Moscow

I'm back from my first visit to London and Moscow.   For my sake and yours I'll split this into two or three separate posts.

Moskva or Moscow as most of you know is the capital city of Russia.  The city is home to the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, Bolshoi Theater, Stalin's skyscrapers, and several other beautiful buildings, bridges, and subway stations.  With a population of 10.5 million the city is also home to the second busiest subway system in the world.  I can personally attest to this as it was standing room only on a Sunday night when I went for my ride.

Besides being surprised by wonderful architecture of the city I was also surprised by how much money there is in Moscow.  As they are in large cities, the streets were packed with cars.  The interesting thing in Moscow was that they were all Mercedes, Lexus, Audi, Porsche, Land Rover, and other expensive imports.  All of the major fashion houses had major stores in the central downtown district as well.  Not having time to shop for clothes or cars my only knowledge of price came from my hotel and a couple meals.  At the equivalent of $350 USD per night this was easily the most expensive Holiday Inn I have ever stayed in... didn't even have a pool at that price.  Hotel dinners were more reasonable but still expensive at $25 to $35.  My impression, until this trip, was that former Soviet states still had relatively weak economies.  And this may well be true because my hosts were quick to point out that Moscow is not representative of Russia's economy as a whole.

Since I can't remember everything I heard about the buildings and I'm sure my pictures will not do them justice, I urge you all to go and google Moscow buildings or images.  Very cool buildings.  St Basil's Cathedral, with its onion shaped domes was one of the more interesting buildings I have seen.  I really liked the brightly colored domes.  This Cathedral, the Kremlin, and National History Museum surround Red Square.  The Stalin skyscrapers or Seven Sisters as they are sometimes call remind me of Gotham city in the Batman movies. Mostly 19th and 20th century buildings dot the skyline but their financial district is up and coming with tall glass skyscrapers that dot the skylines of other international cities.

Lastly, for all of you enjoying the beautiful weather back in the states this fall... I've already endured my first snowfall of the year.  I found out they were forecasting snow the day before I left.  Since I don't have a winter coat here yet I ran out to buy a last minute one.

Here is a link to my flickr Photos so you can see for yourselves what I have been talking about.

I did bring some Vodka back with me.  Hopefully I'll have room to bring a bottle back at Christmas when I'm home.

Oh yea, and NO I didn't go into Lenin's tomb to see him.  Too weird even for me.