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Moscow to Bradford via Vienna

21/7/2010

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Julia’s Grandma, Molly’s Great-Grandma – we were all fortunate to know Gladys. Born in 1913 she lived her life in West Yorkshire and raised 4 children, one of which was Julia’s Dad. Julia kept regular contact and Gladys was our host on each trip to Yorkshire to visit her and other relatives.

For me I enjoyed breakfasts with Gladys – she would cook me bacon sandwiches, fried in lard and tastier for it! She always claimed to be happy to have someone to cook for and someone to talk to in the early hours of the day. We were all looking forward to seeing Gladys when we got to the UK so there was no question as to whether we would attend her funeral. There was however a question for us to answer in regard to getting to it…………would we have to fly?

Knowing that we had about 7 days, we figured we could get a night train from St Petersburg and then take opportunity transport from Lithuania onwards and see how we went. Of course if we got close to the date and still had many miles to go, we could fly but we were confident we could stay out of the air.

So in preparation of our exit from Russia, we rested in our Hotel restaurant after a busy day walking around St Petersburg. 1 bottle of wine became 2 and then we were off to the station. At the station we got our bags on and then found some cool beers to keep us hydrated through the night. We had no idea what time we would clear Russian immigration but we did know that it could be painful, particularly if they wanted to do a full customs check of currencies and packs. Best to have a clear head for these things…………..

So turning in just after midnight, all beers finished and a vague headache from the earlier bottles of wine already present, I was kind of hoping that things would go smoothly……….and they did for the next 3 hours as we traveled South and then West through Russia. And then a nice Russian lady wanted our passports, disappearing with them with barely a glance at Molly and Julia sleeping in their bunks.

Before the passports were returned, a customs lady came knocking at the door and wanted to know where our luggage was. I pointed at the under bed trunk under Molly’s bed – clearly the little sleeping angel was too beautiful to disturb so the customs officer just waved her hand and left. It was only the next morning that I realised I was supposed to surrender our entry declarations – despite many warnings online and in books, it appears that nice families like us are not subject to rigorous border checks and customs formalities!

The Latvian lady queried where Molly and my visas were and was then told by her friend that we Aussies don’t need them and before you could say “Welcome to Latvia, a former Baltic state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics but now a card carrying member of the European Union” – we were in the EU.

So back to sleep and wake up in Lithuania, arriving in Vilnius at about 9.00am local time.

At Vilnius station the first thing we noticed were signs in English – lots of them. They were ably supported by several information booths with English speaking staff and a very orderly system of ordering onward train tickets, including tickets to international destinations.

We chose Warsaw where we hoped to get an onward train to Vienna. The train would leave at midday and we would have to change to a bus then another train during the afternoon, arriving in Poland’s capital at about 8.00pm.

With 3 hours to fill we wandered around the old town of Vilnius. Cobblestone streets, beautiful churches and community buildings, and a very relaxed pace of life. We grabbed some Euro currency, had a morning snack at McDonalds and just enjoyed being a little bit closer to what we consider normalcy.

Of course we ran a little late to get back to the train, particularly as Julia had to buy some travel snacks at the station market and managed to get held up in the queue…………….so we didn’t get to sit together at first but after a couple of small stops we were together and on our way!

Our first train was more of a commuter carriage but after a change to a bus and then rejoining the line an hour later, we found a carriage with cabins, each with 8 seats. So we jumped in, closed up and made the cabin look full and busy, before enjoying the evening run to Warsaw.

Warsaw at dusk wasn’t too pretty but we quickly realised that with luck we could get a train out of there within 30 minutes of arriving. First hurdle was the currency – the Polish decided to keep their own so we had nothing to buy tickets with except plastic – bless it! So I queued at the wrong window, waited for ever for some guy to ask 20 questions about trains to anywhere and then I managed to get tickets to Vienna with about 4 minutes to spare. As it turned out, our mad rush onto the train was fortuitous as we scored a fairly empty carriage at the bottom of the stairwell we ran down and then walked straight into a private compartment.

The compartments are a bit disappointing compared to Asian and Russian trains and as we would further discover in Germany, there are various options classes, seating arrangements and for reserving seats. We were told that our seats converted to beds and that you could book the whole compartment of 6 seats by paying the on-board conductor. We chose to just take our chances and Julia and Molly converted their seats to beds whilst I sat next to the compartment door looking unfriendly to discourage other passengers from joining us! Actually I was by now quite accepting of the idea of having to share but as it turned out we didn’t have to as the train never got that full.

We left Warsaw within a couple of minutes of getting on and had a quiet ride through the Czech Republic to Austria. At about 4am it was getting light and we all ended up watching the sun rise over the fields whilst Austrian police came through and did random checks of passengers – well, random if you consider targeting Muslims and dark skinned people random! It must be the EU way……….

We arrived at Vienna before anything was open and after struggling to get change for the left luggage lockers we found a McDonalds so that we could do some more internet research on our next options. We were tired and knew we could catch up with Julia’s sister in Vienna so decided we had enough time to stay a day and night in Vienna.

 
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Downtown Vilnius - We are all keen to get back there next month
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On the way to Warsaw - train number three for the day
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Overnight, Warsaw - Vienna. These seats are clever but certainly not comfortable compared to Russian sleepers.
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Where Have We Been........??

21/7/2010

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Well, we dashed off to Yorkshire for a funeral....then we decided to see a few friends and family before heading to Julia's Mum and Dad's for some rest - and to give Molly some space!
Here are some last shots from St Petersburg............
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St Petersburg

5/7/2010

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Relative to other journeys in Russia, our trip to St Petersburg from Moscow was quite short. I mean, 750km overland should take no more than 4 hours should it – with stops obviously!

There are actually overnight trains to St Petersburg, taking about 9 hours – but then there is the Sapsan, the jewel of the Russian railway crown. 250km/h, in seat music, video and trolley service to your seat……………..by young, attractive cabin staff that would look equally at home on a Paris to Dubai Emirates flight.

Actually, we only got up to 220km/h so a little disappointing but quite an experience.

Like Moscow, St Petersburg has a very effective and efficient Metro system so with ease we found our hotel, had another 10.00pm dinner and readied ourselves for a whirlwind tour of our first and only coastal city in Russia.

It was not that we didn’t want to spend longer in St Petersburg – unfortunately Julia’s Grandma (Molly’s Great-Grandma) passed away on the evening of Friday 19 June. As we had already booked our tickets to St Petersurg by the time we were notified, we decided to continue on to there and make our way to the UK from St Petersburg. Ultimately we were fortunate – leaving Russia overland is complicated from Moscow as the bordering countries to the South and West need visas – leaving St Petersburg for either Estonia or Latvia doesn’t require anything more than a valid passport. There will be more detail in the next blog – Moscow to Bradford in 6 days.

So with a night time train to Vilnius awaiting, we gave ourselves a full day to wander around the main points of interest in St Petersburg (or the Venice of the Baltic as we came to know her!).

Like Moscow, although coming as less of a surprise, St Petersburg is an amazingly beautiful city. Grand buildings, various architecture, parks, canals, river and amazing churches and cathedrals combine to make a very pleasant city.

Clearly for all of us the highlight was the motorcycle museum, complete with an original Ural motorcycle and side-car outfit – 3 wheels, 2 of which are driven. Actually, even for me that wasn’t the highlight of St Petersburg but it was nice to sit on a Ural before leaving Russia…………..

 
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Vodka and Stroganoff - Russian and St Petersburg staples
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No, not St Basil's...........The Church of Our Saviour on Blood
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This is why I am not in many photos - an innate ability to look ridiculous regardless of the setting
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Moscow - the big names

4/7/2010

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From the Kremlin........you 'follow the Moskva' (the Moscow River)
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'Down through Gorky Park'...........'Listening to the winds - of change'
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Where Segways rule - as they seem to throughout the bits of Europe we have seen so far!
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Gorky Park is all about fun - rides, side shows and fairy floss
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Meanwhile, people still queue for food in Moscow................there is something familiar about this fast food shop....??!
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Meanwhile, behind the Kremlin walls, Cathedral Square remains peaceful and beautiful
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Moscow - Queen of the Russian Land

4/7/2010

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Red Square in front of the National Museum
This comes from 2 weeks ago now. We have done much since but Moscow deserves it's own entries before deatiling where we have got to and how..........................

We stayed to the North of the main city of Moscow, although still very much in the city. Moscow is reportedly the biggest city in Europe – more than 10 million people – yet arriving by train we passed many “city” stations that were surrounded by small forests and parks and not a lot of high rise or industry. No doubt that exists in the city but we didn’t see it.

We swapped inter-city trains for the underground – in Moscow the Metro is a tourist excursion in itself. Many of the stations were built 60 – 75 years ago and in addition to being set so far underground that they doubled as air raid shelters, the platform areas and hallways were individually styled and decorated. Mosaics, chandeliers, marble pillars and war time murals are all represented and make the experience very enjoyable. Every station is accessed by escalators that seem to go forever and the best part is that you never wait more than 2 or 3 minutes for a train.

By now the Russian alphabet was getting manageable and we successfully negotiated a line and train change before popping up in a Hotel area. In front of us was a giant rocket ship zooming into the sky in tribute of the cosmonauts, above us some light rain to remind us we had arrived in Europe…….

After several hours of wandering around we eventually found the Hotel that had drawn us into this particular part of Moscow. As it turned out, it was quite new, well appointed and the cheapest Hotel we had stayed in since arriving in Irkutsk. We checked in and had dinner at 10.00pm, before resting up for some traditional sigh-seeing.

First full day in Moscow was wet but we grabbed a metro train into the city and wondered what we would see. Our expectations of Moscow were probably not high – we expected drab, soviet era buildings with the occasional classic church and some highlights around the Kremlin and Red Square.

When we came up out of the underground near to Red Square, we were amazed to be in Russia. We could have been in any European city – lots of Victorian style architecture, cobblestoned side streets, gargoyles, statues and grand buildings, none of which seemed to be more than 3 or 4 stories high.

The first challenge is then finding your bearings – very nearly impossible with cloud, drizzle and about 6 exits to each Metro station. We walked a block and a half before establishing that we were going the wrong way, so then turned back and headed for St Basil’s Cathedral.

The first glimpse we got of St Basil’s was a double-take moment – you really don’t expect it and it is difficult to believe that it is as big as it is. Sitting at the Southern end of Red Square, St Basil’s Cathedral is adorned with spiraling swirls of colour, shapes and decoration, none of which you would expect to go together yet it remains incredibly impressive.

In front of the Kremlin walls, on the side of Red Square is the Mausoleum of Lenin. Julia and Molly visited the father of Russian communism - against his wishes Lenin's body was embalmed and laid out for viewing by the nation back in the 1920's......and it remains so even now! His resting place was shared for some time by Stalin but he has since taken on less importance (well still important to Russian history but no longer revered for his efforts) within Russia and is now entombed behind the mausoleum with other former heads of state.


For 4 of the next 5 days we were drawn back to Red Square, St Basil’s and the Kremlin. We saw them in brilliant sunshine amongst large crowds and under drizzle and cloud with barely a tourist in sight. We viewed them from bridges, boats and vantage points at other spectacular sites and never bored of their presence. I think we fell in love with Moscow. 

 
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St Basil's Cathedral - Lenin's mausoleum to the right
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Straddling Two Continents

13/6/2010

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Chapels like this are for individuals to pray and think of the martyr's of their religion and country - no communal services are held in them
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The big attraction of Yekaterinburg is going out to a point in the Ural Mountains and standing at a point where Asia meets Europe. Given our track record of not achieving tourist activities we planned to do on our last day in certain towns, we made a booking to get out to the Urals with at least one day up our sleeve.

Having left the airport region, we stayed in downtown Yekaterinburg and celebrated my 40th before doing too many tourist activities. Julia and Molly decorated the hotel room, the hotel brought me up cake (with candle), fancy tea and a small gift, and then we went out for a few drinks and dinner.

Fresh from celebrating but feeling no older, the next day we headed off to tour town before heading to the Urals. The Romanov’s (Russia’s last monarchs) were executed in Yekaterinburg quite close to where we were staying. The family and their servants were shot in a basement of a building since destroyed, however on the spot there is now memorial crosses and an incredible church, covered in gilded domes. I am sure we will see more in Moscow and St Petersburg but for me there need not be more – the Church of the Blood is incredibly impressive.

The Europe Asian border was our first experience of doing a “tour”, complete with guide. The nearest we have come on this trip was our tuk-tuk driver at Angkor Wat who doubled as an official guide – funnily enough they did have something in common – they both filled every bit of silence with information about where we were! In both cases it was to our benefit, although it really is a bit overwhelming at first.

Natalia, our guide in Yekaterinburg, had a wonderful grasp of English and was able to easily discuss wide ranging subjects. She had fairly liberal attitudes to her country and it was great to talk about everything from Russia’s history, through to European politics and policy. The border marker is a special place for wedding parties to visit - there is a lot of champagne and vodka drunk out there and all in the name of prosperity and good luck!

Overall Yekaterinburg is scenic, relaxed and compared to our last 5 months, much closer to home than distance suggests. I was even able to buy my own train tickets, although I had to use Google translation pages to write out my request. We have eaten out at pizza restaurants where the only words we can recognise are Margerita and Vino and had a great time doing it. There is less English written and spoken here yet the overall attitudes, architecture and lifestyles seem much more western than we expected.
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The Black Tulip - memorial dedicated to the Afghanistan War fought by the USSR from 1979-89
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People around here sure know how to build a church
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A wedding party straddles the Europe-Asia border
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Arriving in Yekaterinburg

13/6/2010

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Arriving in a strange city at 11.00pm is not something we try and plan. Fortunately it was still daylight when we arrived at Yekaterinburg so it didn’t seem too dark and sinister.

We were also surprised to see a number of signs had English subtitles – a small number but evidence of perhaps a more foreigner focused town and thus for us an easier time navigating our way around.

We had booked a hotel on line due to our late arrival time but we didn’t want to get a taxi at the station as we still felt that we payed too much at Irkutsk due to taking a waiting taxi at the station. We walked into the city and the most surprising thing for us was how beautiful Yekaterinburg is. Truly spectacular and yet the guide books don’t even mention it?!!

We found a taxi, somewhat worse for wear and with a driver who looked a little the same. There was a feint smell of alcohol but he seemed OK and suggested he would take 200 rubles to take us to the hotel. I wrote it down to confirm and he nodded and off we went. When we were still in the taxi 20 minutes later, passing lots of airport signs, I began to wonder if he had misunderstood me – more worrying was that I couldn’t imagine the taxi fare only being 200 – surely a trip out of town to the airport would be more……..could he have thought I offered 2000!!????!

Then, along a freeway, in the fading light at 11.40pm, the neon of our hotel was flashing, alone in a forest, next to a lake, just a few kilometers from the airport. The taxi driver seemed to have sensed our anxiety and was a little anxious himself I think to have taken a fare to almost the airport at this time of night. I gave him 500 rubles, expecting him to ask for more and he started to dig in his pocket for change!! Where were we, Cambodia!

So, pleasantly surprised by the taxi service of Yekaterinburg, we headed into our hotel to find out why their internet map shows them next to the city lake when in fact they are next to the way-out-of-town airport!

 
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Killing Time on the Train

13/6/2010

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We told you we play cards, yahtzee and charades.....what else do we do? Well, Julia has no more than one can of beer per hour......
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I just hang out train windows looking for where we are going
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Irkutsk-Yekaterinburg......Trans Siberia!!

13/6/2010

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A Siberian village - beautiful forests surrounding quaint wooden housing
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Yenisey River, Krasnoyarsk - 2 rail bridges across the worlds 5th longest river. The Yenisey has the greatest flow rate of any river not in the tropics.....I think!
I don’t know what mystery Yekaterinburg held for us but we wanted to go there and thus train tickets were sent for……..well, actually, I tried to buy tickets at the station but after 40 minutes all I could determine was which ticket window I could buy them from – determining train numbers, available seats and other options proved impossible. Once again my 5 words of Russian were not enough.

So with the assistance of our hotel reception we purchased the most expensive transport tickets since arriving in Thailand. At first it was a shock but then we realized we would be on the train for 55 hours, pass through 3 time zones and get 2 nights sleep. Lucky we could only get tickets on the “slow” train, I imagine the express charges a little more!

At the station we met a Kiwi guy called Steve who was on the same train – it was obvious who was on our train as it had been delayed and no platform number had been determined so we all just hung around in the waiting hall.

The train was older than most we have managed to get so far but it was quite comfortable and as the journey went on, it was often quite empty – quiet, no queues for the toilet and a clean toilet – for me this was our best train experience. Steve dropped in for a beer as we headed on – I think he was wondering what to do with himself past Yekaterinburg as he was on until Moscow – a further 30+ hours!

For us it was fun, lots of cards and yahtzee – and to Molly and my delight Julia agreed to play charades!! We had several sessions of charades and I highly recommend it for train journeys – of course you must leave the door open to panic the other passengers as Julia did, pretending to be a thief and darting out of the cabin straight into one of our barrel chested neighbours!

By far the highlight of the trip was the endless forests of the Siberian plateau. It is how I have always imagined Russia and it is still overwhelmingly impressive. Interrupted by small villages of wooden huts, the occasional soviet industrial town, often abandoned, and areas of vast wetlands. We crossed some of the biggest Rivers in the world, their water from Mongolia and Kazakhstan heading North to the Arctic.

At every station there seemed to be a lone Lada sedan waiting for it’s owner to return. At some stations people with bucketfuls of potatoes would run along selling them and we had a fur salesman try his luck with us a couple of times. Yet it was the scenery that remained the most lasting impression of Siberia.

 
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Irkutsk

11/6/2010

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In the city park near the Lenin statue - watching the garden beds being planted with summer flowers
There were of course some pleasant surprises for us as we explored Irkutsk – the city is pretty, has an interesting history and most people there looked like us. For Molly it was nice to not be stared at as she had been so much through South East and East Asia. We eventually found a restaurant with local food, good prices and a selection of wines (also at a good price). The staff were wonderful, didn’t speak a word of English but happily roped in the one customer who did to make sure our orders were what we wanted.
Around town there is a nice mix of older European style buildings and locally made log and cut wood houses. The history of Irkutsk is remarkable, serving as a lone outpost of Eastern expansion, it was even considered the "staging point" for Russian expiditions to Alaska in the period when Russia had a fairly large toe-hold in North America. That Irkutsk served this purpose demonstrates how little existed (and still exists) in the thousands of kilometres between its location and the Russian Pacific coast.


To ease the culture shock and take stock of our arrival in Russia, we decided to move to a better value hotel – better value but not cheaper. In fact it was more expensive but perhaps the best hotel we had stayed in since leaving home so we figured it deserved the title of “good value”. When we got shown the room the lady mentioned the automatic toilet – we looked at it and realized we had to stay here just to try it! We have seen a Japanese toilet with lots of buttons before but it wasn’t working – this one was although for me one trial run was enough to remind me certain things should remain one way streets……….In addition to the “hip” cleaner there were buttons just for women, deoderisers, a dryer function – actually it was a lot like an automatic car wash and it did come complete with remote control! As did the curtains, lights and wardrobe.

So Molly got to play to her hearts content for a day and night whilst Julia and I sat down stairs and chatted, drank some wine and planned Russia (well, sort of, mostly we just drank!).

Of course afternoons drinking can lead to all sorts of things so I went night-clubbing – until 4am! I discovered many things, the most relevant being that I should not go night clubbing until 4am. I also discovered that Russians are very similar to Australians in that they like a drink, they like to dance and they like the 80’s – a LOT! Fashion – check. Music – check. Dance style – CHECK! The only thing missing was the handbags on the dance floor. It didn’t matter, most Russian girls seemed to dance around in circles in the same style anyway, sans handbags!

So with hangover in need of fixing, the next morning we found a Subway, mostly like in Australia less the English menu, and we were in the middle of enjoying a very nice sandwich when the main street of Irkutsk erupted – it was the City Birthday Parade! A proud, 350 year old city was putting on a show so we joined them. We had intended to go back to Lake Baikal which we had passed on the train from UB but it was not to be – the street parade was far to…..um, bizarre!

It was freezing cold, yet somehow most floats, marching groups and cars seemed to somehow include some bikini clad dancers. There were lots of pirates, quite a few furry cartoon characters and our favourite – a car wash with lots of soapy splashing around being had by all girls involved, again, in bikinis (did “we” like that one or was it just me?).

Irkutsk was fun, quiet compared to East Asia and people follow traffic signals, don’t stare and despite their rather cool summer temperatures, are generally quite cheery.

 
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Old style building - maybe sinking just a little bit on one corner.....
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We are not tiring of this sort of view
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