Russian Far East 2014 12

My overnight stop in Moscow was like rekindling an old love; it reminded why I like the city so much. Moscow has character, vibrancy, history, beautiful architecture and a very good public transport system. At least, it is easy to love Moscow when the weather is good, which it was today – crystal clear air, blue cloudless skies, a gentle refreshing breeze, and a temperature of 18 degrees Celsius when I started my walk at 10:15am, rising to 28 degrees when I finished three and a half hours later.

Being in Moscow for a day and not going for a walk would be, for me, unthinkable. After a spectacular breakfast at the hotel, I felt energized and so I set out and completed a wide zig-zagging circle, starting by walking south-east along Tsverskaya Street, then taking some interesting back streets to the Bolshoi Theatre, and then heading to Red Square. Being a Saturday morning, the streets were a little calmer than I have sometimes seen them, and the buildings looked resplendent in the clear morning sunlight.

From the Bolshoi Theatre, I made my way past the large monolithic Soviet-era memorial to Karl Marx, which today had a lone protester carrying a placard standing in front of it, and walked along some new (for me, but actually ancient) laneways to Red Square, the heart of Moscow.

Red Square seemed unusually busy today, and the reason soon became apparent. Several hundred young police officers were graduating, and they were in Red Square with their families, having photos taken. They were about to proceeding to a large gathering that had closed off the entire southern Kremlin Embankment, together with many of the nearby streets.

The road closures forced me to change the walking route I had planned. After a good look around as much of Red Square as was open, I walked through GUM (the old pre-Soviet and Soviet-era central department store that has now been transformed into a series of arcades for up-market shops), and headed around the Kremlin’s northern walls, past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before further road closures forced me to do another circuit to the north in order to double back to the south to cross the Moskva River using the Greater Stone Bridge.

This provided me with some great views of the Kremlin and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. I followed the road along the south-east bank of the Moskva River, and then took the new pedestrian bridge (the Patriarshiy Bridge) to return to the northern side of the river, arriving right at the base of the huge Cathedral. Having only seen the Cathedral from a distance during the previous visits to Moscow, I circled the Cathedral and was quite surprised by its huge size. My next move was to head north through the wide shady parklands that run down the middle of Gogolevskiy Boulevard. Being a Saturday morning, the parklands were alive with children playing, families relaxing and, in one area, chess masters challenging each other.

My walk continued northwards, past the eastern end of Arbat Street into Nikitskiy Boulevard, and further north as the street became Tverskoy Boulevard and, finally, Tverskaya Street.

At 2:15pm, I checked out of my hotel and used the remaining half of the train ticket I had purchased the previous day, taking the Metro to Belorussky Railway Station, where I caught the AeroExpress to Sheremetyevo Airport - a fast, clean, reliable and affordable option.

Sheremetyevo Airport has undergone a major expansion and upgrade over the past few years, and is no longer the dark, dismal, shed-like place that it was when I first used it in 1987. Nowadays, it is bright, filled with shops, and even the staff seemed cheerful and helpful.

My departure was scheduled for 5:20pm, but as our aircraft (a large Aeroflot Boeing 777-300) was parked far away at the opposite end of the airport, loading (using a fleet of buses) commenced an hour before the scheduled departure. Even so, the loading took more than an hour, and the plane left ten minutes late at 5:30pm.

With an eight hour time difference between Moscow and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (my destination), it was already ‘tomorrow’ in Kamchatka by the time we took off. As shown on the map, our route took us north of the Arctic Circle (almost to 70°N), with a scheduled flight time of eight hours.

Day 12 - Moscow to Kamchatka

Saturday

12 July 2014

Key to airport codes shown on the map: SVO is Moscow-Sheremetyevo and PKC is Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.