Most of you out there will probably agree with me that setting foot in a country for the first time produces an unparalleled, enthralling feeling. This is especially true when the subject country is one you’ve been dreaming to visit for a long long time. That was the case with me and Russia. Ever since I started to become acquainted with the world’s geography and history: right after the time I learned how to read: this vast, mysterious, great country called Russia occupied a very prominent place in my exploration-lust reveries. As I was getting older and these reveries of mine started to being tubed into reality, many a time I was just about to undertake a trip to Russia but, due to visa-related or other impediments, I never, after all, had managed to fulfill this trip… until this very day. Finally, fate brought it about so that, at around noontime of the present day, I was boarded on a flight landing at Domodedovo Airport of Moscow. Now, evening, I’ve made it to Kurskiy Station and, while waiting for my train to Saint Petersburg, I decided to write down my impressions of this first day in Russia.
Weather
I am, generally, a fan of temperate climates: sunny beaches, minimal clothing, and stuff. The last years, I have almost exclusively spent them in places with such climates: veering back and forth between the northern and the southern hemispheres together with the summer: and it’s been a very long time since I last experienced real, harsh winter. That’s why I felt a little daunted when the pilot, right before taking off from Athens’ airport this morning, announced that the temperature in Moscow is -20 Celsius.
As I was approaching the airport exit, I was striving to prepare myself mentally so as to confront the cold. But it was alright after all. Sure, you stop feeling your fingers and your ears start hurting as if being burnt by a blowtorch after half a minute outside… but it’s overall tolerable and – some positivity involved – rather refreshing.
Furthermore, I was very lucky to arrive on such a brilliant, sunny day. So I absolutely did enjoy my first day in Russia weather-wise.
The City
Moscow is a huge city. One could be living there for an entire lifetime and still have new spots to discover. And a few hours I had to spare was much briefer a period than a lifetime. So I definitely cannot claim to have come to know the city. Throughout my day strolling around it, though, I did get a nice feeling about it.
I walked from Paveletskiy station (whither the airport express train brought me to) downtown, round and round the center, and finally to Kurskiy station.
The word which, early on the day, popped up to my brain to describe the city is ‘grandeur’. Everything is massive, lavish, and imposing: buildings, monuments, streets…
Communism is dead. Apart from the Soviet-style apartment blocks outside of the city center and Lenin’s Mausoleum in the Red Square, nothing reminds of the Soviet Union era. Mac Donald’s, Starbucks’ and all the like have now taken over the buildings’ ground floors all around. And Porsche’s, Mercedes’, BMW’s, and Audi’s constitute the majority of the cars you see driving in the streets.
The People
The kinds of folks I got to observe around the city matched what I expected quite perfectly… Elegantly dressed, gorgeously beautiful, blonde girls; old ladies, and even girls in their 20′ in some cases, walking in and out from the churches covered with scarfs; guys in suits rushing who knows where with a briefcase in hand; soldiers in full war kits occupying their posts; old, unshaven-for-months-if-not-years vagabonds with thick leather and fur hats on their heads tottering around, singing and babbling, holding a bottle of vodka… and many more.
Weirdos
Every place in the world has its weird folks. Russia couldn’t be lacking hers, either. I’d rather say there is quite an abundance of them. Many of those weirdos, whom I define as such because they can hardly fall into any categories, but each is one of his own, I happened to be talked by in just these few hours. Here are only the best examples.
A middle-aged woman in a long dress down to the ankles and high heels overtakes me running. She advances for some 10 meters, halts and turns back towards me. “Will you run?”, she asks me. “If I will run?”, I double-check that I understood her right. “Yes, run together with me.”, she confirms I did. “No. Why should I?”, I reply after I gave it some thought. She stood for a while, looking at me intently with that kind of glaze which betrays a hardcore psychopath, and resumed her way running ahead.
Waiting for my order in front of a fast-food counter, that strange Kyrgisian fellow starts speaking with me in poor Russian as mine. He first tries to sell me off a stolen mobile phone. After I made it clear I’m not going to buy it, no matter how much more he lowers the price, he starts begging me to buy him a meal. Having suffered his persistence for some time, I note the tray with my order lying on the counter-deck. I grab it… and he also grabs it at the same time from the other side. “This is mine”, says he. “Don’t you even think about it”, he receives in reply. We remain there, for about half a minute, fighting over the plastic tray containing a cup of coffee and a burger on it. And right at the point, I was about to lose my temper and punch him in the face, the burger girl intervened by saying it was his order.
While smoking on the pavement, I am approached by a man. I’m getting ready to roll a cigarette for him – I had already got used to it: every time I would be standing somewhere smoking one, I had to expect I’d give another two to bypassing askers. But this guy didn’t ask for one. He was up to another point, and he made it straight to it… “Do you f**k?”, he asks me. And I’m like “Excuse me?!”. And he repeated his question again unaltered, still without an object following the verb. “Well, it depends on whom”, I conclude, “but if you mean ‘you’, no way!” He left disappointed. If any girls did the same as this queer, many dudes in this world would be much happier people.
Rip the foreigner off!
I come to a kiosk in the train station. An old, fat woman, her face plastered with ample loads of make-up, keeps it. A bottle of water, please… small… without gas. She hands me the bottle and I pass her a 100-Ruble note. She gives me 50 back. I am waiting… still waiting… “How much does it cost?”, I finally ask. She gives me a load of coins and a smile expressing “Sorry, I just made my try because you are a foreigner, no offense…”
These were pretty much my impressions on my first day in Russia. Ever since that day, I lived lots of enthralling adventures traveling around this vast and beautiful country. One of the highlights of course was crossing the entire country by train. If you are going to travel to Russia, you shouldn’t skip checking out some Trans-Siberian tours.
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