Phil Hawley Photography

First Moscow Visit – Part 2: Falling for the City

We arrived at our hotel early in the morning at about 5.30am on Thursday and pretty much went straight to sleep. After having a lot of sleep we spent the afternoon looking at three different temporary apartments in Aparthotels with Elena (from my Wife’s company), they were all tiny and really designed as an alternative to a hotel room, and not best suited to an extended stay.  This, combined with heavy traffic, and still being a bit tired from the flight left us a little deflated when we got dropped off at the hotel.  We decided to go for a little walk from the hotel, this helped to clear our heads, and obviously I snapped off a few photos:-

Seeing a little of the city made us determined to explore more, so the next morning when we were due to meet Elena at the first of several apartments that were suitable for long term rental we decided to walk from the hotel near to the Kievsky Rail Terminal to Patriarchy Ponds which is a fair long work, but one which allowed us to take in more of the city. On the way there we took in a few different areas of the city with the morning Rush hour in full swing. The area around this apartment however was so quiet, with lots of little cafes, and the apartment itself looked great, it was smaller than we would have liked on paper, but looked great all the same and didn’t feel cramped. The next place we saw was huge, almost twice the size, but the walls in the living room/kitchen were pink – this didn’t go down too well with the wife, neither did the location, nor the sparseness of furniture in this ‘fully furnished’ apartment. Anyway, the next two places were immaculately presented, newly renovated places, one of which was in an apparently ‘up and coming’ location (no shops, bars, cafes, supermarket nearby), the other in an established location. After leaving the agents behind we headed onto the Metro for our first experience of the Moscow metro with its beautifully decorated stations, anyway after collecting Elena’s car we headed to a place which I considered to be a waste of time going to before we went, a kind of Private International village/town outside of the city.  This one was called Rosinka and I really didn’t want to like it as I would have considered moving here from the UK to be cheating the whole experience of living in Russia as everything you need is there. Firstly we would be staying in a house rather than an apartment, and these houses were a decent size with a wood burning fire in the living room, and a garden. The complex was built next to a huge lake and forest, the air was clean and crisp, and there were ample leisure facilities that were included in the rent. Like I said, I didn’t want to like it, but I found the open space to be attractive, and the facilities great. Both my wife and I were impressed but ultimately I doubt we would move there, certainly whilst we have no kids because it really could be anywhere in the world, and as you can tell by the title of this blog we were starting to enjoy the city, and this place was certainly not Moscow!

Anyway, we are still left with a dilemma of where to live is and when we move over here that will largely depend on the results of the visa application which we should know about in 2 weeks time.

Last night we decided that we probably should go and see the site that is synonymous with Moscow; Red Square, and the Kremlin, this took us on another trip on the Metro, but when we got there and walked around to Red square, seeing it all lit up at night is truly breathtaking. After taking dozens of photos from various angles of the different aspect of Red Square we wondered off down a few different side streets and found a bar that served some food and settled down with some beer and food.

Today we have been on a fascinating one-to-one tour of the city with a guide who seemed to have encyclopaedic knowledge of everywhere in the city, from everywhere from the original 16th Century wooden British Embassy to the various famous graves in Novodevichy Cemetery. Unfortunately today has been cold and dull and although I have dozens of photos I took quite a few from multiple exposures read to combine in HDRs.  Tonight we are off out for a meal with a Russian couple, and that will only leave us tomorrow morning here before we have to leave, both of us will be sad to leave, but are more determined than ever to make Moscow our home for a while at least!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm. It is filed under All, Featured, Life, Photography and tagged with Exploring, Flathunting, Moscow, Photography, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.