Text: Peter Johansson
Editing: Christer Lundstedt
Photos: Christer Lundstedt, Peter Johansson
Videos: Christer Lundstedt
08.25 It is weekend again and we have woken up to in our room at the mini hotel Avita Krasnye Vorota. It is cloudy and rain in Moscow today. The misery started yesterday evening and it continues. I want sun, warmth and pleasant walking weather. It is a small consolation that it will be warmer later on during this trip.
09.31 Another room breakfast has been brought in on a tray and has been eaten by us. The weather remains just as bad. It is not only wet, it is really chilly also. 10.20 There is a certain improvement regarding the current planning. We have some thoughts about how we should act. It is, however, nearly no improvement when it comes to the weather. 10.36 It may be that it rains but we will just be weary if we remain seated in this room. Weather forecast talk about rain all day so it helps little to sit here and wait. Jackets on, out we go! 11.00 There is a small but brave crowd who walk around despite the rain and there we are among them. Some in this crowd are without an umbrella and we are among those. We have been walking along the Myasnitskaya Street, which begins across from our hotel and eventually will lead us to the heart of Moscow. Today we take the short road to the city centre. The weather is one of the reasons. 11.24 Myasnitskaya Street ended at the metro station Lubyanka and the rain made us rush past it. We also passed the Lubyanka building where the Soviet Secret Police, the KGB had its headquarters. In the basement was the infamous prison.
The restaurant Archive 13 are the owners of this wagon.
It was raining but still we managed to resist these American temptations.
The pedestrian street Nikolskaya a rainy Saturday.
A beautiful university building.
Today the Red Square was open for us tourists.
St Basil´s cathedral and the Spasskaya tower.
11.45 We are now in the middle of the Red Square. Gone are the rally cars and the stuff around them, as was the case yesterday. We see the Saint Basil's Cathedral with it's brightly coloured the happy onion domes, the entrance to Lenin's mausoleum and a lot of people, mainly Chinese tourists. We will not say hello to Lenin. It is free but it entails some waiting in line that we must leave backpacks and right now we want to get dry.
12.25 We are back at the yesterday's cafe Coffee Bean (https://www.coffeebean.ru). Now there will be coffee, pastries, and some planning of the afternoon. Above all, the warmth and an opportunity to dry this damp day. 13.07 The weather, the rain, is blocking our plans for a sightseeing bus and/or a walk in the Gorky Park. We may have to face the fact that we are defeated by the weather gods and start to head home. 13.37 On our little walk in the drizzling rain at the metro station Kitay Gorod, we suddenly saw a fallen Asian guy. He seems to have fainted and was surrounded by three people who had rushed there. An umbrella fled from this scene, the Asian´s? I caught the runaway and gave the umbrella to a girl who was one of the people around the Asian. What is it with Asians and umbrellas here in Russia? They seem to depart from time to time. Two guys turned the Asian and dragged him to a bench. Kitay Gorod where this took place means, by the way, roughly translated the "Chinese town", a little funny. However, the name has nothing to do with China. The origin of it is completely different. 14.29 We continued our walk and made a stop in a souvenir store where the clerk was surprised that we were dressed in shorts. Now, we have after further hike towards the hotel come to the restaurant Pasta & Basta (http://pastandbasta.ru), a restaurant we were looking for yesterday but never found. 15.32 We finished the tasty pizzas. I also had an espresso. Now we are back in the hotel room and let the bodies and what covered them dry.
Lenin´s mausoleum at the Red Square
The department store GUM.
Saint Basil´s cathedral was built in the 16th century.
Dry, warm and finally coffee at Coffee Bean.
Peter looks scared that someone will take his coffee from him.
The Soviet Union can still be noticed.
17.24 After we came home, we have enjoyed coffee here in the room, had a little rest and read good literature. Hmmm, what we read might not be considered as good literature but it entertains us.
19.10 We have, despite the weather, been able to do some stuff today. Now it is actually nice to just take it easy. 20.40 The pizzas we ate seem to have left our stomachs. It has become time to find a new caterer. The time has come for us to go out into the rain in search of a dinner restaurant. After yesterday's fiasco that ended up with sausages in the room will anything we find be an improvement comparatively. 21.09 It is dead, completely without people at Vostochny Dvorik (http://www.vostochny-dvorik.ru), the Eastern Yard. That is the name of this evening's restaurant. It is located just behind our hotel but oh so tricky to get to because of all the road works and building work here in the neighbourhood. The restaurant has food from among others Azerbaijan. We are familiar with the wall paintings from Baku. 22.25 This may sound less surprising, it was very good. Somewhat more surprising is the fact that there will be no evening beers. It seems as if we were out late to buy some. We ordered breakfast before we went into the room and asked if it was possible to leave the backpacks for storage tomorrow after the check-out.
Pizza lunch at Pasta & Basta.
V. G. Shukhov is attracting birds.
Christer is having dinner at Vostochny Dvorik.
Peter in front of pictures from Baku.
08.54 A few minutes remain until we have our last breakfast here in our small room. It's a little crowded in here but there is a lot in a small space. It is for example not often that we had a microwave in a hotel room. Today it's mostly a long wait for a train which departs this evening. We will, about a month from now, have embarked on the journey home. A lot might have had happened before then.
09.45 It is after the last room breakfast for a while time to plan the last day here in Moscow. Out there the sun remains absence. However, the rain has calmed down. 10.10 A quick look at the booking site booking.com has taught us that our accommodation has a cloakroom. The site even mention where it is. In addition, there is a photo of the entrance from the street and information about the code needed to enter. Why have we not checked this earlier? Have we missed other important information about the next rooms? This might happen when you book many hotels several months before staying there. 11.10 It is, as said, still cloudy but luckily no rain. We will not, however, detain here at the hotel so much longer. It is time to pack up and leave the baggage to the man in the reception. 11.57 It went fine to leave the backpacks. The ATM we found outside was kind and let us withdraw money. We are about to have a late eleven o´clock coffee at Coffeeshop Company (http://www.coffeeshopcompany.com). We recall that we visited this chain before, the question is where? It is, in all cases, an Austrian chain. 12.37 Coffee and strudel, that is delicious. We also have a little structure for the next few hours. We know, however, still not know when we last visited this chain. 12.54 To buy a single ticket for the metro in a vending machine is a great way to get rid of coins. Now we go against the day's places. This will be the third capital we tube in on this trip. I wonder if we've done something similar in the past.
We started this Sunday with a visit at Coffeeshop Company.
Christer is walking in the metro darkness.
People are waiting and we don´t know why.
The main entrance to Gorky Park.
Inside the huge Gorky Park.
Summertime there is water and a fountain, wintertime people are skating here.
13.15 With the help of the metro, we travelled to the station Парк культуры (Park Kultury) just to the south of the city centre. We now find ourselves on a bridge over the Moscow River, Krymskiy Most (Crimea Bridge). Along on one of the river banks lots of people stand in groups waiting. Why? What are they waiting for?
13.29 Just as I asked the question some of the queuing people were let away. Some of them are maybe not the right word. It was a lot that started to move. Now we followed the Moskva down to Gorky Park listening to the wind of change. No, stop, that's the lyrics to the Scorpions song, Wind of change from 1990. Anyway, we wandered along the Moscow River down to Gorky Park. It is a pretty open park. Here are different activities and to my great joy, a fountain! 14.10 Just as we had sat us down on a bench by a pond, a small girl with an orange balloon came. She dragged her feet and held the stick that was attached to the balloon under her chin. The dragging of the feet made her fall and she lost her beautiful lovely balloon. Christer fetched the balloon and gave it to an adult in the girl's company. 14.32 Gorky Park is huge and there are much to see and many activities to indulge in. We have confined ourselves to hike to the small lake/pond Golitsynskiye Prudy, where we sat for a while and observed the people passing by and a man that were fishing. 14.49 On our way out of the park we stopped at yet another pond, Pionerskiy Prud. Here we have most taken it easy and waited for another visit in the metro. 15.17 We have wandered from the Gorky Park up to a big junction and the metro station Oktyabrskaya. We will now, 55 rubles poorer, about US$1, and a ticket richer, now go once again, below ground. The destination is our home, our neighbourhood and the line we go with is number 6. 15.27 We have got off at the station Turgenevskaya and has now finished going by metro here in Moscow. I wonder which will be our next metro city. 15.56 We have returned to the restaurant Na Melnitse (http://www.namelnitse.ru) opposite our hotel. Food is ordered and expected. We are almost alone here in the restaurant, apparently not many guests at this time.
Christer on a quiet spot in Gorky Park.
A rest by the water.
Pushkinsky bridge is for pedestrians only.
The boat Elizabeta and Russia´s ministry of defence.
Peter is leaving the park.
The tiny church Kazanskoy Ikony Bozhiyey Materi is located near the metro station Oktyabrskaya.
17.00 After yet another delicious meal, we bought something for the train trip in our little corner shop which is named Perekrestok. Now our backpacks are fetched from the hotel, it is time to head for the railway station!
17.25 The Kazansky station do not display which platform and which track applies to us and our first night train on this trip. In other words, we are in standby. A fate we share with many other travellers who are here and waiting as well as we. 17.52 We got the information and moved to the right track. We'll go with a new modern train, with sleeping compartments in two different floors. Now we are in the right carriage and compartment. We share the compartment with two other gentlemen, one young and one middle-aged. On most Russian trains you always get a bed space, no matter if you need to sleep or not. A compartment consists of two beds down and two up. This double-decker night train with sleeping accommodation in two-storey is a relatively new model. Christer read a bit about it online yesterday. Maybe it is good with a soft start. The first night trip will be with a modern train. 18.05 The train that will take us to Samara has started to roll out on the tracks. This will be one of our longest train journeys ever. We'll travel for approximately 14 hours. 18.40 One of our compartment mates (the younger) introduced himself as Alex. He spoke excellent English and asked if we are tourists. We have talked about ourselves and told him about our trip. 20.51 After a moment of reading in our books interspersed with a bit of sleep, I shall now go on a coffee hunt on the train. We have just left the Ryazan, one of many Russian citis we do not have time to familiarize ourselves with, just travelling through. 21.06 The excursion and the hunt were successful. I have, for 27 rubles, about 50 cents, bought a cup of coffee from the carriage attendant. 22.14 Outside the compartment window I saw the moon shine between the trees. The train has travelled into the kingdom of the night. Pretty soon I will be slipping into the world of slumber. The fourth compartment member listens to music with the Scorpions in his headphones. I have not yet heard "Wind of change".
Back at Na Melnitse for another delicious dinner.
Departing trains from Kazansky Vokzal (Kazansky station).
Christer looks bored already.
Peter is reading. A russian man looks at his country through the window.
CHANGING TIME ZONE
07.45 It is a new day, a new week and a new time zone here in Russia. The train has temporarily stopped in Syzran. About two hours of travel remain before we reach our destination. The night and the sleep have for my part been good. It is nice with domestic travels. We have memories of similar night train trips in 2003 and 2005, when we are constantly were awoken when passing a border. 08.15 Our train is on a bridge across the river Volga. We have once again seen something which we have only seen in pictures, film and maps in the past. 09.38 We and our compartment companion Alex have exchanged business cards. We gave him a card for our site resedagboken.cc and he handed out a card for the site borodin.in. He explained that he has a business that is similar to the booking site booking.com, a site which we use to book rooms. The card says that his name is Vyacheslav Borodin-Atamanov. Is Alex a nickname for Vyacheslav or was "Alex" just something he thought sounded good when he would talk to us? Who knows? It was nice to meet an English speaking person. The fourth man in the compartment got off at about the same time that we started to wake up to early in the morning. 10.20 The train arrived at the railway station in Samara and we said goodbye and "have a good day" to Alex. We went out of the station, hoping to find a café or similar for breakfast. Pretty soon we found a cafe and even a KFC. Both were, however, completely blocked due to the road work that was going on outside. We went on to our next home, OK Hotel & Hostel. It sure was not easy to find, or we might have been slow in our brains after the long train journey. We stood for a long time looking at doors, signs and people by an anonymous residential building, but the entrance turned out to be at the rear of this building. We are now in room 3 and are waiting for our registration. The trip here took almost 15 hours. For us, it is a new record as regards to train transport. 11.43 Our accommodation feels new, fresh and is, above all, cheap. We have to accept that they do not offer breakfast and only speak Russian here. We have with the help of the internet and our own resedagboken.cc figured out where we last were at the coffee chain Coffeeshop Company. The answer is Agadir in Morocco. Now we wonder what we are going to do next. We originally planned two days here in Samara. We will though, because of the visa that forced us to cut down on days in the country, only stay one night here in Samara. We got one day to cover the city. 12.01 I guess we have time for some facts about our city. Samara is located on the shores of the river Volga and is a new tourist city. During the Soviet period, the city was closed for visitors and was known as Kuybyshev, a name the city had from 1935 to 1991. Samara is one of the cities where the World Cup in football will be played next year and is the home for one million inhabitants.
We can see Volga from our train.
Our friend from this train trip.
We have arrived. Christer is walking on the platform in Samara.
In our room at OK Hotel & Hostel.
A long walk along the Red Army street.
Balkan Grill (Балкан Гриль).
13.01 Further reflection and resting will not fill our bellies. Now we are going to look for the sights, scenery and food here in Samara. We have, with the help of Tripadvisor on the internet, some ideas on where we could eat lunch. We start to walk to these restaurants.
13.12 What looks close on a map is rarely so in reality. It is especially the case in Russian cities, which many times mean long distances. We walk along the Red Army Street, Krasnoarmeyskaya ulitsa. 13.28 We kept on walking and passed some beautiful churches before we reached the Serbian restaurant Balkan Grill (Балкан Гриль). We have just been served a pljeskavica (Serbian burger) each. The truth is it was these that made us come here. Christer found the restaurant's menu online. The food will be enjoyed at the terrace of the restaurant. The sofas we sit in are, in fact, pallets which been nailed together. For convenience, there are also cushions. Outside the restaurant are some really expensive cars. Is this a restaurant for the rich? 14.06 In the immediate vicinity of our lunch restaurant, is one of the tourist attractions here in Samara, Stalin's bunker (https://www.bunkerstalina.com). Samara was scheduled to be the Soviet Union's capital if the Germans would succeed in taking Moscow. Therefore, a secret bunker for Joseph Stalin was built here. The city's inhabitants did not know it, even though it was 37 metres deep. Stalin never lived in it and it was unknown to the most until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today it is a museum. 14.34 We have, to let the food digest, energy replenished and to just enjoy, decided to have a bench break. We and the rest of the people in the park are looking out over the river Volga. It is, incidentally, the longest river in Europe. Now we have been by the two longest rivers in Europe. We have brought us here after walking from Stalin's bunker along a 14.46 There are a few brave swimmers and sunbathers on the sandy beach along the Volga. The sun heats up nice. We sure have missed the sun. In addition, we are further east in Europe than we have ever been. This record, however, will not stand for long. It is amazingly beautiful here along the river with flowers, kiosks and river views. A barge glides slowly by on the river. Everything feels very new and fresh along the river walk. It could be that the Samara, as well as Moscow, will get a facelift now before the World Cup.
Christer is having lunch at Balkan Grill.
A real serbian pljeskavica.
Outside Stalin´s secret bunker.
We are walking downhill to reach Volga.
A wonderful environment along the river in Samara.
We are walking along the shores of the river Volga.
15.08 It is relaxing to sit along the promenade. We study people on foot, on skateboards, kick bikes, roller blades and a hover board. Lunch has made us lazy. I am craving for coffee. That fact is of course nothing unusual. The fact that I have a thirst for coffee is just as certain as the fact that the bear shits in the woods.
15.20 We walked further along the beach and just met a man with a surfing board. Right now we try to find out where we are. We have gone, gone and gone but it is still a bit left to our intended coffee oasis. 15.42 Hooray, finally coffee! We are at a cafe in the Coffee Bean chain (https://www.coffeebean.ru). Here there will be coffee and pastries. The girls behind the counter asked cheerfully and curious about where we came from, unless it was a secret, and what we did in the city. They seemed overjoyed to get to talk English with someone. 16.56 After coffee, we wandered a steep uphill towards the city centre. We have begun the long walk back towards the home area. 17.07 A pleasant pedestrian street runs through the centre. Here, it is also beautiful with well-kept flower beds. There is also a countdown for the upcoming football in the city. 17.24 Eyes have been held open for restaurants and shops during our hike. Christer is now in one of the latter. Beverages must be purchased. We have also seen some restaurants, but it is too far to go back to the city centre later tonight when it's time for dinner. We will have to look something in the neighbourhood instead. 17.46 It is nice to come home. Now we mostly take it easy. This is nice sometimes, especially after a long walk.
A barge on Volga.
The flowers of summer and the water of Volga.
Peter and a big russian Samara doll.
Time for a break at Coffee Bean.
The pedestrian street Leningradskaya is the heart of the city.
Christer noticed that it´s not allowed to swim in the fountain.
20.14 Even the nice must come to an end. Now, we need to solve the food problems. What do we do with today's dinner? In particular, where is it eaten? How is it with breakfast tomorrow? There is no one here and we have not seen any cafe nearby. How about lunch before our train leave tomorrow? Tomorrow night we arrive late. Will we eat on the train or at the arrival? Now we are going out and look for some answers to our concerns.
20.47 The dinner problem is no more. We went to the Ukrainian restaurant Kiev. It is located a stone's throw from where we live. In addition to a restaurant Kiev is also a hotel. 21.13 It is peaceful and quiet here in our restaurant with a Ukrainian theme. Through the curtains we can see that it is drizzling out there. 22.08 Food is really a good invention. What would we have been without it? To have beds in a room that stands still. That is something else that is good. 22.39 In the Wimbledon tennis it is 9-9 in the fifth and decisive set between Luxembourger Müller and the Spaniard Nadal. 23.34 Wimbledon is over for this year for Rafael Nadal. Gilles Müller won the fifth set 15-13. It is the tournament's fourth round.
The sculpture Dyadya Styopa.
Samara is waiting for next year´s World Cup football.
The railway station in Samara.
The entrance to our accomodation in Samara.
Tonight we´ll have ukrainian dinner at Kiev.
You can see 38 photos from July 8 in this photoalbum.
You can see 37 photos from July 9 in this photoalbum.
You can see 51 photos from July 10 in this photoalbum.