Moscow is almost a thousand years old, and was the old capital of the Russian empire until Peter the Great moved it to St. Petersburg. After the Russian empire, the Soviets and modern Russian have made Moscow their capital. Here, you can feel the old and new world of Russia. Leningrad Rail Station, my first point of arrival, continues to service daily trains from St. Petersburg. On the Kremlin, monuments exist paying tribute to soviet soldiers, generals, Brezhnev, Stalin, as well as the old cities of the Soviet Union, including Stalingrad and Kiev. The tomb displaying the body of Lenin is also there - I saw it myself! He is kept on a bed under a glass dome, and his body almost looks like a doll's. It is oddly pale, and the hair looks just a little too stiff. His eyes are closed, and beard still pointy. Russian soldiers guard the tomb, shushing everybody and preventing photos.
St. Basil's cathedral is adjacent to the Kremlin on Red Square, and was smaller than I expected; all the iconic pictures of Moscow make it look big! Inside, there are chambers on chambers of altars and orthodox pictures of saints, all with circles of light around their heads. It was one of the coolest cathedral I have been in, because there are tons of small passages and stairs leading to many rooms filled with wall paintings, gilded carvings, and old Russian orthodox art. Next to St. Basil's is a large long building now turned to a mall. You can see capitalism at work here. There are tons of jewelry, and a sandwich probably costs $15. No thanks. I also saw a sign that said "Historical Toilet," so I curiously went to check it out. Turns out I have to pay to use the historical restroom as well. So on principle I didn't go in.
I have been couchsurfing with a really nice host named Bella. She recently graduated from Moscow University of Economics, and is now working at a job consulting under Accenture for financial matters. They all work really hard there - it is one of the best schools in the country, and apparently they all look at each other and say, "I need to work more because everyone else is working more than me." Bella herself works 10-12 hour days, but is on vacation these days so we have been hanging out in Moscow. I help her practice English, and I sometimes speak in Russian to her, and as a result, my Russian is slowly improving. Although they still speak too fast and omit too many sounds for me to properly understand.
Moscow is the financial capital of Russia, and as a result many people move here for jobs at banks and financial centers. This is what gives its people a reputation for being always busy and rude, around Russia. In fact, almost none of the people who I talked to in St Petersburg said they liked Moscow; there is intense competition between those two cities about which one is better. One of my couchsurfing hosts in St Petersburg told me: "It is a tradition in Moscow to point you the wrong way if you ask which way the Kremlin is." I asked him why, and he said "Because people from the capital are made of shit", with a big giggle. So I decided to test the first claim for fun, and asked a few people which way the Kremlin was. They all (as should be expected) pointed me in the correct direction. So I guess that is myth busted?
Many Russian people have an interesting way of reacting to strangers. In Moscow, I definitely feel like an outsider. Everybody expects you to speak Russian, and often get impatient when I can't speak well. People also give me stares when they hear me speaking English. St Petersburg felt more open to the rest of the world, but Moscow almost expects you to be Russian. Russians also not held back when it comes to their feelings. They often say what they think, and often do as they think as well. That may be where part of their reputation for doing crazy things comes from. When I was speaking with Bella in English in a park near the outskirts of Moscow, two guys (probably a bit drunk though it was 3 PM) come in. One of them looks at us, and says in Russian, "Speak some Russian words!" Later, he comes over to us, and begins talking to Bella. I thought it was bad news, but turns out he just wanted to know more about us, me in particular. In fact, he was pretty friendly at the end, and after Bella told him we were going to the market to check out some Soviet trinkets, he went to his apartment, and presented me with a pin with Lenin's head. I suppose once Russian people become friendly with you, they are actually really friendly. I think the encounter shows that once people understand you and that you have friendly intentions, they will also be friendly and open up.
Lately, Bella and I have been teaching each other to recite poetry from our countries. I began with teaching her some Robert Frost, one of my favorite poets. She then tried to teach me a poem from Pushkin, acclaimed to be one of the greatest Russian poets. It is really hard to try to remember lines in a different language. I do fine with the words I know, but half the words I don't actually know. So I have to remember some by how they sound, and others by referencing them to words they sound like. This has the effect that sometimes I just say nonsense, and sometimes I say "money" when I should say "vision." I think that while traveling like this, with almost no stuff, it is very useful to memorize some poems or songs. They might be useful to know when I'm camping somewhere outside of the towns to keep myself company or share with someone else.
My adventures in Moscow have almost come to an end. I'm heading to Kazan tomorrow, and after that, the wild east of Siberia.