Boats, boat people and not the Orient Express

Hate living out of a suitcase, especially when it seems to have shrunk in the five days since we’ve been here. It’s not the only thing that’s shrunk. Our clothes have too. (I tell you, come to Moscow and see the sights: with museum cafes as rare as a blue moon, you’ll drop a dress size.)

We organized a late check-out for 3 pm and decided to ‘do’ GUM and a boat trip. Here is a photo of GUM.

It could run the entire length of Red Square. You pass through two time zones as you go from Dior to Cartier. All right, that’s another exaggeration but it is the longest, largest department store I’ve seen. 

 If you’re anything like us, you’ll think of GUM as it was in the Cold War days: a place where never-ending queues of women with head-scarves and large bags waited outside a bread shop with no bread. Well, fast-forward forty years. GUM is more of an up-scale mall, with scores of high-end boutiques we’re all familiar with in the west. We were stopped from taking photos in the wine and spirits department but we had already managed to get a couple of shots elsewhere. A pair of Woolford tights will set you back £39 ($52) but a small jar of average caviar will cost you only a fraction more. We should have bought some because the caviar on the train was double the price. But that’s another story...

Making up for the lost years in the fashion wilderness:

It took us an hour to get from GUM to the pier. It was half an inch on the map but four underpasses, a bridge with no steps to the walkway underneath and an entire block off-limits due to construction turned it into a safari. But it was worth the hike.

It wasn’t so much the basilicas and the palaces that made our trip so worthwhile but the people on the boat. Have a look at this beautiful face. We christened her Su-Bo...

She was with six or seven baboushkas, all very jolly and keen to take our photographs. Maybe they have a blog...

Seeking refuge from the wind and the occasional blast of eau-de-bateau (Gail insisted the boat was fuelled on cabbage soup) we took ourselves to the canteen below . I have to tell you the coffee (Americano – espresso with hot milk) was top notch and 80p, which made it taste even better.  Not long into our pit-stop we encountered our new best friend – a Kiwi from London, teaching English in St Petersburg.  Rochelle had been in Russia since April and was, frankly, very homesick for London. She was taking her guy, Simon, sight-seeing - it was his birthday and he had flown in from London for a couple of days. Rochelle had some very different views of Moscow having lived here for five months, and they were not flattering. Outside the inner circle of Moscow central she talked about the rampant poverty and crime - she herself had narrowly missed being attacked on a morning jog in her local park. She also told us that she no longer bought food from local shops such is the dirt and contamination. We were also beginning to see beyond the bright lights of Moscow...

Our boat trip was Moscow's adieu to us. Some hours later we headed to the station, all set for our romantic train-journey to St Petersburg in the Red Arrow.

It occurred to us, as we staggered like pack mules up the stone steps of one of Moscow's main-line stations, that there were no facilities for the disabled. We couldn't find a ramp or an elevator. It then dawned upon us we hadn't seen anyone in a wheelchair since we'd arrived in Moscow. We just take health and safety as a given in the west - can you think of a public building that doesn't feature ramps and facilities for the disabled? Not so in Moscow. It's the survival of the fittest and the wealthiest.

Moscow Leningradskiy Station at 11 pm on a Monday night is not a place to be on your own. There was not a friendly face in sight; it was poorly lit and ultra depressing. There were even drunks, one of whom was covered in blood and being shepherded out of the station by the police.

What a total surprise it was to find no information in English about where to process our E-tickets. There were straggly bunches of people around ticket desks - everybody elbowing each other out of the way, waving papers and being generally unpleasant. We joined one of the lines - if you can call it a line, it was more of a scrum - until Sue established that we should be in an entirely different place.

Thankfully we had allowed for plenty of time to catch the train - we had no idea we’d need so much of it simply to walk the length of the platform to our carriage. We couldn’t see the end of the train from the barrier. The Red Arrow is Russia’s most famous train. It used to carry the elite of the communist party between Moscow and Leningrad. Five minutes before the grand opening of the carriage doors, a uniformed guard stepped out onto the platform – no, please don’t cross the yellow line – and at a given signal we were allowed to board.

I have to tell you that this is not the Orient Express. It is romantic in the sense that you’re travelling across Russia in the dead of night gently drifting away to the hypnotic clackety-clack of the ‘wheels’ and the swinging gait of the train but the beds are hard and narrow and our meal came in a paper box. And we were in business class. A cheerful attendant brought around some duty-free – how do you feel about an open sandwich of salmon and salmon eggs for a mere 900 roubles (about £20) and a small jar of caviar for £100? Anyway, we did sleep, sort of, and awoke to early morning drizzle in the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Oh, nearly forgot... We pulled out of Leningradskiy station to the sound of a brass band playing the Red Arrow theme tune. It took me straight back to Dr, Zhivago. Oh where oh where are the balalaikas...