The trip on the Trans-Siberian railway

Russia: Moscow (Aug 05 – Aug 10)

This section starts at the train from Irkutsk, covers the days spent in Moscow and also the train from Moscow to Helsinki.

Aug 05

The smell of the sausage was weird enough to assure Juha that it is no more a good idea to eat it (Päivi never ate it anyway). There was not so much of it left anyway, since Juha had eaten it a lot also without any bread, which we had run out. Otherwise the amount of food required had been estimated quite well indeed.

At the railway station in Moscow we made some calls, and found out that at Hostel Asia there was room for us. Then we took the subway there, and in the evening just went walking around to buy some water and yoghurt. The hostel had separate rooms for men and women, and Päivi was accompanied by three girls from England, Australia and Spain, of which the Spanish girl was sleeping in a bag on the floor due to some kind of a misunderstanding. Meanwhile Juha was staying up late, chatting with his roommates from Japan and France.

Aug 06

In the morning we had the breakfast that was included in the price of staying, and then headed for the Kremlin. We first unintentionally lined for half an hour into Lenin's tomb, which we thought to be the entrance to the Kremlin. We could not get there with our bags however, and when we were looking for a cloak room, we found the correct entrance and got in.

The Kremlin had several things to see. Most of the time we spent in the Armoury, which had lots of jewellery, nice weapons, armours, thrones and emperors' carriages. There was also a miniature Trans-Siberian train. Other things to see in the Kremlin included several cathedrals which we however only saw from the outside, many governmental buildings, Ivan's bell tower and something that claimed to be the world's biggest cannon, although it did not look THAT big to us. (Not that we would have seen a bigger one somewhere, though.) After leaving the Kremlin we had a decent "bisnes-lants" and then walked around on some shopping streets.

Aug 07

At the breakfast, which was exactly like that the previous day, we accidentally met Sophie from England, who had been our roommate in Ulan Bator: it's a small world, that of backpackers...

We went to search for a cosmonaut museum which was not located quite in the centrum of the city. However, we ended up in a strange-looking place, which used to boast the "economic achievements" of the Soviet Union with a number of pavilions devoted to different areas of science and technology, and of course with fountains as well. However, today these pavilions are full of small shops selling for instance household appliances.

After the aforementioned strange place we started to look for the cosmonaut museum again, and eventually found it, although our guidebook had a wrong address. There was just some cosmonaut-related bureau in that address, but the guard was still able to tell us the correct location. If we had had no idea of the address, we would certainly have found it more easily, since the monument on top of it was quite easy to see even from a distance.

The museum would have been better if we had understood Russian. Juri Gagarin was mentioned several times, though. At about four in the afternoon we were again at the Red Square, and visited the St. Basil's Cathedral, which we found hardly worth it.

Päivi's roommate had recommended ballet at the Russian State Ballet, and somehow Päivi was able to get Juha there as well, so we went to see Giselle. In the evening Päivi noticed that her roommates had disappeared, so she had a chance to sleep all alone.

Aug 08

In the morning we tried to organize a group to go to the KGB museum, which is only accessible with a tour. The tour was obviously cheaper with more people in the group, so we got Juha's roommates (Takeshi from Japan and Richard from England) interested. We called a travel agency and agreed to go to the museum the next day.

Then we left with Takeshi to see Lenin's tomb. We first queued for roughly 30 minutes, and could not get in with our bags and cameras, so Juha stayed outside with everyone's stuff. Then Takeshi left and Päivi waited for another 30 minutes with Juha, so that Juha could also see the great man who was actually quite small. You had to go around the coffin in a line and keep completely quiet all the time, or else one of the many many guards there would tell you to do so.

After the hassle with Mr. Lenin we went to find the Tretyakov art gallery, which was vast. There are only Russian paintings (and a few sculptures) there. We spent too much time looking for the first items, so we just had to rush through the last ones in order to get out before they closed the place. That was not a pity since both of us preferred the older paintings anyway.

Aug 09

In the morning we walked around just anxiously waiting for the agreed time for the tour in the KGB museum. The tour agency had also placed two German and four Indian non-backpackers in the same group. The tour took two hours and it was quite interesting indeed, since the guide had several good stories to tell. After the tour there was an officer — who had worked for the secret service for decades — to answer our questions; the guide acted as an interpreter.

After the museum we went with Takeshi to have bisnes-lants, and then tried to find the last souvenirs. In the evening we went to claim our backpacks at the reception of the hostel. The train left at 22:50 and we found out that we would be in Helsinki before noon, which was much earlier than we had thought. The compartment was shared with a Finnish–Russian 12-year old boy Antti and a (presumably) Russian man who did not speak out a word and left the train in Vyborg. Now we finally had to get accustomed to the fact that we can no more go on speaking to each other that cipher code called Finnish that nobody can even remotely understand and that we had been so used to in situations where we did not necessarily want anyone else to understand.

Aug 10

The sun started shining when we got closer to Finland. Really, the sky had been quite gray and it was even cold in Moscow, which was completely different from the very hot weather e.g. in Irkutsk. The radio had been left on and it woke us up before seven in the morning. After eight the first border guards got in, and the rest of the time before Helsinki was spent chatting with Antti.