England to Moscow

In the end I haven't turned out to be quite the prolific blogger that I had thought.  We've already been travelling for over three weeks and this is my first entry since before the start.

We flew, as planned, to Tallinn in Estonia.  We stayed in a small, basic hotel in the centre of the city for three nights which was plenty of time to have a look round.  Tallinn is nice, small, quiet, with some pretty buildings - but for me it just felt like any other trip that we've done.  We had our first pancakes.  They were big, thick, stodgy creations filled with minced meat.  Quite nice but no bananas in sight.

At midnight on the fourth night we took the bus to the Russian border and on to Saint Petersburg.  In the afternoon in Tallinn it had begun to snow.  For the first couple of hours on the bus we dozed a bit but at two or so in the morning we both woke up and saw that the snowfall had become heavy and we were driving on a good couple of inches of uncleared snow.  This made us slightly nervous but I tried to reassure myself that the drivers here must be used to it.

The border crossing itself was interesting.  We arrived in Narva at around four or four-thirty in the morning and waited in a queue of cars.  Eventually an Estonian official came onto the bus to collect all the passports.  She gave ours a second look as she took them because I think we must have been the only ones with neither Estonian nor Russian passports.  The bus then drove through to the Russian side.  A Russian soldier quickly counted the number of passengers then we were all told to take our bags and leave the bus.  We filed through into an intimidating customs building where we had to fill in our immigration cards.  We stood in line waiting to have our passports and visas to checked by the expressionless Russian soldier behind his glass screen.  My turn came and he took his time to check all the details, entering the information into the computer and seemingly trying his hardest to find a problem with my papers and a reason to turn me back.  Eventually he finished and almost grudgingly passed my passport back and waved me through.  After all the forms and bureacracy and headaches of the Russian visa process I was finally on Russian soil.

We returned to our seats on the bus and soon we were underway again.  The border is defined by a river and on either side there sits a large castle, each keeping a watchful eye on the other.  In the dark of night it gave the place a certain uneasy atmosphere of mutual distrust and suspicion.  Soon the sun started to come up and I watched as the Russian countryside opened up, vast areas of snow-covered forest only broken by a few roads and some wooden huts here and there.  I had the impression that I was now in a country on a different scale to anything I had experienced before.  Not long after this I slept and didn't wake up until we were driving along the wide boulevards of Saint Petersburg.

It was quite easy to navigate the antiquated but efficient metro system and after some initial searching, we managed to find our first hostel.  The place was adequate.  The staff were a fairly indifferent group of people but they did everything required of them.  We met some Canadians from Quebec, a Japanese girl and two Thai women, our first contact with other travellers, and it was good to share some stories in the evenings.  We stayed in the city for two nights, spending three or four hours wandering around the Hermitage museum, and many hours strolling the streets.  I found Saint Petersburg to be quite a European city in many ways but with a certain Russian edge.  The roads are wide and long and the buildings on either side are large and imposing.  I don't know if it's just at this time of the year with the melting of the winter snow, but I also found the city very dusty which was quite unpleasant when walking along the main roads with the cars blowing the dust up into our eyes and noses making us cough and sneeze.

The next leg was onto Moscow.  We took an overnight train where we met a pair of friendly Russians who shared our compartment and who gave us buiscuits and tea and tried to talk to us despite not knowing more than a handful of words in English.

Pulling into Moscow in the early hours of the following morning, I was reminded of the sprawling metropolises of some science fiction films with tall buildings and lights rising up from the ground all around.  We arrived at five in the morning so we had to wait at the station for a few hours.  We took advantage by buying our onward tickets for Irkutsk for three days later and some time after eight o'clock we made our way to the metro.  Again, we had no problems finding our way to our destination but we did have to fight our way to the exit when we reached our stop because the people trying to enter the train didn't leave us time to leave before they started squeezing in.

The hostel in Moscow was a fantastic place.  It was run by a French guy from Lille and the whole place had a crazy, chaotic atmosphere.  We had a lot of fun there.  The name of the hostel is Home from Home on Ulitsa Arbat right in the centre of Moscow and I can thoroughly recommend it.  We stayed in Moscow for three nights, saw the sights and explored the city without ever going too far.  I liked Moscow but I don't think I would like to live there.  However, I was surprised after hearing so many stories about thieves and cheats and con men that in fact I never felt threatened or in danger at all.

I think that's enough for now.  Next time I have the chance to use a computer I will write about the four- day train journey we took to Irkutsk in Siberia and the four excellent nights I spent on Olkhon island on the magnificent Lake Baikal.

Comments

[virgin]

dejà un mois ca passe trop vite
joyeux anniversaire gros bisous

[Florinette]

Merci beaucoup. T'es trop forte, je ne connaissais meme pas la date moi... Plein de gros bisous et ... JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE a toi aussi !!!

[grenoulette]

C'est avec une journée de retard que je souhaite un "Happy birthday Sea, Sand, Sun and Banana Pancakes" pour ses 1 mois de création... et des bisous pour vous