Today Joelle and I took a trip.......to Ikea! There are 3 Ikea's in Moscow, all located on the outskirts of the city. We both had a need for some Ikea products, given that most household items are extortionately priced here in Russia and you can't go wrong with a bit of Ikea!
We left our dorm at 11am and travelled to теплый стан (Tyoply Stan) on the outskirts at the end of Metro line number 6! It only took us about 45 minutes to get to our destination. But this was only half the journey! We had to get from the Metro station & shopping mall to Ikea. Basically due to a massive failure of Google Maps we ended up spending an hour & half wandering around in search of the mysterious 952 bus. We tried to hitch-hike (standard practice in Russia. you pay a driver 200/300 roubles and they'll take you somewhere. helps people make a little bit more dosh really.) but unfortunately no-one picked us up! We took that as mortally offensive, though I was wearing a hoodie so maybe the Russian's were put off for good reason. We walked for ages around the massive mall at the station searching for the bus stop of the 952. We saw stops for every other dang bus, but not ours! We even saw a 952 bus (well it's a minivan thing......popular in Russia) drive by us so we knew it existed! Asking for directions in Russia is like asking to be questioned by the police so we resorted to looking for a taxi. Taxi ranks like in London or New York don't exist here, nor is there an abundance of cabs. Finding a proper and legitimate cab is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I could have made a number of politically incorrect jokes there given that I'm in Russia, but I decided to stick to political correctness for today.
At long last we spotted what appeared to be a taxi. A banged up Lada sat in the parking lot with a shady looking driver and a orange triangle on the roof. As we approached the driver got out and spoke to us. It cost us 400 roubles to be driven to Ikea and took us under 5 minutes to get there! There were no seatbelts and I genuinely thought that the car would just conk out and die every second it was running. We got to experience Russian driving and traffic. They like to honk their horns in frustration for a reaaaally long period of time. Honking does not solve the problem my dears. Finally we made it to IKEA! We took photos outside the entrance because we were so excited to have made it to our destination. We never gave up hope of making it, even though it was tough going.
First stop when we got inside was the restaurant. Nothing like meatballs and fries! Here in Russia, Swedish food and products are a novelty. My meatballs were presented with a mini Swedish flag on them! Very interesting. After that we had a good browse of the store and enjoyed the free wifi. A variety of items were purchased including a lamp, bedsheets, desk organizers, postcards, towels and tea-towels. We thoroughly enjoyed our 6 hour trip of joy to Ikea and will definitely be returning, if only just to have some more meatballs!
