As I stated at the end of my last post, I had already reached Moscow. This huge city has a number of lovely parks and sights to see and is consequently very touristic. Especially the Kremlin and the Red Square are overrun by tourists such as myself. Nevertheless these sights are really worth seeing. Despite the sheer amount of people I started to feel a little lonely the first couple of days since I had gotten so used to having Simon around. But luckily, some wonderful locals distracted me by guiding me around and by exchanging our cultural viewpoints. I am thrilled to have experienced the friendliness of the Russians, especially when you make an effort to speak to them in Russian. However, I did notice that not all of them get my flawless humor.
One day I found myself following the Moskva, the river that runs through Moscow. Seeing lots of beautiful streets and massive statues I came down to Gorky Park. Before that I was standing on one of the numerous bridges thinking about how in the meantime I got used to traveling alone when I felt a cool breeze brushing my happy face. Then it occurred to me: this must be the wind of change. I strongly appreciated this magical instant whilst thinking of my friend’s philosophical, almost poetic words “treasure the momen”. I most certainly did.
My stay in Moscow peaked with a cracker of an evening with the City Pub Crawl Moscow. I met a lot of open-minded people, some of which were traveling through Russia by themselves too. After going out together again with a couple of new friends on my last day, I boarded the Transsiberian Express towards Yekaterinburg with a heavy but content head the next day. The train to Yekaterinburg highlighted by two Russian Бабушкы (Babushkyi – grandmothers) who couldn’t stand the idea of me eating cheese and bread bought in the supermarket the day I left. As I was peacefully eating my budget meal they must’ve spotted my jealous look on my face when they unpacked their traditional food container by container. They wouldn’t take no for an answer (not that there was a no) and filled me up with delicious Blinchi, wraps, and jam, everything homemade. After this moral boost we tried to communicate with gestures and broken sentences of Russian and English. I now know that Larissa has a playful German shepperd called Tyson and Anna has a very pretty blonde grand daughter in my age. The things you learn!
Having arrived in Yekaterinburg I noticed that the people talk less and less English. I have met my rugby friend Norman here who luckily speaks Russian a bit better. Thanks to him we were able to hitch a ride all the way from a lovely nature sight called Chortovo Gorodishche back to Yekaterinburg. He didn’t even accept a little thank you money!
I have a couple of nights left here in Yekaterinburg before I get to my last stop in Russia : Novosibirsk. After that I am going to see what Kazakhstan has to offer. Hopefully everybody celebrated our country’s birthday accordingly and will start well into the weekend! 🇨🇭