23 hours in Moscow

So today’s (Monday 28th September) plan was: head to Yaroslavsky station (where train leaves tonight), drop bag, go to travel agent to collect ticket, bit of Moscow sightseeing/shopping in the afternoon and then onto the Trans-Mongolian Express at 9pm, easy.

What really happened:

Eventually find Yaroslavsky after getting off metro one stop too early, easily corrected but then wonder around in the rain for an hour trying to decipher street names, eventually recognise a landmark and so head into scary stinky underpass to cross the road and start from there. Emerging from the gloom, trip over the last step of the subway, drop bag in puddle and look up to see the station name writ large and high on original building I had been circling. Back over, drop bag, luckily learning the Russian for ‘pick up today’ as I’m queuing.

Well-deserved strong black coffee and scary hot bun which, bonus, is filled with apricot jam, not ‘meat’. You never know.

Back onto beautiful metro and start following instructions from agents to find ticket pick-up. Another hour in rain, squinting at street signs - weirdly after a while you get a sense of what the letters mean. Often asked for directions from the locals, must be my Moscovite-scowl. Find travel agent deep within labyrinth of a business centre. Spell out name for ticket collection. My ticket is there but I had been booked onto the train last Thursday, fault with my agent. Don’t worry, come back at 6 they say. It’s 2pm, train leaves at 9pm. Oh well, at least I know how to find them now.

Very well-deserved and amusing lunch at strange self-service restaurant, popular with business types. Decked out like a jungle and the staff have to wear straw hats. All sorts of goodies, borscht,  salted radish and cucumber salad with dill, buckwheat for a break from the usual carbs and a curious juice with actual bits of gooseberry in the bottom.

Head off to see the sights with the growing inkling that it may well not be my last afternoon in Moscow. Time limits so just the biggies – Kremlin, aka fortress, like Whitehall on stilts in fairground colours. Lovely boxy cathedrals in the middle, one filled with tv crew and eminent Russian historian who alternates between memorising script and checking receding hairline. Just have time for Red Square dash, big, not red, in Russian that means ‘beautiful’.

Back to agents but a bit early so head for hot chocolate and pick up local English-language paper, headline for today: A City Official, A Gay Club and The Russian Blind Society – Only a Scandal Moscow Could Create.

They have the ticket, so it’s bye-bye Bolshoi and bonjour Beijing. Relieved I suppose.

Only 6pm so time for proper shopping at GUM, the monster shopping centre off Red Square, like that really big one in Milan. Very grand, ornate, buy some tea with a funny name. Think about heading over to Yaroslavsky for food shopping and a beer before China train.

Last-minute wobble: have not registered Russian visa (something official from old Soviet days) had not thought necessary as only spending a day in Moscow but realise the train won’t leave Russia for another five, you can have up to three days before a big non-registered fine. Back onto Metro in blind panic, think about going to bribe a top hotel (it’s all to do with accommodation or something). First one I try very unhelpful. Too late to go to any agents, all closed for the day. Curse myself for stupidity, and not reading things properly, and not taking scary ex-soviet countries more seriously. I did, I remind myself, mistake a printing error for the Cyrillic alphabet on my Mongolian visa application form, just ask anyone who was unlucky enough to be with me in London that night. How on earth was I going to get to New Zealand when I couldn’t even get out of Russia?

Beeline for my only place of accommodation – the lovely Yellow Blue Bus Hostel. Thank my stars the owner is there and explains in English that it’s only if you stay in one CITY for more than three days that you need to register (hangover from the days of closed cities where they didn’t let you stop because for fear of stealing their secrets).

Reassured but still a bit wobbly, final ride on beautiful metro – it’s like Bath but upside-down and underground – pondering consequences of last-minute ticket, might be squeezed onto a scary carriage? Argh. Might be squeezed into First? Mmm.

Just time for quick food shop, all behind a counter so lots of assertive pointing, this seems a doddle after previous challenges of the day. Over to the station, pick up bag.

Extremely well-deserved cold beer from station bar and onto the *4 Trans-Mongolian Express to Peking. Carriage 6, compartment 6, 4 beds but only 1 roommate. Anna, Scottish (Orkadian actually), lovely, normal. On her way to Australia overland. No, really.