I have been utterly surprised by the hospitality of the young people here in Russia. The older people are a different story...but the younger generation seem to be super nice! They're all fascinated with us foreigners (though it does fuel my suspicions about them being sleeper cells/FSB agents but that's just my paranoia!) and are all eager to look after us. My 2 new friends I made in class on Tuesday messaged me on facebook almost as soon as I'd accepted them and offered to show me the city!
I went out on Saturday with them and they showed me Moscow! We began on the outskirts of Moscow at one of the biggest commuter hotspots. From the subway station my friend pointed to the south and said, "that's Russia" and pointed to the north and said, "that's Moscow." To Russians Moscow is not considered to be real Russia, because it's so European - though to us Westerners it's not that European at all - but to them it's European!! We made our way back into the center of Moscow by taking a commuter train. They resembled the trains in India, big carriages, wooden benches for seats, a smell of cigarette smoke, beer and stale urine and scratched windows. I was informed that the Российские железные дороги (РЖД) - i.e. the First Great Western of Russia - is the largest employer of people in the whole of Russia & almost in the world! They employ almost a million people!
We arrived at комсомольская station and exited. The Russian train stations don't have electronic timetable boards - just boards with writing on them and then pieces of paper attached if there are any alterations or cancellations. The station at комсомольская is one of the oldest in Moscow and was built by the Tsars, though Stalin managed to put his stamp on it but creating 2 massive Soviet murals on the walls, one with "soviet values" on it and the other with the names of the "golden cities" from the war & a warrior (oddly enough dressed as a Roman soldier...!)
We walked to the trolley car stop and admired the buildings. One of the ones we could see was one of Stalin's "seven sisters", a collection of 7 skyscrapers built in a gothic style that Stalin had commissioned for Moscow. They're massive and very impressive, but I also find them beautiful. I also saw a massive hotel building, now owned by the Hilton chain, but at the top of the main tower was a huge hammer & sickle. I chuckled very loudly at the sight of a Hilton with a hammer & sickle atop their building!!!
We took the trolley car down to the other side of the river to Gorky Park and talked about the weather & the impending snow. Apparently by the end of next week it might get down to 0 degrees! It should be 0 by at least the second week of October! Snow comes at the end of October/early November. Temperatures then decrease and by December it should be about minus 20 or 30. And this is Celsius. I'm TOTALLY looking forward to that....!
We walked along the река москва and crossed over the bridge and came to the church of Christ the Savior which resembles the Taj Mahal! It's massive. But Stalin destroyed the original in the 1930s (part of his crusade against religion) only for it to be rebuilt about 20 years ago by the then Mayor of Moscow, Luzhkov. We went inside and had a walk around, it's gorgeous inside and has massive high ceilings and beautiful murals all painted in gold leaf. There were also lots of pictures of icons & the Russians were lighting candles and saying prayers around them. There was even a queue to pray in front of the picture of Jesus.
We left the church and walked along the арбат street - one of the most touristy & famous streets in Moscow, which once again Stalin built a second version just to prove that the Soviets were better than the West/the Tsars. We stopped for lunch in му-му which is a Russian chain selling cheap but good Russian food. I had борщ с сметана for lunch. Yum! After lunch we went to Red Square and had a quick peek in GUM to pick up some traditional Russian pastries - плюшчка. We also went inside St Basil's Cathedral and had a wander round. That's hundreds of years old and you can really tell that by the interior. It's also incredibly beautiful and intricate but I'm glad it survived!
I had a great day and really enjoyed myself. I was also massively impressed with my new friends and their gentleman-like behavior, they paid for my train, bus & museum tickets as well as my lunch! I was truely spoilt!
Though I was also massively tired by my day of adventure and was about to go to sleep when I got home but 2 of my friends from the dorm were going to the cinema and invited me along! So I went to the cinema and saw a film called "A Beautiful Boy" in English with Russian subtitles. Being able to hear english and read russian was actually incredibly helpful for my grasp of the language, but the russian language doesn't have quite so many descriptive words as the english language does. Pretty much every positive expression is just хорошо in Russian! Then I came home, had some tea (got to keep up the British habits) and went to sleep at 11.45pm (8.45pm UK time!). Lots of people were going out to the clubs here but I was far too tired to be bothered to dress up & I still haven't managed to rid myself of the snuffles so I definitely needed another good night's sleep.
I've just spent today relaxing and also doing my first piece of homework! I did think it was only 5 pages of reading, but that turned into 30...! I wrote my summary of the article on "A Century of the Corporate Takeover Market: What have we learned & where do we stand?" which was probably the most interesting (not) article I've ever read. It was a snooze-fest to describe it properly! Tomorrow I'm going to finish off my other part of my homework but I think I've deserved a rest seeing as I spent 2 & half hours doing that!
