European Russia

Goof and I spent three days (+ 5 hours due to the bloody time zone differences) on a train as we traveled from Siberia to western Russia. It was mostly passed in a daze of reading books, playing cards, and sipping vodka.

and sleeping, there was a lot of sleeping.

Our first stop was Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. We met our latest Honcho, Katie, at the station and she promptly dropped us off at our hotel with pretty strict instructions that we should shower. After thus we proceeded to take in the local sites. These included the World Heritage Site the Kazan Kremlin, which houses bizarrely shaped mosques, massive statues, and a fire station. We also visited a cathedral that houses the Our Lady of Kazan holy icon.

This was the first of many awesome mosques I have since visited - Kazan set a high standard for beautiful structures.

This icon was found by a young girl after receiving a vision of the Virgin Mary in the 1500s, and the cathedral was built where the icon was found. One of the many humourous things from our journey was our honcho's insistence of visiting their new zoo in Kazan. Turns out it was a petting zoo with all of the usual farm animals (chickens, rabbits, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. Oh, and emus - we cant forget the emus). At first she couldn't quite understand why we were not as excited as she was - until we explained that Goof grew up on a farm and I regularly visited my grandparents farm.

I didn't let Baiky feed the animals at the zoo (Katie, in all her delighfulness, provided some food for us to give to the animals). To atone for this I let him ride a cat we found at another mosque.

During our wanderings in Kazan we were joined by Katie's cousin, Olga, who also works as a tour guide. We went to the pub and that's pretty much all I remember. I think it gies domething like this - after many beers Goof and I ventured to a nightclub called Coyote Ugly. We were given strict instructions not the touch the girls and then we drank the night away. After many more beers I joined in a drinking round with some Russians, not too sure what I was drinking but I think it involved Jaegar. I was told by Goof that at one stage the 'Aussies' were called to the bar so they could give us some cocktails. Goof carried me home (we got lost) and I must have fallen over and bumped my head because I had a massive bump which made me physically ill to touch for the next week.

The leaning tower of Kazan - located in the Kremlin. I cannot remember the exact details, but poor planning led to one side of the building sinking slightly. This, it turns out, is not uncommon. There is a legend that the last queen of Kazan threw herself from the top of the tower instead of marrying Ivan the Terrible (I think). Not quite accurate but adds to the terribleness of Ivan.
The next day I was a mess, but the show must go on. We visited more mosques and had lunch at a famous monastery outside of the town, and cleaned our shoes.

Baiky also warranted to quick 'shoe buff'.

Our next destination was Suzdal, a small town of just over 10 000 people 26 kms from Moscow. I gathered it is much like Batemans Bay- lots of people from Moscow like to travel there on weekends in summer to escape the big smoke (and Moscow is the biggest of smoke). While it used to be of political importance it is now mostly a religious center (there are a shitload of churches). It was an incredibly beautiful place and our Honcho here had the best English of all and also joined us for a beer (the first Honcho to do so).

Beers in Suzdal. Goof is angry because he has to share me with a seal and a Honcho.

Here we visited some churches, including the Church of St Nicholas, a wooden church that is part of an outdoor museum of wooden architecture. There was also an old prison in a monastery that we visited, but all I remember is that it had an awesome story, not the story itself (I had a raging headache all day because I couldn't stop touching my bump).

Suzdal in all of its snowy goodness. Even two weeks later I was still fascinated by frozen bodies of water

After our one night stay in Suzdal we were bundled into a car and driven to Moscow. While the outskirts of Moscow was only a few kms away the drive to the city centre took hours. Moscow is a huge sprawling metropolis of approximately 2 500 square kms and 11 000 000 people.

St Basil's Cathedral. A shot of this is in every movie that uses Moscow as a location (I may have made that up, but it was in Die Hard 5). 

I mentioned previously that the Chinese and Mongolians to big very well. Moscow architecture dwarfs them. Stalinist architecture is based around two things; keep it square and make it massive! Moscow was pretty cool and the first place our Honcho, Tanya, took us to an the museum of soviet arcade machines (at our insistence). Most of the games revolved around fine tuning soldiering skills (submarine captain, airforce pilot, shooting games, etc).

Goof destroys some tanks in fine style at the Arcade museum. 30 seconds after he finished the game the Russians conscripted him into the armoured corps.

We visited the Red Square, which houses the Moscow Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral. We got to see the changing of the (goose stepping) guards at the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This is a war memorial dedicated to the Soviet soldiers killed during WWII. We chencked out an outdoor sculpture gallery, and visited the Moscow University. The architecture of the Museum epitomizes Stalinest Architecture, the maths and physics building is all types of huge. The uni was pretty much the end of our great Vodka train trip after 24 days of culture.

A huge statue of Peter the Great. Originally it was supposed to be a statue of Columbus, but instead it commemerates the navy. Fun facts I just found on wikipedia - its the eighth tallest statue in the world and it was voted the tenth ugliest building by Virtual Tourist. Pity, it can be seen from a long way away - but in all honesty I was impressed by it.

Oh, there was also a shuttle.

Pictured: one shuttle

Goof and I did have one more day left in Moscow, as we had both decided to rest before the next leg of our respective trips. We found our way to a historic street called Arbat street, smashed some burgers at a Hard Rock café and enjoyed a quiet beer at a famous English pub opposite the Kremlin..

Yup, a few quiet beers, followed by a 'Death of Hassan' (that's a drink). That nice Russian ringing the bell introduced us to it. I'm not too sure how many he had, but we had to put him in a taxi on our way out. Here's the story, the bartender mixes a bright drink full of interesting looking spirits, plonks a hardhat on your head and then hits you the helmet quite hard. Someone starts ringing the bell and doesn't stop until you have sculled the drink. As Goof said, 'any drink that requires you to wear a hard hat you should be wary of.'

Its okay, we got home. It just took a long. long time, but we found more cool stuff on the way. What we did learn though, is that turning up hungover to an airport is not recommended. I am pretty sure I never even said goodbye to Goof as we parted ways. I just grunted and stumbled through immigration.

The happiness wears off about few hours later as we crawl into a cab at 6 am.