Where have I been? – Part 1 – Last Few days in Moscow

Well it has been a while mainly because I have been with family a lot for the last 6 weeks or so, and I had unpredictable internet access and laptop availabilty wasn’t always great.

So, when I came back from Spain in Novemeber I was only coming back  for a couple of weeks or so before heading off again to see my parents again in Spain.  After a week or so of being back in Moscow the miserable grey, rainy weather was getting me down – there was only 10hrs of sun in the whole of November 2009 in Moscow, and I am pretty sure that all came on a day I was out of the country.

For my last weekend in Moscow Lou had decided to take the Monday off work, and for a couple of days we did the touristy things we had been saving to show to visitors, the main one’s being the inside of St Basil’s Cathederal on Red Square, and the Kremlin, such a cliché  I know but we simply hadn’t visited the insides of them in our time here.

So on the Saturday we wondered around Red Square and into St Basil’s Cathederal, as you may have guessed Lou loves to walk around Red Square and likes to do so at every opportunity, so this weekend was no different except the Christmas tree had gone up, and the winter ice-skating rink was there.

We purchased tickets including the ticket so I could use my camera inside, I wasn’t quite ready for the chapels inside St Basil’s, they were simply beautiful, lots to photograph, there were not too many people in there and so typically this is the time my camera battery runs out, after only a few photos inside, amd I hadn’t brought a spare out with me for some unknown reason! I ended up snapping some using the ‘toy’ holga camera that I have yet to get processed, so they might well turn out ok too!

Sunday, as usual was a day of rest, and spent time with friends…..But Monday mornign started by meeting up with a new friend, Justin and baby son on the Old Arbat, we took our usual route down a few backstreets, but it was a long walk when it was getting colder and threatening to snow a little.  It was great to meet Justin, who unlike ALL expats I know in Moscow that are married/attached (apart from myself of course) is the ‘trailing spouse’ meaning his wife works, and he mostly stays home, although he does have his son to keep him out of mischief!  So meeting someone else who, whilst not in exactly the same situation, it is at least very a very similar one.

We made loose arrangements for when I returned to Moscow to get out and about the city and parks, which would be great as it has been a while since there was anyone else around I could do that with. Lou and I then walked back to Red Square, and over to the Kremlin via a cafe for a late Brunch, lots more hot coffee and an omelette if my memory serves me right (fascinating I know!).

All this time temperature seemed to be dropping, and it started to snow lightly, but we figured (rightly as it turned out) that the Kremlin would be relatively quiet, especially with the snow starting to fall.  I had decided to only take my little 50mm f/1.4 lens on my camera, as it made the camera small enough for my pocket or Lou’s handbag. The cathederal’s inside the Kremlin Walls are stunning inside as you might expect, and this time no photography allowed inside, but outside was another matter, but the changing light and conditions lent themselves more to HDR shots so I took bracketed sets of three different exposures for most of my shots so I could process them later.

A brief stop in Okhotny Ryad (Hunter’s Row) underground shopping mall and the Albion ‘English Pub’ for a ‘quick drink’ turned into three or four as the snow came down hard blizzard-like. You will see that a few inches of snow fell in about an hour and that continued to get thicker overnight making it the start of the real winter snow in Moscow, and I was glad to catch the beginning of it before I left early the next morning.

The early morning flight from Moscow to Heathrow is usually accompanied by a hangover and a rush to gather last minute things from around the appartment, this time I was ready well before the taxi arrived.  I had an interesting walk to the taxi trying not to fall in the snow that had fallen overnight, and the drive to the airport was interesting, dodging the fleets of snow ploughs, and over sometimes thick snow that had not yet been cleared.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 3:36 pm. It is filed under Blog, Life, Photography and tagged with Kremlin, Moscow, Red Square, Snow, St Basil's Cathedral, Tourist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.