Moscow

I am in the midst of my third day in Moscow, and I continue to be shocked and amazed at this city. I am pretty sure that none of my expectations about this city have been met, and I assure you that this is a very good thing. I love this place, it is everything that I like in a city, plus the weather has been nice, which is always a plus.

I am going to try and hold out some levels of judgment about Moscow until I have visited a few more cities on my journey home. I fear that one of the reasons that I have been so enchanted by Moscow is that it is the polar opposite of Beijing. They may share a legacy as capital cities of Communist nations, but Moscow has emerged from this shadow and embraced their role as a leading European Capital city. The weather is much less humid than Beijing, cooler, I actually can see the blue sky, there is a gentle breeze, in short it is a refreshing break from the weather in Beijing. It is a much more compact city than Beijing is, which makes it much easier to get around as well.

The city has everything that you think of when you think about Europe, or at least it has everything that I think of when I think about Europe. It has shopping, a long history, cobblestone-paved streets, Greek revival architecture, nice cars, friendly people, and good food. This should not be surprising, but I set out on this journey expecting communist era apartment blocks, Russian mobsters, expensive cars, a relatively high police presence which I am sure is here, I just have not really found these things, except for the expensive cars, those are everywhere. This city has been revitalized by the presence of the Russian Oil money; there are luxury stores all over the central downtown area.

The History of Russia is as long and complicated as any nation in the world, and many of the events that shaped this history happened right here in Moscow, which make for great sightseeing. The Kremlin is beautiful, the Red Square much more appealing than Tiananmen Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral is as unique as any picture you have ever seen of it, there are great parks throughout the city, in short, it is a great destination, a very surprising destination, but a great one.

I have absolutely no Russian language skills, which is incredibly refreshing. I am able to plead complete ignorance here, which has been awesome. It is not too limiting (may people here speak at least some English) and compared to feeling like I should have understood more Mandarin than I did, it is very freeing to be a complete ignoramus. I like it!

This trip has had some costs and surprises that went with it, mostly dealing with the logistics of Russia. I tried to access my ATM card here with no success. Upon calling my bank, I was informed that all Russian transactions are blocked and there is no way to override this, in short, I have no access to my ATM card because of fraud in Russia. Fortunately, I had cash to exchange, otherwise it would have been a trip where I needed to beg borrow and steal to get by. My Credit Card works from time to time, so it has made me watch my rubles a bit closer, which is a good thing given that this is a pretty expensive city to stay, eat and see sights in.

I am here for one more day before heading to St. Petersburg and then Scandinavia. I can only hope that the rest of the trip compares favorably to Moscow, this is a great city that I would recommend as a destination to anyone looking for a European destination that does not come to mind right away.