two people in our compartment were English, the first we’d met in Russia; a Bristolian couple called Dan & Sarah doing a similar trip to us which was nice. Managed to get some sleep and were in a half decent state when we arrived in Moscow at 8am. Click here to read more…

9
Oct
5

North to St Petersburg

by Dan & Gem | RussiaRussia | St Petersburg

On arrival at Baltiyskiy Station we thought we’d avoid the temptation of a taxi and get the Metro to our hostel.  At the ticket booth we indicated we wanted two tickets to Nevsky Prospekt station. The woman stared at us blankly and said something in Russian we couldn’t understand.  After a couple more vain attempts to communicate we decided to give up; a small queue was forming behind us and it was rush hour, so we opted for the taxi after all! We tried to barter with the taxi driver – another fail! Still, we got him to turn the meter on so hopefully didn’t get too badly ripped off.

Got to the hostel at about 10am, luckily our room was ready so we checked in and dumped our stuff.  We avoided the temptation to go straight to bed after the previous night and just had a much needed hot shower before wrapping up warm and heading out into the city.  God knows how we’ll survive on a train for 6 nights – after just one we were walking around in a daze! Click here to read more…