Breguet

lutz
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back from Moscow-impressions

Hello Alex,

Yes we had some snow but we liked that,looked very pretty,temperatures were quite fierce esp.when taking off the gloves to handle the camera.

As it wass my first visit to Russia here some general impressions:

First: I really was amazed about the living standard in Moscow,modern cars,no visible remnants of the grey eastern block standard I had expected in the center of Moscow,a top-modern capital,extremely tidy and clean,perfectly organised,impressive architecture as well the 19th century  as the 20th century buildings.(Well Duma,KGB building and Lenin mausoleum are exceptions belonging to the old not very pleasant Soviet style).The famous underground stations are breathtakingly beautiful,hardly believable that these masterpieces were built under Stalin.

The Red Square is -en par with St.Mark's Square of Venice- the most beautiful square in the world,a masterpiece of architecture,beauty and harmony.

The ice-skating area there should be designed more adequate to this marvel,and the Lenin mausoleum does not fit there at all and disturbs the proportions of the square,but it will not be easy to find a place for it somewhere else.

The underground service is certainly one of the best in the world.For 50 cent for one ride extremely cheap(very wise to keep car-traffic in a 15 Million people city within limits),and if You miss one train,the next comes within a minute,great service!(that the trains are pretty old and loud does not matter very much)

Dining was great,restaurants like Expeditio and Poet's Restaurant are first class,wine is considerably dearer than in Europe,Kaviar significantly cheaper.

These were the pros.now some modest cons:

I can tell You,it is not easy to get around there and find one's way as tourist!

All road signs,Metro stations etc,that means everything necessary for orientation is written in kyrillian letters,so not really readable for tourists.

If a tourist asks for help,the next metro station, a road etc,he will get no answer unless he speaks the Russian language,people in Moscow(apart from the hotel lobby and Souvenir shops) speak absolutely no other language,some elder people knew some German words,one or two young ones a bit English,French we did not try.So it's like visiting France,UK or US:without being able to speak the lokal language You are lost.And Russian is a beautiful but very difficult language spoken by hardly any tourists.

The tourist is kindly invited to by post-cards of Basilius'Cathedral etc,but to post these cards is something impossible.We tried to post them at the hotel-reception(something that works in every other country we visited) but stamps are not available there,we were sent the Metro to buy stamps,of course we did not get them there,neither anywhere else in Moscow,and as nobody understood us and we did not understood them,we utterly failed to post the cards.

Friendlyness was not a prominent feature we met,going on the pavement slower than the fast averge pace ,or even stopping for taking a picture, we got several fierce blows by elbows of passers by,no one asked us to let him or her by, a hard kick in our side was the only notice we got that someone wanted to pass.The swinging doors of the underground were  constantly banged on our noses,absolutely no one thinks of keeping them open for the man behind him(which is usual in Europe),so we got a bit scared of those fierce swinging-doors.

A lady,slightly younger than me ,started shouting at me in the underground,not understanding the language I thought my camera bag was in her way,but no ,she just ordered me in a loud voice to stand up and let her sit on my seat(no,she was not disabled or handicapped ,but a very healthy looking young lady without even a bag,while I was carrying two shoping bags,a big camera case and a tripod!)

While I tried to take pictures of the wonderful underground stations,someone tipped on my shoulder.Two civilians stood there,produced a license-card of some kind(secret police or something like that I suppose)and as far as I understood from their gestures told me to stop taking photos immediately.

The streets of Moscow are full of fashion stores of every kind:Zara,Max Mara,Dior,luyxury jewellers with Rolex,Patek Philippe,JLC,of course a noticed the Breguet boutique in GUM etc,You can find these fashion boutiques anywhere in the world,but Russia is a country with rich history in arts!

The country of Tolstoi,Dostojevski,Tschechow,the country of Tchaikowski,of Sviatoslav Richter,Emil Gilels!Wedid not see ONE book-store,not ONE music store.Certainly there are some somewhere in Moscow,but the shops You see are 99% fashion shops.There might be a danger for Russia to hear too much to the fashions from the west.

Anyway it was a great stay,in a marvellous city,

kind regards,

Lutz