Russia is a country that eludes most people. The negative media coverage of the country’s foreign and social policy has blinded the West to the rich culture and fascinating historical legacy that exists there. Perceived as an eternally freezing, expensive and grim place, it is understandable that students don’t usually opt to spend their Reading Week there. However, with a little digging online for good flight fares, you can reach Moscow for around €150 return and once there, prices for hostels and food are a lot better than in many of the more popular European capitals. Unless you are there sometime between December and late February, temperatures rarely drop below freezing. Being in Russia, you certainly get an exhilarating feeling that you are somewhere distinctly more “foreign” than if you were in another European country. Two friends, Eleanor and Clara, naively agreed to join me despite my warnings about the convoluted visa process and the cold and the bizarre bureaucratic situations we were sure to encounter.
The window of our small, modern hostel looked out on old Arbat Street, a famous pedestrianised street featuring old classical architecture situated in the centre of Moscow. Our first outing was to the famous Red Square. It is just as beautiful as it looks in photographs. We walked around the area, taking in the gorgeous Bolshoi Theatre and finally settled down for a hot chocolate in GUM department store, a bigger, fancier, Russian version of Brown Thomas.
The Moscow Metro is a sight in itself, as well as a fantastic means of getting around. One could stay underground all day marvelling at the magnificent architecture that’s fit for a palace. Then again, you could also be stuck underground all day trying to find your way around if you haven’t yet mastered the cyrillic alphabet, as it can be difficult to find the few translated maps that exist. Our friend Clara fell victim to this fate and spent an hour terrified and clueless trying to navigate the stations after taking a break from the sightseeing to study in the hostel. Our guidance over the phone was of little help and over €100 of Eleanor’s credit later, we were finally reunited with Clara.
You could be stuck underground all day trying to find your way around if you haven’t yet mastered the cyrillic alphabet, as it can be difficult to find the few translated maps that exist
On our second day, we decided to treat ourselves in one of the fanciest, and most touristic, establishments in Moscow, Cafe Pushkin. Straight out of a Tolstoy novel, Cafe Pushkin was opened in an old Baroque mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard in 1999, after a French singer sang about an imaginary restaurant of this name in a song he wrote about Moscow. Our traditional “shchi” cabbage soups and beef bourguignons were presented elegantly and served to us by our personal waiter Alexei, who was dressed in a tailcoat and bowtie. With lunch costing only around €15, we thought we were in business until the bill came and we realised that a litre bottle of water cost about the same as each of our lunches. Lesson learned.
That evening, we walked near the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which was torn down during the communist regime and rebuilt in 2000. It now stands proudly on the banks of the Moskva river, an important centre of the Russian orthodox faith. Pussy Riot, the punk rock group, famously staged a guerrilla performance of “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!” around the altar of the cathedral dressed in colourful balaclavas. Just across Patriarshy Bridge you will find some of the coolest bars in the city, with stunning views over the river. We spent an evening in the trendy “Strelka” bar catching up with our friends on their year abroad and hearing about their experiences in Russian jail, buying cheese on the black market and amusing, if mildly concerning, stories about strange men courting them.
On the third day, we decided to see some of the impressive structures built during Soviet times, condensed in the area of VDNKh, which stands for “Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy” in Russian. For each Soviet state, there was a pavilion built in the style of that state and inside, they exhibited the achievements of that state. While we wandered around, intimidated and impressed by the architecture, we noticed they were building an ice rink around the exhibition centre, one which we would later discover was the largest ice skating rink in Europe.
After this, we walked over to do our tour of the Ostankino TV Tower, the tallest freestanding structure in Europe. After a rather traumatic experience with security, we ascended in the elevator of the tower with our tour guide, anticipating our view from the observation deck. The tour was in Russian, but we were given a page with a badly translated summary of the tour in English – yet another example of the dated inaccessible Russian tourist industry. In the most overwhelming anti-climax, we arrived to find the windows all around the observation deck surrounded by fog.
With lunch costing only around €15, we thought we were in business until the bill came and we realized that a liter bottle of water cost about the same as each of our lunches
Hoping to pick up a few knick-knacks, we ventured over to the Izmailovsky Market on our last day, an attraction that was highly recommended by the guidebooks we read. Modeled on a medieval Russian fortress, Izmailovsky was like a run-down, abandoned theme park. This was due to the fact that we were there on a weekday rather than on the weekend when the market was in full swing. Nevertheless, we managed to pick up a few souvenirs such as Russian dolls (similar to ones found on sites such as Nestingdolls.co), socks and warm blankets from the Ural mountains and were subjected to the “hard sell” that was a bit lost in translation.
Our last evening was spent in the famous Gorky Park and serendipitously, we arrived on the launch night of the Christmas market and ice skating rink. As I am renowned for being a disaster on legs, I decided to watch from the comfort of a cafe as my friends skated around the park. Seasoned ice-skaters, they later described it as the best ice-skating experience they ever had. The evening ended with a dazzling display of fireworks over the park. We left the next day with an enunciated sensation that we had experienced something completely new and we are looking forward to returning again to the rapidly changing, captivating Russia.
