Russia - Moscow

Hello dear readers, 

I hope you enjoyed that last post on St. Petersburg and that you didn't find the huge amount of photos too tiresome! 

This is the next installment in my spontaneous Russia post series: Moscow. 

So, after a sleepless night, (refer back to the last post for more details of our interesting train journey if needs be!) our train arrived in Moscow at 9am. As you can imagine, we had to get up extra early to pack away what little we'd got out over the night (that was weirdly worded) and prepare to get off the train quickly, which all in all goes against most fundamental teenage beliefs and practises. This is a fail of a photo, where I attempted to get the snowy view from our cabin window (it was exciting because these little compartments were slightly Hogwarts Express-y) but instead only got the silhouette/reflection of the three of us starting out of it. Ah well. 

To my surprise, we all managed to pile out of the train on time and intact. We then walked, lugging our luggage (what a wonderfully delicious phrase!) for what seemed like miles until we got to this restaurant, on one of the longest roads in Moscow - it was a mile long (the longest is something like 27km!) We had a pretty good breakfast, which kept to the trend throughout the trip of us eating mainly carbs - which (sorry, I'm diverting) is actually ok considering we walked about 35.27 miles all together, which is the equivalent of walking from Guildford to London!! How simply riveting (getting my Surrey on now).

Jazzy funky snazzy

My friend got one of the iconic Hard Rock tops for her friend who collects them. There's a little fact for you. #greatblogger

One of the seven sisters - seven identical buildings in Moscow that were built for individual ministry bits. 

There's a pretty cathedral. 

There's a pretty view from the top of said cathedral. 

The big red wall is the outside of the Kremlin. 

St Basil's (prepare yourself for lots of photos of this)

There seems to be a trend in Russia for getting your wedding photos on bridges, and this random bridge at the top of a shopping centre was no exception.

Me awkwardly posing, looking like Michelin man (it was cold) outside aforementioned cathedral.

You'd think that the inside of St Basil's would be tall and enormous, but it's actually split into 9 small chapels. Ivan the terrible had it built, and when he asked the craftsmen if they could ever make something more beautiful, and they naturally replied, well yes if you want, the tsar naturally had them all blinded so that that wouldn't be possible. Think that's where the 'terrible' bit pops into his personality...

 

Our legendary, forever-talking guide in the middle there

The beautiful  view from the front steps of our hotel that night 

And from our window (photo copyright Helen's photography)

A modern art museum and sculpture garden we went to. 

There was this really striking sculpture, which I think represents the faces of those killed in the purges. 

I think this was Trotsky

A modern history museum we went to after lunch, where our ever-talkative guide went on for forever, bless him, even though he was only supposed to be translating from a non-English-speaking expert, who in the end didn't actually say a word! 

A map that made me very angry, mainly because of the Africa bit. I know it's supposed to be sardonic humour, but I really don't find that kind of thing funny. 

Our huge metropolis of a hotel 

Moscow by night 

The actual Swan Lake lake

Us being blurry swans 

Red star by night 

St Basil's why do you do this to me 

 

The aforementioned shopping centre looks amazing at night 

The next day, we went inside the Kremlin and it was amazing. Sorry, I don't have many photos of it as my phone was running out of memory constantly.. 

But here's one! 

So, I do hope you enjoyed seeing those snippets of our trip - it was an amazing experience, and I wanted to share it with you as much as I possibly could. 

There are more photos, but they're mostly selfies, and I didn't think you'd all take much interest in them! I did take all the photos with my phone, if you're wondering. 

Whilst we were in Russia, our teachers wrote a blog too about what we did. So if you're interested, here's the link: 

http://ghsfromrussiawithlove.wordpress.com

Thanks for reading, be lovely to one another, many hugs from 

The (very) happy blogger xxxxxxx

Ps: I'm especially (that autocorrected to 'wax prickly' on my phone hehe) happy because I just watched catching fire again and caught up with Made in Chelsea. I should do a post on one of those.. Or both!! We shall see I suppose..

Russia - St. Petersburg

Hello dear readers, 

So (like many other posts) I must start this one with an apology. Recently, I went to Russia. And I told you about the trip beforehand, so the fact that I came back a week ago today makes this particular post long overdue. It's just that I've been (not very successfully) revising for my GCSEs, which are looming in the way too near future. 

ANYWAY, you came here to hear about/ see pictures of my trip to Russia. But I think its story is best told with photos. 

So we started off the trip in St. Petersburg, and this is one of the main squares, with me and my friend Helen (who featured in another recent post) in the middle of it. This one's a cutie, if I do say so myself!

Part of a cathedral we saw the next morning. 

 

The city has always been known as the 'Venice of the north' and you can kinda see why

A slightly creepy, sneaky selfie of a selfie

This whole trip was for our GCSE history, so if you do the same course as me you'll understand our excitement at the claims of this ship being THE Aurora Cruiser, which sailed up to the Winter Palace during the Bolshevik Revolution. If you're a history fanatic you'll find that exciting, and if you're not... I ask you not to dwell on my nerdiness.

SO MANY RUSSIAN DOLLS

 

I mean, LOOK 

#cray

Sorry, I got a bit carried away with the photog here...

That evening, we went to the theatre to see a ballet. I bet you want to know what it was called/ what it was about/ who starred in it. But sorry, my answer to all those questions is I have absolutely no idea. We all enjoyed it though!

The theatre was so pretty (also don't know the name of that either - hopefully tiredness is a good excuse for my incompetence)

 

Lots and lots of dancers (A* in obvious captioning over here) 

I think the gist of the story was that it was a dramatic, tragic love story. It was just that no one knew what the ending was all about - I have theories, believe me, but they would take explaining far beyond the patience boundaries of most humans, dear readers, so I hope you'll forgive me in excluding them from the post.

You've now been magically transported to Catherine the Great's palace

This is a slightly blurry photo that doesn't quite do this hall justice - it was essentially a ballroom/ extravagant thing, covered in mirrors and gold, complete with a slippery floor - perfect for sliding across and getting consequently told off by your teacher

One of the main things I'll say about this trip is that the Russians know how to make a bloody good chandelier, as demonstrated by basically everywhere we went to 

I'm sure this beautiful amazing wondrous writing desk will call out and fondle the hearts of the authors amongst you. It certainly fondled me, if you'll pardon the euphemism 

The cold never bothered me anyway *cue piano interlude*

Cute sign we saw from our extra-touristy coach (yep, you've guessed it - we did the whole guided tour on coach, get off for ten minutes to take selfies and group shots, get back on coach, leave and go to next spot thing - how wonderfully irritating) 

Getting artsy with cups, saucers and hot chocolate at the hotel. Am I the only person who finds hot drinks machines equally fascinating and exhilarating - I mean, what could be more exciting than your favourite, warm liquid coming out of a machine at the press of a button?! And it knows when to stop so your cup doesn't overflow. GENIUS.

Yet another thing I found exciting (you've probably picked up that this is a recurring theme for me): the light. Golly. 

The Church of Spilled Blood, which was built around the very place where Tsar Alexander II fell down after he was assassinated

Sorry to be so factual, but this church was so interesting: its insides were covered with 7065 square metres of mosaics, each carefully made and presented. The fact that it should in theory take someone a year to make a single sqaure metre of this mosaic type shows the pure manpower that went into making this church... 24 years it took them, not 7065; and that's extra impressive. 

 

That's right, it's the Venice of the north 

Cute group shot outside the Winter Palace/ Hermitage museum. There's a little huggy photobomb going on on the right there

Inside the very grand palace. To be honest, we saw so much gold in the buildings on this trip that it kind of lost its impact, and eventually we'd walk into a room covered with gold and just say "oh, another one"

We like our chandeliers we do

Little memorial of paintings of all of the officers/ important Russian army people who fought against Napoleon

There were so many chandeliers in this room. Imagine how I felt, considering my new- found little obsession 

One of the two Raphael paintings they have in the Hermitage museum/gallery. It would take you 23 years to see everything there, it's so big 

They even had a Michaelangelo. This was heaven for the art students amongst us (that includes me!)

What else do you buy when it's freezing cold outside? ^

The way this was translated/ worded made me chuckle... "Lavatory pans"

Again, it was crazy to think know much important history had happened on this very square 

Where Tsar Nicholas II and most of his family are buried (we're now at a church in a fortress) 

And now we're at St Isaac's Cathedral 

The view from the top of the cathedral after climbing up 300 steps or something 

The friendly countdown to the bottom 

The snazzy, but traditional restaurant we went to on our last night in St Petersburg

My favourite part of the trip was the folklore show we went to that evening. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the show itself, but here's one of my friend and I looking like the perfect couple at the palace where the show was (what do you mean, they're cardboard cut-outs?! Never!). It was an eccentric place - they played bird noises in the toilets, which as you can imagine was slightly distracting. The show itself was amazing - they had the classic costumes and dance moves, and the stories behind the dances were hilarious. They got people to come up on stage, I befriended an Irish woman called Ann who sat next to me, and it was all together a lot of fun. 

To get to our next destination, Moscow, we went on the 'midnight train'. It was more like a 2 in the morning train, judging by the time we got into bed. I don't think anyone slept at all - we were, as forty girls would be - unsettled by the fact that we all shared a loo, the taps didn't work, and the flush was on the ground, which was very confusing. Aside from toilet difficulties, it was definitely an experience! 

I think I'll end here, and make another post about Moscow, because it's taken me an hour to write this one and I worry about how long it will take to upload, considering the huge amount of photos... Uh oh ;) 

Thank you for reading, be lovely to one another, many hugs

The (very tired and) happy blogger xxxxxx