Trans-Mongolian Railway to Moscow

The State History Museum, Red Square.
see all photos »

We left Irkutsk at around 16:30 in the afternoon, for what was by far the longest leg of the journey so far. The trip across five time zones took just over three days. The train was quite luxorious, far better than we expected, and apart from the first night, we had the four berth cabin to ourselves most of the time. The train made various stops along the route where we were able to get off and have a walk and some fresh air, as well as buy more provisions (mainly noodles) so as not have to use the expensive dining car. The most bizarre part of the journey was never quite knowing what time it was. The train runs on Moscow time, which is five hours behind Irkutsk time, & we seemed to pass into a different time zone almost twice a day. At one point, Hannah, myself and an Australian couple in the next cabin were working on three completely different times. On the second full day on the train we passed an obelisk marking our entry back into Europe for the first time in almost seven months, and the following afternoon we finally made it to Moscow.

St. Basil's Cathedral.
see all photos »

On arrival to our homestay we were pretty worn out from the train journey. The apartment we are staying in overlooks the Moscow River and is very nice. On our first full day in the Russian capitol we headed to the city centre and the Kremlin. We spent the morning wandering around the grounds and churches, although I think it would be fair to say the city fortress and churches all looked rather more interesting on the outside than they did inside. We then walked to the north end of the Kremlin to Red Square, surrounded on all four sides by historical buildings, the most impressive of which is St. Basil's Cathedral with its colourful domes. After lunch we went to The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, originally built in the 19th century, but then destroyed by the communists, and re-built in the 1990's. Whilst sitting in the grounds of the cathedral it began to snow a little. By the time we got to Arbat Street, a tourist street about a fifteen minute walk away, the snow was coming down heavily in the form of a blizzard and we had to retreat to a shopping centre for the last part of the afternoon.

St. Basil's Cathedral.
see all photos »

Our second day in Moscow was also our last. We spent most of the morning wandering around the main shopping areas of the city. In the afternoon we visited the State Historical Museum that didn't prove to be very interesting as there was no English descriptions of what anything was apart from for the decor of each room, which seemed somewhat pointless. We took a long walk through the city and along the river back to our homestay via the White House, the Russian parliament building. In the evening we headed to Leningradsky Station to catch our final overnight train to St. Petersburg, something that I think we were both quite happy about!

Our entrance to the Kremlin.
see all photos »

J.