The Road to Red Square

Being the fourth part of The Moscow Chronicles!  Follow the links for Part 1 - Moscow Calling,  Part 2 - Taksi! and Part 3 - Night in the City

I awoke bright and early the next morning.  Well, it was relatively early for me and I’m never all that bright in the morning, but I did my best.  I staggered down to the dining room which was somewhat gloomy, which rather matched my mood.  The gloom was a consequence of the fact that it was below street level, with the only windows high up on the wall, looking out on the pavement above. This was exacerbated by low-level lighting and the relatively short Moscow day.  I grubbed around in the gloom and managed to cobble together something vaguely approaching a Full English.

I wasn’t entirely surprised to find none of my colleagues in attendance.  They all had their work to do whereas I had the day at leisure.  The question was, what was I going to do with it?

On my way back to the room, I picked up a tourist map of the city and noted approvingly that the sun was attempting to shine.  My original intention was to have a mooch around in the general area of the hotel so that I could have a better idea of my immediate surroundings.  I hadn’t been able to see much when I arrived the previous night.  Therefore, wrapped up well against the -5C prevailing outside, I ventured out into Moscow.

It was, by now, a bright and beautiful autumn day.  I had a look at the Moskva River and then, gathering a little more courage, crossed the river by the nearby bridge and had a look at the exterior of the hotel before crossing back and then ruminating about what to do next. 

My hotel from across the Moskva river

I decided, given that it was my only chance to sightsee, that I really should be adventurous and try and see some of the more famous sites.  From the tourist map it seemed to me that I should be able to reach Red Square if I just kept the river to my right (see map below, hotel is circled in the bottom right hand section)

The only problem with this was that there was no scale on the map, so I had no idea of what distance was involved.  The simpler option would have been to take the fabled underground, but I had little in the way of currency and even less in the way of courage.  I decided to walk.

On reflection, I really should have read some of the advice printed on the back of the map.  The very first thing it says is “Moscow drivers are quite aggressive.  Please look for and use underground passes wherever possible and be extra careful when crossing streets”   Well, fancy!  I found this to be true in relatively short order.

The main problem with being a pedestrian (at least in 2005) was that Moscow seemed to have a rather lackadaisical attitude with regard to pavements.  On many occasions I found that the pavement I was confidently striding along, just disappeared leaving me standing in the direct line of traffic, which seemed to see me as providing good target practice.  This often happened when you were trying to work your way around the strut of a bridge or the sharp corner of a building, which meant that your appearance in the road was somewhat like the Demon King in pantomime.  I rapidly learned to peer carefully around any such corner and be prepared to duck back very quickly if there was anything coming in the opposite direction.  It was also quite usual for road works to suddenly make what little pavement there was completely impassable, with no alternative provided.

I had started the journey in a state of some wariness, largely connected to being a stranger in a strange land, but also because all of my impressions of Moscow to date had come from 1960s spy films and it was difficult to shake off the vague feeling of being a marked man, particularly when every car seemed to have my number on it.  This odd feeling of being in a 1960s spy film was further enhanced when I noticed, on the opposite side of the river, a series of army trucks making their way along the road laden with armed soldiers.  All of a sudden, this did not seem like any other city, anywhere in the world.  I later discovered that the rationale for the troop movements was that the authorities were anticipating demonstrations objecting to the imposition of a new public holiday, in replacement for the traditional holiday normally held the following week.

The Road to Red Square

What with playing chicken with the Moscow traffic and the troop movements across the river, I was in a fine state of apprehension by the time that I finally reached the bridge leading to Red Square and the Kremlin.  I was also conscious of the fact that I had walked considerably farther than I had originally intended.  Nevertheless, before me were the impossibly colourful spires of St. Basil’s, looking like something Walt Disney might have dreamed up in one of his wilder moments.

St. Basil’s

I wasn’t sure whether I was disappointed, or not, to discover that access to Red Square had been shut off for the same reason as the troop movements I had previously observed.  I leant against the railings of the bridge and contemplated the Moskva.  At that moment, there was a tap on my shoulder and I leapt about six feet in the air.  This rather amused the young Russian couple behind me who simply wanted me to take their picture with St. Basil’s in the background.

By the way, if you think the quality of my ‘holiday snaps’ in this article isn’t up to much (and I would agree) that’s because all of the pictures I saved from my trip have inexplicably disappeared from my hard drive (cue the theme tune to ‘The Twilight Zone’) and I’ve had to rely on my one and only print of the thumbnails of those pictures.  Curiouser and curiouser!

The bridge on which I jumped a mile (with Red Square in the background)

Now read Part 5 of The Moscow Chronicles - A Bridge Too Far?   You can find a lot more from Philip here

Night in the City

Being the third part of The Moscow Chronicles!  Follow the links for Part 1 - Moscow Calling and Part 2 - Taksi!

Stepping out from the Arrivals Hall of Moscows Domodedovo Airport into the Russian night was more of a surprise than I expected.  It was, of course, cold, this being November.  However, at an average of -5C it was, apparently, relatively spring-like by Muscovite standards.  The real shock to the system was stepping out of a relatively modern airport building, which could have been anywhere in the world really, onto what appeared to be a building site.  There was a makeshift tarmac path which petered out after a few yards into rough ground, which we clambered over to reach the car, parked, with loads of others, on the side of a sort of road designated by wire fencing.  To be fair, I have since learned (thank you Wikipedia) that Domodedovo was upgraded substantially in 2005 and I must have arrived there in the middle of all of this.  Nevertheless, the sudden switch from modern building to rough and ready ground was unexpected.

We set off for the City Centre, with me trying to find something to say that might be internationally comprehensible, and largely failing.  The relative silence did give me chance to observe the road and traffic in more detail than I perhaps would have done.  I was surprised to find we were on a busy six lane highway which did not appear to have any central reservation or safety barriers, just three lanes of traffic going hell-for-leather one way and three lanes doing the same in the opposite direction.  The other surprise was that there was no hard shoulder, or rather, if there was it wasn’t used in the way we would expect.  Cars that had broken down or stopped, for whatever reason, just stopped right where they were, in the lane in which they were travelling.  This made for an interesting journey when you suddenly realise you were approaching a parked car at some speed and had to switch lanes in a marked manner.

Moscow itself seemed, reassuringly, much like any other city, with the same advertising hoardings, neon lights and traffic jams.  We parked at the front of my hotel and I walked into the lobby, which apparently doubled as the hotel bar, to find a table full of my colleagues from university.  I pulled up a chair and gratefully accepted a Baltika beer.  Around the table were the two senior lecturers whose programme this was, a colleague of mine who was part of the teaching team and who had just completed her first day of teaching the students in Moscow, and Cliff.  Cliff (not his real name) was the local ‘fixer’ whose company held the licence for the course and with whom our university was partnered for the course delivery.  Cliff was an amiable and charming English chap in his 30s who lived and worked in Moscow and had done for several years.  He knew his way around the city and its bureaucracy and was, therefore, the ideal link for us.  My ‘taxi driver’ was, in fact, Cliff’s right-hand man here in Russia and was rumoured to be ex Special Forces.

I recounted my travails at the hands of British Airways, Domodedovo Airport and putative taxi drivers, which they found amusing.  After a couple more Baltikas, I was more amenable to seeing the funny side too.  I collected my key and set off for the lift to go up to my room.  Beside the lift was an English version of the local Moscow paper, the headline warned of possible trouble ahead.  Apparently, the following day, Friday 4^th November, 2005, had been announced as a Public Holiday at relatively short notice (Unity Day, I think) and there were concerns that there might be some demonstrations as the public were expecting to be celebrating a different event on a different date.  This did not bode well for me as I had Friday at leisure, was due to teach on Saturday and Sunday, then returning to the U.K. on Monday.

I repaired to my room, which was not unlike a student’s bedroom in the Halls of Residence at home - bed, desk, T.V., small en-suite shower room, wardrobe.  I knew, from discussions before at the university, that the cost per night for this room was eye-wateringly expensive and had only been reduced to this exorbitant level by virtue of one of the two course leaders staying on for a few days to deliver some free management training to the hotel staff.  To find that all we were getting for this amount was this tiny room, was a bit of a surprise!  Still, I would be able to review my teaching materials here in my spare time tomorrow.  Now it was time to call my wife and let her know I was safely installed and then to collapse in a heap at the end of a long and stressful day.  Tomorrow, I could explore my new surroundings.

Watch out for Part 4 of The Moscow Chronicles coming soon.  You can find a lot more from Philip here

Taksi!

Being the second part of The Moscow ChroniclesI  Follow the link for Part 1 - Moscow Calling

I'm not a big fan of flying.  If I could manage it on my own, I might probably be just about alright, just as long as I didn't go too high.  Terry Wogan used to have a correspondent (Willie Gofar, I think) who aimed to circumnavigate the world by hot-air balloon, the only problem was that he didn't like heights, so he had to keep one foot on the floor at all times and he also had to be back home for his tea each day.  By and large, I had some sympathy with him.

If you remember, from the first blog-post, I'm currently, and rather reluctantly, on a flight from Heathrow to Moscow's Domodedovo Airport on a mission to teach Human Resource Management to a cohort of students on behalf of my university.  I'm travelling alone but the seat next to me is occupied by a young, very well dressed, Russian gentleman.  We've exchanged pleasantries, as you more or less have to when crammed together for four hours, eating like a Praying Mantis (by which I don't mean a diet of insects but rather the position you have to adopt if you're to avoid elbowing your fellow passengers) but nothing more.

When we finally landed at Moscow, somewhere around 20.00 local time, I discovered the first snag of the trip.  British Airways in its own inimitable way had forgotted to give out the Landing Cards necessary to get through Russian Passport Control.  These were available on a table as we approached the Passport Control Desks but, there was only one English translation available for the entire flight, so the whole thing took on something of the air of a rugby scrum.  I began to despair of ever getting any further into Russia than this Arrivals Hall until my Russian travelling companion very kindly stopped and guided me through the completion of the card.  I was pathetically grateful for this help given that I was wound up like a coiled spring long before I arrived and I was really not in a good place for things going wrong. 

I then proceeded to the Passport Control Desk and cheerfully produced my UK Passport, complete with the requisite Visa stamp allowing me to visit and work in Russia.  Obtaining this stamp had been a major exercise in the first place and there had been some doubt about whether my passport would be returned by the Russian Embassy in time for my trip, which had done nothing to calm my underlying panic.  I think all Immigration Officers are trained to treat you with a certain disdain but I don't think I've ever been regarded as if I was something that the cat had dragged in, in quite the way that this Officer did.  She peered at me and my passport with open hostility and then, clearly against her better judgement, stamped the passport viciously and returned it to me with the air of one who thinks 'on your own head be it'.

Delighted to have jumped this particular hurdle, I hurried to collect my luggage from the carousel and was chuffed to find it was all there.  One of my chief worries had been that all or some of my luggage would go missing.  This wouldn't have been the end of the world if it was just my clothing but my pilot's case had all of my teaching materials, videos and laptop inside and I would have been completely up a gum tree without those.

 Up to now, my experience of Domodedovo Airport had not been markedly different from that of any other airport, even the Immigration Officer hadn't been all that unusual, you can get surly Passport Officials everywhere.  However, that was all about to change.  I went out through the double doors marked Exit and was immediately engulfed in a wave of people, apparently taxi drivers, all yelling and shouting at me.  Some were holding name cards for those they were to collect from the airport but most were not.  I was expecting to be greeted by someone at the airport so I surveyed the scene hopefully, but my heart sank when I realised there was no card with my name on it.  In the meantime I was being assailed by all these men offering to take me to Moscow, for a price.  I explained that I had someone coming to collect me but this didn't seem to dissuade them.  I eventually fought my way through the melee and sat down on one of the benches disconsolately, still under siege from the massed ranks of taxi drivers.  It dawned on me that I had not taken the precaution of getting the phone numbers of my colleagues who were already here in Moscow and, therefore, I had no way of contacting them to ask what was happening.  Then I realised that, with the time difference, it was possible that the Subject Administrator for the course back at my university might still be at work.  I rang her and, glory be, she was!  I explained my situation, against the babble of orbiting taxi drivers, and she said she would get in touch with my colleagues and find out what was going on.  I rang off, much relieved.  The taxi driver phalanx had thinned out whilst I had been on the phone, presumably having hijacked further passengers after me.  I settled down to wait but there was one remaining taxi driver from the previous horde who clearly did not believe in taking "No" for an answer, as he kept asking me if I needed a taxi.  Out of interest (and inadvisedly I suppose, but I wasn't at all sure that I would be collected) I asked him how much it would be to take me to my hotel, he then quoted a figure that would only have made sense if it had been a gold-plated limousine.  This was laughable not only because I didn't have that sort of money but also because I was sitting opposite the Airport Taxi Desk, behind which were quotes for typical fares to various places, which showed an amount about half of that being quoted my persistent friend, for a trip to Moscow City Centre.

The phone rang and it was my colleague in Moscow who was the Course Leader.  He apologised that I hadn't been met at the airport but assured me that my driver was on his way.  All I had to do was wait and beat off the entreaties of my circling taxi driver.

Quite some time passed and I began to wonder if I would ever see civilisation again.  I must have cut a lonely figure, surrounded by my luggage in a deserted Arrivals Hall, just me and my pet driver.

Just then, a tall young man in a leather jacket appeared and produced a piece of card with a variant of my name on it.  Overjoyed I picked up my luggage and went over to him explaining volubly the trials and travails of my recent past.  He smiled blankly, took one of my cases and we headed off to find his car.  I realised that there was every likelihood that he didn't speak any English and, of course, I don't speak any Russian.  This was clearly going to be an interesting journey.

Watch out for Part 3 of The Moscow Chronicles coming soon.  You can find a lot more from Philip here