I went to Red Square…………………..It was closed!

Day one

I had passed through Moscow airport a few times, but I had never had a chance to visit the capital of the country that, for so much of my life had been “The enemy” On a trip back from Irkutsk, I decided to have a long weekend in Moscow to take in all the sights, and to try and learn more about the country and its people.

Like all good tourists visiting a new city for the first time, I planned ahead. Having had first-hand experience of Russian Taxi drivers, I booked a car to meet me at the airport. The driver, a young man with a dark suit and a Bluetooth ear piece, showed me to a Japanese 4x4 with blacked out windows, and once I was safely buckled in the back, we took off with a screech of tyres. From Domodeyevo Airport into the city is about an hour depending on traffic, my driver was determined to set a new record. The car radio blared out the latest Russian top of the pops interspersed with adverts for coca cola and Mr Doors, a chain of DIY stores. The driver would from time to time, turn the radio off so that he could take a call on his mobile, shouting twice as loud as was absolutely necessary. We made our way into the city centre, and via some back streets, including an alley past some garages finally we arrived at my Hotel.

The hotel was called the “Sovietskiya” and had at one time been the place to be seen in Moscow society. It was once frequented by the Tsar and many of his government, Harry Houdini had performed his escapes before the elite of Russian society before fleeing to the USA and becoming famous. Over the years it had provided food and shelter to many famous and infamous heads of state. It was a favourite of Josef Stalin and his son. In the foyer were pictures of some of the presidents and kings who had stayed there, Ho Chi Min rubbed shoulders with Ronald Reagan, Josef Stalin hung next to Margaret Thatcher, although it was difficult to tell the difference. Its glory days unfortunately had passed and it was now reduced to taking in foreign tourists, however it still charged top whack and tried to maintain an air of superiority. It was positioned opposite a large piece of waste ground where old ladies took thier dogs to do its business, and where you wouldn't want to walk alone at night. The outside could have done with a new coat of paint, and the whole building spoke of better days long gone.

After checking in, I made my way to the third floor via the lift, as the doors opened at my floor, I was greeted by the sight of a large landing complete with grand piano. On either side of the landing, a wide staircase lead down to the other floors. The ceiling was decorated with lots of gold paint, and in the centre hung a huge crystal chandelier, I wondered briefly what Del boy would have thought about it.

The room itself was nothing to write home about, and, like many foreign hotels, there were no tea or coffee facilities in the room. I checked out the mini bar, I checked out the mini bar prices, I closed the minibar. As it was late afternoon, I decided to take a shower, and then have a quick nap before dinner. I switched on the TV. The English channels were BBC Prime or CNN. Hyacinth Bucket was keeping up appearances on BBC, so I flipped through the 40 or 50 other channels. Russian TV is bad, not just bad, I mean BAD! I found some channels from Uzbekistan of somewhere like that and was about to give up, when I came across a few German channels. On one was Star Trek. It was dubbed into German but what the heck!

“Sieh, was Sie dafür tun können, Bones” Said Captain Kirk.

“Verdamt Sie es Jim, ich bin ein Arzt nicht eine Ziegelschicht” Replied Mc Coy. I went for my shower.

I went down for dinner. Passing the grand piano, I had a sudden urge to play chopsticks”, however not wanting to upset the management, I resisted the temptation. I chose to use the grand staircase, not being a great lover of lifts, ever since I watched Hancock’s half hour, the thought of playing eye spy with six trapped Russian businessmen did nothing for me. Using first the left and then the right stair, by the time I had reached the foyer, I had completed a figure of 8. At one stage, i was tempted to straddle the wide wodden banister and slide downbackwards, but being English I managed to contain myself. I noticed there was a grand piano on each landing, and as I got closer to the ground floor, I could hear the tinkling of ivories coming from somewhere in the direction of the restaurant.

My luck was in; the table furthest from the pianist was free. The menu was in English but the waiter didn’t understand me. I had a plate of pickled things, followed by a chicken dish and dessert, a tiramisu type of pie. I ordered a bottle of French wine, what I got was a French bottle of wine, the label was French, but the wine was not. The Russians try hard to offer good service, and fail spectacularly, I had a bit of a game with the waiter, who hovered near my table waiting to remove my used dishes, as soon as I put my fork down, I would lower the fork towards the plate, as If I was finished eating, then, as soon as I caught a slight movement from the direction of the waiter, I would quickly place more food on my fork and slowly lift it to my mouth. It was a good game, but one that eventually I knew I would lose, I declared. Left the table, and headed for the bar. The pianist was playing “midnight in Moscow” for about the 14^th time; she was an extremely attractive blonde with a long, tight, low cut black evening gown on, and a body that fitted it well, suddenly my interest in music returned. I ordered vodka, what I got was rocket fuel, something left over from the Soyuz program. Despite my attempts to catch her eye, the pianist continued to ignore me, so I wandered back to my room, this time using the stairs in the opposite order to my descent. I turned on the TV.

“Sieh, was Sie dafür tun können, Bones” Said Captain Kirk.

“Verdamt Sie es Jim, ich bin ein Arzt nicht eine Zauberer” Replied Mc Coy. I went to sleep.