Moscow

All posts tagged Moscow

If someone wants to get to the other side of Russia, there are only a few feasible options available: either flying, the most obvious and fastest one, or taking the train, the slowest but more interesting one.
I picked the latter as it would give me not only the chance to see a bit of Siberia in winter but also to experience the famous Transiberian Train: “At a Moscow-Vladivostok track length of 9,289 kilometers (5,772 miles), it spans a record eight time zones. Taking eight days to complete the journey, it is the third-longest single continuous service in the world.
Wanting to head to Mongolia, I would stop at Ulan-Ude (roughly 3/5 of the complete route), after 4 and a half days of train.

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Preparing the Train


The train, to me, seemed very “Soviet-style”, both imposing and experienced, you could almost feel it had done the route many times before and this was just yet another day of work, nothing special. But to me, and certainly many others before, this precise moment felt historic, at least on a personal level.
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As the train arrived in the early morning, Moscow welcomed me with the first (but definitely not the last) snow of the journey.
The city was as bustling as I thought it would be, but it still had its charm, especially outside the Red Square.

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Saint Basil’s Cathedral


Together with the common attractions, all the area near the Museum of Cosmonautics (brilliant museum by the way) was a mix of majesty and beauty: beauty when strolling around the snow-covered gardens and majesty when surprised by VDNKh (Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy) which had a pavilion for each of the Soviet “regions” (e.g. Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, etc.).
After a few days of sightseeing and preparation (both mental and physical), I was ready to leave Moscow and hop on the Transiberian train to Ulan-Ude.