It was wonderful to visit Ukraine. I’ll probably post about it more. But now it was time to take our adventurous crew to the great country of Russia.
We boarded our Aeroflot plane in Kiev, then flew a few hours, nonstop. Moscow is… how can I say this nicely? Well it’s not really a *pretty* town. It is, however, full of history and activity.
It’s also an *expensive* town. That’s why our stay in Moscow was relatively short; we stayed just one night.
Moscow is home to some of the longest subway escalators in the world. Each subway has a different theme and decor. There’s a couple photos here to check-out..
I really enjoyed the Cosmonaut Museum. There were 1:1 scale re-creations of satellites, and there was lots of artwork and newspaper clippings from the era of the space race. (Yuri, Yuri, he’s our man!) I also dug learning about Byelka and Stryelka, the celebrated dogs in space.
Walking around the Moscow Expo Center seemed a little intimidating… it’s a huge outdoor complex. So Todd suggested we rent bikes. What a great idea! We cruised along with bikes around the grounds, seeing some cool old architecture. We even hit the fun-fair to ride some coasters, eat shish-kabobs and have ice cream.
Later, it was time to head back to town. I’d been to Red Square before, but it still dazzles! The inside of St. Basil’s was under renovation when I visited last time in 1995; they did a wonderful refurbishment and the insides look simply amazing. We made a pit stop at McDonald’s. Instead of mozzarella sticks, they have fried Brie sticks here. (I had them. They were rubbery.)
I think cigarettes used to be more common in the former USSR. Now there are health advisory signs everywhere. The sign here says “Tobacco is poison. Quit smoking.” Ukraine just passed tougher smoking laws for public spaces. Yay.
After about 36 hours, it was time to move-on and catch our overnight train to St. Petersburg. More on that soon.
I’ll apologize for my plain (mindless?) writing right now. It’s late (and I’m typing on a phone!)
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Mike the Nomad Bear 