I went to Red Square.....................it was closed Day 4

I managed to have a late breakfast, again filling my plate so that I would not have to spend my hard earned cash buying food in Moscow. It is possibly one of the most expensive cities in the world. How the ordinary people of the city manage to eat I don’t know.

My friend had left me late the previous evening, the hotel put a curfew on room visitors, and will charge extra after 11pm. As this was my last day, I didn’t want to rush around, so after watching a bit of morning TV, I headed downstairs for my final breakfast.

The maid was still polishing away at the banister. “dobre ootra” I said politely. “Good morning” she replied! I could hear the sound of music coming up from the dining room, the pianist was back. Well at least I would have something nice to look at while I ate. Wrong. My attractive blonde had been replaced by a snooty looking young man, with a pinched nose, a la Kenneth Williams.

I had to book out of the hotel at mid-day, so I packed my bags, and then relaxed for an hour watching star Trek.

“So Mr Spock was ist es?” asked Kirk.

“es ist Lebends kapitän, aber nicht, wie wir es wissen” Replied Spock.

“Bones, können Sie irgend etwas dafür tun?” asked Kirk

“verdammt Sie es Jim, ich bin ein Arzt, nicht ein Mechaniker” replied Doctor Mc Coy.

At noon, I paid my dues, booked out, then left my luggage at reception. My flight was in the evening, and my taxi was not due for several hours, so I took a walk around the area outside the hotel.

I walked in to Petrovsky Park, home of the stadium of Dynamo Moscow, one of the city’s major football clubs. Dynamo was formed in 1923 and is the oldest football club in Russia. It has played in the country’s top league for all its life, but as yet has not won the current premier league title; its highest position is second. Its most famous player was the Russian Goal keeping legend Lev Yashin, voted the best goal keeper of the 20^th century, no mean feat, beating the likes of Gordon Banks and Peter Shilton. There is a statue of the legend at the Dynamo stadium. The stadium from the outside. Looks a bit run down, like it had seen better days, although the team were still in the top flight of Russian football.

After a couple of hours walking in the summer sun, I made my way back to the hotel, crossing several major dual carriageways and main roads. All were busy with a strange mix of old ex-soviet trucks being passed by modern Scania and Volvos. Audi and Mercedes cars passing old Ladas and Zils.

My taxi arrived on time. It was not the young man in the blacked out 4x4, they had tried to impress me when I arrived, but now that I was leaving they sent an old man, roll up dangling from the side of his mouth, driving a Russian built Gaz. It was my first experience of any Russian car other than a Lada, and first impressions weren’t favourable, its design was 1980’s except for a slightly more modern looking radiator grill, and the paintwork and finish was not up to the standard of European cars, it did however compare favourably with Rover. The interior was old fashioned, but it was quite comfortable and spacious.

The driver took my case, and this is where the problem started. He said something to me in Russian, which I took to be “what time do you need to be at the airport?” what he actually asked was “what time does your flight leave the Airport?”  I answered the first question. He looked at me, looked at his watch, looked at the traffic, then a look of terror came over his face, as he picked my case up, launched it into the boot from about 20 feet,  then proceeded to push me urgently towards the rear door. We took off before I had time to shut the door, with smoke pouring from the tyres, and forced our way out into the Moscow rush hour. Now Moscow rush hour is something to experience, no one gives way, there are now rules, it is survival of the fittest. Junctions are constantly grid locked, and you dare not leave an inch of space between you and the car in front, because if you do, a dozen cars and trucks will try to take the space. My driver fortunately was a past master at negotiating the traffic. He used any space available to advance, two wheels on the kerb, across garage forecourts, we took every short cut known to man. He was constantly on his mobile, getting updates from his taxi colleagues about the state of the traffic on this road, or that one. I swear we drove through a car wash at one stage, although most of the time I was hiding my eyes. Eventually we escaped the central Moscow traffic, and joined the exodus of city workers heading for the suburbs on an urban dual carriageway. Each side had 3 lanes, and my driver made use of each one, changing lanes without a signal, putting his quite large executive car into the space vacated by a ford fiesta. We dodged buses as they stopped to drop of workers. In Russia they have a large fleet of minibuses that stop anywhere and everywhere, and at this time of the evening the roads were full of them. As we sped on towards the airport, I watched silently as my driver undertook a Police car making its way through the traffic on blues and twos, I ducked down in the back seat.

Finally we became free of the city traffic, and joined the Motorway towards Domodeyevo airport. The hard shoulders of Russian motorways are not for emergency use, they are for the locals to set up stalls to try and sell produce they have grown on their dacha, or allotment, there were all kinds of fruit, vegetables and various homemade sausages and pies being sold. My driver ignored them; in fact he very nearly cleared a few off the street as he forced his way onwards. Suddenly, without explanation, my driver screeched to a halt on the hard shoulder, he jumped from the car, and ran into the bushes, leaving me sitting in the back seat of a taxi, drivers door open, engine running, in the middle of a foreign country, with no idea where I was. I looked around quickly for any signs of police marksmen trying to apprehend the fleeing criminal that must be in this car breaking all the rules of the road, but could see nothing. After a few minutes of panic, I was relieved to see my driver re-emerge form the bushes, a grin on his face, he made a sign that told me he had needed to answer a call of nature, and we took off once again.

We arrived at the airport 3 hours before my flight was due to leave, but my driver thought it was one hour, I fell out of the car, but not wanting to look weak in front of the driver, I smiled, gave him a big tip, and tried to walk upright towards the terminal, hoping he would disappear before my knees gave way.

I made my way to the British airways check in desk, deposited my bags, got myself a window seat, then made my way through security. Having taken off my shoes and placed them in the tray for scanning, I noticed two things, nobody else was taking their shoes off, and I had a large hole in my right sock, with my big toe sticking out. I pretended to by German. I replaced my shoes, did a quick tour of the duty free shops, picking up a few packs of old Holborn for friends and neighbours, and few bottles of finest Russian vodka for me, then took coffee while I waited for my flight to be called.

I heard the tannoy announce, “British Airways regret the one hour delay to flight BA 879 to London Heathrow. Passengers are requested to wait in the departure area at gate 21” Ah British Airways, making me feel at home already!

If any of you who read this are inspired to take a trip to Russia, then I would  suggest, if you absolutely must see Moscow and red square, make it a weekend ,no more, it is very expensive, and once you have seen the sights, great though they are, and visited the art gallery and the Bolshoi ballet, there is little else to do. If you have a week , then combine Moscow with an overnight train to St Petersburg. If you only have a long weekend, then choose St Petersburg over Moscow, it is a truly magnificent city, as good as any in Europe. Of course if you have a month or more, Start in St Petersburg, take a train to Moscow, then catch the trans-Siberian to Beijing via Ulan Bator, or to Vladivostok. Don’t forget to book time off in St Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, and Yekaterinburg, to visit the hstoric cities and take in the local culture, and especially take time off in Irkutsk to take in Lake Baikal. It will be the journey of a life time for you, and who knows, we might just bump into each other!