For me, the most distinctive thing about Moscow as a city was its busyness. I have been to many big cities across Europe and this one outdid all of them with its noise, traffic and sheer scale. Truly a mix of East and West. Our hotel was situated on an enormous intersection/roundabout/insanity which also happened to have three major trains stations on it. This was the view from Isabel and Tom's room on our first night:
The next morning we awoke to find this view from our hotel room looking South across to the city.
Kazansky train station where the trains leave for Siberia and Beijing!
And this is what the traffic looked like from ground level. Anyone noticing that there aren't really lanes?!
In front of the former KGB building things seem more orderly....
Until we noticed one car slowly making its way across the traffic completely perpendicular to the rest of the cars!
It was unnecessary for pedestrians to cross many of these streets because there were all sorts of underground passages we could use. These passages were fascinating slices of life lined with little kiosks selling everything from little meat and pastry things to underwear to Matryoshka dolls to newspapers. My favourite was one we came across near a gallery which was packed full of paintings!
However, the traffic that we experienced most directly was in the amazing amazing Moscow metro system.
The Moscow metro was built according the vision of Stalin. He envisioned the Moscow metro as a fully modern innovation that would be both beautiful and functional. And indeed the Moscow metro is stunning. Every station that we visited had lofty ceilings and was fitted with beautiful chandeliers and intricate soviet public art.
A close up of the bronze sculptures in every arch at one of the more famous stations:
People were rubbing the dog's nose for luck.
The Cyrillic station names made it pretty tricky to navigate but we managed!
SO busy. We felt like we saw a million people everyday in the metro.
Huge, looooooooong escalators at every station. Perfectly clean though because of the many employees with little straw brooms sweeping up and generally monitoring things.
On the left above is another Moscow metro station. On the right is a photo I took in 2010 of a first century Roman burial chamber that we visited in Split, Croatia. I think that the Moscow station detailing is very like it!
Some examples of the amazing mosaic murals which were everywhere in the stations:
The train stations near our hotel were also wonderful. The Kazansky Station had an ornate lounge room where passengers could relax in black leather chairs and admire the exuberant plaster work and paintings on the ceilings.
One of the side halls of the Kazansky where one could buy "products on the road".
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