govori moskva.
alright. the mighty vostok. how do i start. moscow is huge. freakin huge and full of cars. not that we didn't know about this before, but it was still pretty surprising to enter a city with a population twice as big as my whole country. man. the entering was not really the easiest part of the visit. our superhero aka moustache man took us to the third ring road after a terrible traffic jam party, that took about three hours. and so, slightly after midnight, no rubles in our pockets, invincible army of panel houses around us and an address in our hands. but moustache man strikes again and starts the lifesaving mission. meeting his wife infront of the house, seeking for an atm, calling a taxi and bargaining the price for us. voila, only 60km around the ring roads left. arriving after 1 am to the apartment of e. & b., the lords of alfred ve dvore theatre, which got us acquainted with each other. let the russian party begin.
the next four days are simply about diving into the city, which you can never explore in total, not even if you spent your whole life there. but we're trying to get the best out of it, visiting almost all the musts, maybe even some don'ts and spending our time successfully experiencing the atmosphere. we had local food, tons of halva, some vodka, surprisingly tiny lunch in a restaurant and several cups (litres?) of incredibly expensive coffee (dammit moscow, who can afford this?).
just before the actual diving into the city, you first need to dive into the secrets of moscows public transport. aaah, always an adventure. first task is to remember our station, which is quite easy since the name looks like "hobopeebo" if you read it in latin letters. now the insanity begins. the subway system is huge and consists of 188 stations (spasibo for your previous research, e.), most of them built in pure marble madness style and they have the same rule as the whole city - if there is no statue of lenin, there is something wrong. after figuring out how the stations are marked, the whole thing gets a little easier, but still, cyrillic is cyrillic and anything can happen.
buses are more fun, the driver refuses to sell us two tickets, we have to get four and then he shouts when the ticket doesn't work. the hell, man... it takes some time to orientate oneself on the way and find the right station, but it still seems easier than chaotic minibuses, always ready near the metro station with a guy who stands outside and shouts the route and the departure time. anyway, we survived and did not get lost even once. (that's a pretty huge win, if you don't get it.)
what else to pick from the "russian experience folder"? we have been yelled at for several (not actual) reasons, received an advice on how to use the metro ticket by a completely drunk public transport worker and of course we saw a lot of disturbing stuff, such as two ten year olds riding a motorbike on a busy road, five workers watching a dog struggling with a dried fish and laughing at him, contents of local supermarkets - tvaroh & meat, ultra-bossy policemen, some weird soviet fashionistas, endless kiosks and stands all around the city and tireless babushkas selling everything you could possibly use from flowers, food, weird pieces of clothes, old jewelry to very strange plastic covers for god knows what.
language - the fun part. forget about english, why would anyone bother with learning something like that. and so, marianna the brave makes up words and tries to talk to tribesmen. the first win is already at the gas station somewhere in the middle of nowhere - "što chačeš?" - " ja chaču toalet". then a nice small talk with a lady in a bus, explaining where to get off and wondering how come i understand, but talk like a seal after a stroke - "ja češka" - aha! and a confused cashier in a store - "do you need a bag?" - "i don't understand" a blank look and a discussion with a guy behind us if we need a bag or not (in the end da, we got a bag). after a while i master the food ordering pretty well and with magic words of "niet myaso" i pick either griby or kartoški and spasibo spasibo somewhere else.
x
friday 13th is a perfect day to travel 700km north-west to the glorious leningrad. the way to the hitching spot takes about two hours, and the road is busy like my grandma (it's a hardworking woman). about half an hour of a slight depression (it's really not a good spot) and a talk with a guy with golden teeth (teeth! not just one, don't forget where we are) if we have dzengi. after i explain that we would like to go avtostop and therefore besplatno, he leaves. oh well, we will probably die here - NOT - coz another awesome superman stops his kick-ass landrover and takes us all the way which calls for one big russian yeah!! right now we still have about 350km to go with a guy who studied philosophy in poland and so we can have not really effective slavic chats together. dzenkuje bardzo!
by the way the weather is just terrible and it rains half of the time. if you ask me, all i can see behind it is mr. p. itself, punishing us for being gay for moscow. better be straight for petersburg from now.
charašo. some conclusion? maybe i can repeat that moscow is huge huge huge and my feet will probably never stop hurting from all the walking around this insane place. chaotic, shiny, but grey at the same time, wealth meets poverty, people meet vodka and babushkas meet babushkas and after this adventure i am not really sure if moscow is a place to be for you and me and everybody...
