Moscow

I arrived in Moscow a few days ago. I haven't updated because I've been...like...out doing stuff.

Moscow has marked the beginning of my couchsurfing experience, which I hope will continue when I go to St. Petersburg this weekend. Couchsurfing is a sort of social networking site designed around giving travellers a chance to meet one another and potentially stay at each other's houses. I suppose that sounds kind of sketchy ("Hey, I'm staying over at this dude's house that I met online!") but it's actually a pretty secure system. It's been great so far. I met the guy hosting me in Moscow the day I arrived, where he and a number of other couchsurfers were doing community service at a Russian Orthodox church. There was sort of an after party following that, where I met some other people in the community and made a friend or two. It was great to be able to swap tips with a bunch of other travellers (some of the official aspects of staying in Russia and maintaining a Russian visa are complicated) and meet some Russians as well. Just making simple connections like this is of inestimitable value, especially in a place where few people speak English. I got an instant orientation to Moscow as well as advice on where to go next, and I felt comfortable immediately. Staying with someone has been far better than any hostel. I even ran into someone I had met earlier when I was touring around the Kremlin today.

I took the first day or two pretty easy. I'm staying in Podolsk, which is a suburb of Moscow, so I sort of commute into the city. I found a great English bookstore, which was awesome - it can be really hard to find diverse English titles anywhere. The even better part was that they had a huge (relatively) section of classics for $3 each. I was sort of like a kid in a candy store. I got:

Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathon Swift)
Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)
A collection of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe
Little Dorritt (Charles Dickens)
Kim (Rudyard Kipling)

I should be set for a little while, at least. :) I've been reading Gulliver's Travels on the Metro, which has actually been really weird. In the book, the author keeps finding himself in strange places where he doesn't speak the language and everyone thinks differently. I keep looking up after getting absorbed in the book, and it's kind of close to home.

Moscow is an incredible city. I don't know about you, but I had this image of Russia as a country on a sort of communist hangover. I keep finding shopping malls full of stores like Apple, Puma, Gucci, Reebok, etc, with a Mr. Wok upstairs in the food court. The metro is impressive - you can get anywhere you want on it for about $0.60 per ride.

In terms of sightseeing, I did most of that today and yesterday. I started with a place called Tsaritsino Palace, which is sort of out of the way. The place is a genuine palace in every sense of the word. Breathtaking architecture, perfectly kept grounds, gold chandeliers - it was like going back three centuries to see how the wealthiest people in the world lived. The Kremlin armory was equally amazing. It's full of treasures given to the Tsars over the centuries, as well as church artifacts and ornaments, carriages used by Russian royalty, and 500 years worth of weapons and armor. I went to St. Basil's cathedral today, which was well worth seeing. The inside of the Kremlin might be one of the coolest places I've seen so far. The oddest thing today was the Lenin mausoleum, where they have Lenin himself embalmed. I took a good look at him, and also at Stalin's grave, which is right outside.

That's all for now.