Taking the Nintendo DS with me was a last-minute decision, but a very wise one. Since I traveled by metro
a lot, I needed something to while riding, and the DS, acting as an e-book reader, was of great help. I read
"The Old Man and the Sea" from the beginning to the end (what a story...) and started (re-)reading
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".
I booked a room at the same hotel my dad stayed in during his May trip. It's cheap, comfortable
and is really close to a metro station. The view was nice as well; I used the window sill as a dining table.
The room was on floor №27 out of 28.
My only complaint is that the fridge would make loud weird noises
for 5 minutes once every 15-20 minutes, making falling asleep a challenge.
While on the Red Square, I also paid a visit to the GUM, which stands for Head Universal Store.
The interior was beautifully decorated with numerous flowerbeds.
It is considered an expensive luxury store, but I snatched a bottle of lemonade for mere 50 rubles, which
is standart price really.
I wandered for a bit more and headed for my first night at the hotel.
I couldn't help imagining that the hair dryer in my room is actually a phone (it looks like one!).
You pick it up, but the person on the other end just shouts from the top of their lungs, so hard that on your end
the speaker starts blowing the air out.
The first embassy on my list was the Canadian embassy. They don't really seem to care about the condition of
their flag...
Next, I headed for the Icelandic embassy. Here is some scenery I saw along the way, with one of the beautiful
Seven Sisters visible.
The embassy of Iceland had no flag flying outside.
I had lunch in a cafe next to a botanical garden.
Who said that you don't need English to live in Russia? This sign has only one abbreviation
in English against six in Russian.
An interesting monument to a famous Russian actor Oleg Tabakov, and an American classic.
After that, I wanted to take a trip to the Vorobyovy Gory metro station, which is unique as it's
built on a bridge, but it turns out that the station was closed; luckily, the station's reopening
was due next day, so I decided to go to "Moscow International Business Center", better known as Moscow-City; home
of 7 of Europe's 10 tallest skyscrapers.
The subway is located underneath one of the buildings, and the exits, through a series of weird hallways and rooms,
lead to a shopping mall. I suspect that it has a nice effect on the mall's income.
Looks liminal, doesn't it?
Inside of the mall, there's an impressive glass roof, and outside of it stood yet another American monster.
As for the buildings themselves, I didn't like them. I love 2 kinds of skyscrapers; the old beautifully crafted
skyscrapers (Moscow's Seven Sisters, USA's Art Deco skyscrapers) or the bland, simple and unassuming kind
of skyscrapers that don't pretend to be some kinds of architectural masterpieces (lots of Japan's skyscrapers).
Well, Moscow-City is neither. It all looks fake honestly, as if they just said "heyy let's build, like, some tall
glass buildings to show everyone that we're, like, a capital, you know, rich and shit, like all the capitals do".
I'm quite sure that it's exactly what the planners had in mind.
These trees almost look foreign here, yet they prove that humans need shrines of nature even in the
most man-made places.
This is a bridge built specifically for metro trains!
In Moscow, electric scooter sharing is extremely popular; there are
a lot of scooter stations
and
a lot of people riding them. However, I didn't particularly liked it when I tried it back home,
but I found that one of the sharing companies specializes on the usual kick scooters (non-electric), and
they had a station near the opposite entrance to VDNKh. So, I decided to rent one to get back to the main entrance.
It was rather nice!
The reason I went back to the main entrance is because I wanted to take a ride on the Monorail.
The monorail was one of the ambitious projects of the former mayor; however, it wasn't really successful,
so only one line has been built, and these days trains operate in a 30 minutes interval (there are only 2
trains on the line). Talks of monorail's imminent closure have been going on for a while now, so I'm glad
I got to ride it.
The cars are not connected, so the interior kind of looks like a ferrys wheel cabin.
The stations are a prime example of 00s Russian architectural "design".
Having had a fine lunch at a sophisticated American cuisine restaurant (a McDonalds near the station),
I headed towards my next destination - the Vorobyovy Gory metro station and it's surroundings.
This is where the campus ends and the Vorobyovy Gory park begins. There's a nice scenic lookout on the city.
The building on the last photo is colloquially known as "The Golden Brains".
There is a ropeway that crosses the Moscow River, but the line was ridiculously long, so I decided to
walk through the park insted.
This fountain is interesting. It looks like it will overflow, but it doesn't.
You may think that it's a ship, but it's actually a part of the waterfront with
an shadow shaped like a ship's bow.
After a refreshing walk in the park, I headed for a tram station (with the tram being the last remaining kind of
rail transport I had to ride on in order to deem the trip successful) to get back to aimlessly wandering in the center.
Interesting stuff seen along the way includes the Shabolovka radio tower, a semi-abandoned Skyline and a small
cozy bunch of avant-garde houses that
look like this from above.
The Revolution Square metro station has these magnificent statues depicting the history of the USSR from 1917 to
1937.
So, the last day... Saying my last goodbyes to my hotel room.
These guards are tirelessly guarding the Eternal Flame and the Unknown Soldier's Grave near the Kremlin wall.
Rather blessed are the hands of these wise fellows.
Balloons
A plaque honoring the fact that Lenin had visited this building at some point. A lot of buildings in the centre
have them. "Lenin was here", "Lenin gave a speech here", "Lenin had a 2 second glance at this place", "Lenin took
a huge dump here", etc.
The embassy of Iceland has regained it's flag.
The US Embassy. Apparently it's not even their only building. Do you really need this much space?
Some cement drops that took shape of a llama.
雨だった。The last photo before I entered the railway station to board the Aeroexpress train.
The airport has a mini capsule hotel that tries too hard to look futuristic. There's no point
in it really as it's located in the waiting hall that's only reachable after you pass all the documents
and security checks.
Back home.