A Trans-Siberian Christmas Part III

The final installment to my three part Trans-Siberian series. It's been a thrilling ride. If you're only just joining us now, click here for Part I and Part II.

We've made it all the way from Vladivostok to Ekaterinburg and can now begin our final leg of the train journey to Moscow. This was the shortest of all our train times with only 25 hours on the train. It was fairly uneventful. We spent our time planning what we wanted to see in Moscow and working out how we would get to our hotel.

Москва́

pronounced MOSKVA or MOSCOW

Population approx. 11, 503, 500

Destination reached.

We made it!!

Arrival into Moscow was exciting. Here's some of our fun journey stats:

We traveled the red line.

We had completed 9, 289 km on a train. 

The world's longest railway.

One of the world's longest train rides.

We journeyed across 8 different time zones.

Started in Asia and ended up in Europe

Traveled across 2 continents

We decided to take the subway to our hotel. The subway stations in Moscow are beautiful. For some reason they made me think of the dwarves in the Lord of the Rings... they would have been proud of our Russian friends. The stations were so deep into the ground, so old and so... full of stone and marble.

Lots and lots of marble

The escalator that went on forever

Our hotel was called the "Golden Apple Boutique" and they had a giant photo op, I mean, a giant golden apple in the lobby. We couldn't be the only tourists not taking a photo inside the golden apple so here you go.

After settling in to our hotel, we were just one metro stop away from Red Square so we decided we could walk it and wandered over to take in the famous landmark. It was night time and it was snowing and it was truly, truly beautiful. These were also the warmest temperatures we experienced on the entire trip.

This is a good photo for seeing the snow

The State Historical Museum

GYM (pronounced "goom")

There were tonnes of people in the square that night. There is an ice skating rink in front of the big department store "GYM"(to my right)  and it played wonderful old music. Jazz songs. Songs that even I would want to ice skate to, and as most of you know, I'm not easily inspired into ice skating. I think the swollen crowds were due to the fact that Russian Christmas is held on January 7th so families were out celebrating the season and kids were on school holidays.

St Basils and the square

I LOVE these next two photos I took of Derrald taking in the beauty of our surroundings.

The next day we started off by heading towards the Gulag Museum, via the Modern Art Museum, and an old monastery. There are a BILLION things to see in Moscow. There are more museums than a person will ever be able to visit in a lifetime and every time you turn a corner you see some kind of architecture you want to take a picture of. The place is steeped in history and even though you don't always know exactly what that history was (and they very seldom have anything explained in english) you know it's there. You can feel it.

The Modern Art Museum was very fun. It started outside with these large iron sculptures and continued inside with several interactive art exhibits. There was one exhibit where you walked on a soft, squishy floor in a dark room and were invited to view the paintings by the light of your mobile phone. I liked that one. It was spooky. Another exhibit invited you to watch some video of a girl mashing her face against a sheet of glass... and eventually breaking some eggs... with her face. It was horrific and disgusting. Weird girl. 

We snapped a few quick pics of the outside sculptures. Feast your eyes.

I don't have pictures of the Gulag Museum. It was a small place and rather crowded. It mostly consisted of pictures and a few collected articles in glass cases but sadly, there were no explanations in english so I didn't get as much out of it as I could have. They did have an example "bunker" down in the basement that was supposed to demonstrate what the camp rooms were like and what a solitary confinement room was like. It was pretty much as you would imagine. Depressing. Small. Concrete. 

Then we headed back to Red Square. Our favorite. We visited here every day that we were in Moscow. Unfortunately, we never made it inside the walls of the Kremlin but we did explore inside a bunch of other buildings including the State Historical Museum and St. Basils. 

Rising out of the bowels of the earth... oh Russian subway, you are SO deep.

We always entered through these gates

One of the doors linked to the State Historical Museum

We lined up to go inside St Basils and watched some children play in the snow as we waited. Children playing in the snow in Red Square. Awesome. I think this might have been the first "homemade" snowman we saw on our trip.

You could take photos inside of St. Basils so people were going crazy with the cameras. We only snapped a couple. I couldn't help getting this one of Derrald with the wonderful walls and ceilings and incredibly stern expression.

We caught the changing of the guard at the Eternal Flame. This sparked some debate about how long the soldiers had to stand guard, completely still in the freezing cold. Apparently it's unreasonable to have thought they would be standing at attention for 8+ hours before springing into a high goose step to perform the exchange ceremony... um, good thing I'm not in charge of the guards?  The dear fellows change guard every hour. I guess that is more sensible. 

Kiev - where Derrald served his mission

I think this is one of the Seven Sisters... I think. Either way it's impressive though isn't it?

Down Arbat Street is where I ended up buying my matryoshka dolls.

Матрёшка

pronounced MATRYOSHKA

Russian "nesting dolls" often consisting of 5-7 wooden dolls that fit one inside the other.

I could never seem to remember the name of these dolls. I mash the word up every time. Michymoshka. Matrymushka. Mitrymatrymishkymushky. Dolls. I'm sure you'll recognize them from the picture below. I would love to get one that size! I must have great discipline because I only bought ONE set! They are not super cheap (especially if you want a nice one) and we were told people will spend up to 5-6 thousand US dollars on them!

I want it noted for the records that the longer we spent in Russia the more "Russian" Derrald began to look. It was such a strange thing. I thought this picture captured it rather well. Okay, he also looks a little like a vagabond in this photo, but definitely a Russian one don't you think? Haha!

And that about wraps up our Trans-Siberian Christmas extravaganza. There are plenty more photos and more stories too, so if you really want installments 4, 5, 6... they will never be published BUT you can give me a call and I'll make a you a nice cup of tea and we can sit in my living room together going over the photos one by one. I would love nothing more. Derrald never lets me get through more than 5 photos with him. I'm starved for a captive audience.

And finally, just because I can't help myself, here are a few more of my favorite photos.

From Russia With Love,

The Stices. Ulan-Ude. Dec 2011.

Big Three Oh

Yesterday Derrald turned 30 years old. I have now known him for 15 years. Half his life. 

We have been quietly celebrating all week, mostly in the form of baked goods, and last night I took him out for a surprise dinner at Morton's Steakhouse. It was perfect. 

Morton's is on the fourth floor of the Sheraton Hotel in TST and has fabulous views across the harbor. We were in perfect time to catch the light show at 8pm.

They made us personalized menus to take home! I loved all the personal touches. Notice the "Happy Birthday, Derrald!" at the top of the page.

Neither of us has eaten this much meat in a very, very long time and it was very, very good... and the brussels sprouts were great too!

Delicious dessert! Molten chocolate cake. YUM. And again with the "Happy Birthday Derrald" touch.

Making a wish...

Happy and homeward bound, one of us still in our 20's and the other in a whole new decade, 30's.