Moscow!

Warning: This is a long post, but then we had a long day!

Apparently there are only two flights a day from Helsinki to Moscow (or at least only two the Church uses)--one at 9:00 am and one at 6:30 pm, and there is only one flight from Moscow to Barnaul and it leaves at 10:50 pm, which makes for about a layover of either 4 hours or nearly 12 hours, but that's better than flying to Novosibirsk and then making the 4 1/2 hour trip on a train or bus.

By the time they booked the tickets for our visa trip, there were only seats available on the morning flight out of Helsinki. Rather than sit in the Moscow airport all day, we decided to make use of that time and go to Red Square. We figured that since we haven't found the one in four Russians in Barnaul who speak English like we were promised, they must all be living in Moscow and we would be able to find someone to help us if needed. We tried booking a tour guide for the Kremlin and Red Square, but the one English-speaking guide we knew about wasn't available. We talked with others in the mission and someone told us to go to Red Square, find the lady with the bullhorn and ask for an English tour guide. We were assured that we could easily get there on our own. We were a little worried, but with those promises ringing in our ears, we decided to go experience Moscow!

The Moscow airport is large, with 6 terminals. Three, including the international one, are connected, and the other three are accessible by a shuttle. After wandering around through three terminals and asking several people, we finally found a place to check our carry ons, and followed the signs to the express train into Moscow. Thirty minutes later we joined the rest of the crowd and exited the train. However, the crowd wasn't going to the Metro and we still weren't finding that elusive 25% who speak some English. After wandering around for a VERY long time, often going in circles and going through and around construction, we discovered the entrance to the Metro, one building past where we'd stopped several times before. Yes! At the ticket counter we asked if anyone spoke English. There was a manager at the back of the room who told us in broken English "three stops" and jabbered off something in Russian that we guessed was the name of the stop. We asked for a copy of the Metro map. They seemed surprised. Their attitude seemed to say, "we have them hanging on the wall--why would you want one to carry with you?"

We bought our tickets and took the escalator down. And it went down. And down. And down. It is the longest single escalator we've been on. We asked the Metro lady at the bottom about which train to go on. She didn't speak English but when I said something about Kremlin, she pointed to the right. We went to the right and got on the next train. At the third stop the name started the same as the long word the lady had repeatedly jabbered, so we got off. We tried to figure out which of the MANY exits to use. Finally we started to go out one but stopped and asked the guard "Kremlin?" and he pointed us in the other direction, scooped his arm down and back up and then around to indicate we needed to go under the street and go a little bit more, and smiled. We followed his directions and came out by Red Square!

We walked around a little bit, wandering by some of the many souvenir stands, watching the people, looking at the buildings, and then asked the lady with the bullhorn about English. She sent us to someone else who said there were no English-speaking guides available.

We saw a crowd and went over to see what it was for and got there just in time to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier! It was at a weird time, like 12:25. It was interesting to watch their high kicks and facial expressions.



After that we walked around and took pictures. There are lots of buildings around Red Square and the Kremlin--churches, stores, and other buildings we couldn't figure out what they were. One building went on and on and on and it even looked like it could have been a painted movie set in the distance. Later we discovered it was like a painted movie set. Apparently they were doing some construction or something and put a painted canvas across the front.

We wondered about the onion dome building that we've always seen as part of Red Square. It is St. Basil's Cathedral, not a government building at all. There were lots of people there, and we asked several to take our picture. Russians take pictures of people, not landmarks, so we had several different people take our picture until we got one with all the spires in it! We tried to explain we wanted the whole building, but we still weren't finding people who speak English.

Doing better

It's missing the top of the cross, but as good as we're going to get!
This is the back side of the cathedral.

Although it looks like Dave's sporting a new head of hair in these pictures, that's his neat new hat that keeps his head safe from sunburn.

Then we decided to walk all the way around the Kremlin. We started at the back corner, because that was where we'd gotten to in our wanderings. Did you know the Kremlin is big, as in BIG? We didn't know it until we got halfway around the first side. It's a good thing we had such a long layover! It was a nice day, cool but sunny. The grounds were beautiful. All in all, we enjoyed out time strolling around. We talked about going inside, but decided that without a tour guide we wouldn't know what we were seeing since everything is in Russian (imagine that--all in their language!).

There were several brides and grooms. We found out that they can walk past the ropes at the Tomb--when it isn't time for the changing of the guards of course--and the bride puts her bouquet down in front of the flame, they get their picture taken, and then leave the flowers behind.

After that we were hungry and very thirsty, so we decided to get something to eat. Our biggest problem with eating out in Russia is finding food that we know is safe for us to eat. We decided Sbarros was a good option--it's hard to go wrong with cooked pizza and bottled water. While we were eating it started to rain, so we just took our time and waited out the storm before heading back to the Metro.

We weren't worried about getting back to the express train because we had the name of our stop written down. However, the first lady we went to couldn't read our note. We don't know if she had vision problems, or--more likely--is illiterate, so we got back in line for another ticket booth. After we bought our tickets, someone from behind told us in English how to get tickets. Thanks. When we went to ask him how to know which train to get on, he was gone. We checked maps on the wall and figured out which train going which way was the one we thought we wanted and climbed on board. At least we hoped we'd figured it right. When it stopped at the end of the line and we saw what looked kind of familiar, we were relieved. When we got to the escalator that went up and up and up, we knew we were in the right place. We got to the express train station just as one was pulling away. Fortunately they run every half hour, and we still had plenty of time.

We got back to the airport, picked up our luggage and checked in. We are SO glad the airlines manage to find the English speakers we can't and they have people who speak English at all the ticket counters. We checked in and waited for a couple of hours. After the long days, we were glad to get back home.

Note from Dave: This sounds SO much better than what we felt that day, wandering around lost and with no people who could speak a language we could understand. Arline was confident but I thought we may need to take a taxi back to the airport. Yes we survived, but just barely! It was an experience I won't forget or ever choose to repeat!

This week's Russianism:
Can you tell what this is? We've heard this one by Red Square is the busiest one in the world. Russian is very phonetic, and it's pronounced the same as in English, just with Russian letters! We ate at the Sbarros next to this. The McDonald's line never died down the whole time we were eating, even when it started to rain. We decided not to eat there because we heard about one elder who got food poisoning at McDonald's (it doesn't take much Russian food for an American to get food poisoning) and we didn't want to chance it. Then as we were heading back to the subway we also saw this sign:

There is no W sound in Russian, so they call it Vyendy's. American free enterprise is alive and well all over !