First Things

As I write this, our first full day in Moscow begins. We arrived here yesterday around mid-day, which left enough of the rest of the day available to get settled into the hotel and form some first impressions, and have a great first dinner at the David Denisov (Denis Davidoff) Restaurant –chosen for its most traditional Russian fare. Our hosts have been wonderful. It’s nice to have a landing like this really well managed – and they’ve been great.

The flight over on Aeroflot was fine – about as comfortable seats as you can expect from any coach level service, movie screens behind each seat. I think I must have even been able to sleep a bit as those wee small hours seemed to pass fairly quickly. On landing passport control was pretty quick (contrary to what the guide books prepared us to expect) and ALL the bags made it here from Vermont in good condition – so, good travel.

Nikita – a fourth year student at the college met us and with impeccable English distributed maps, metro passes, contact phones as we piled into a van for a trip to the hotel. The Ismail Beta is where we are staying. It’s part of an enormous hotel complex built for the 1980 Olympics (and, now that the US is fighting its war in Afghanistan hopefully our visit here will make up for that bit of Olympic history). The hotel is good – nice rooms, wifi is free in the lobby and you can also pay for an in rooms service, there is breakfast buffet included – everything we need.

The drive in from the airport was pretty long, though, and the van was hot – I am actually forming the general impression that Russians like to keep building warm. The weather seems to be a wet mid-thirties, which is ok but we are often warned to bundle up. It is not a particularly pretty time of year – grey brown snow melting into slush and wet ice doesn’t make anything look great, but this notwithstanding I am forming some good first impressions of the place.

As Nikita points out, Russians live in apartment blocks. This conjures in our minds immense Soviet towers and pavement- and perhaps you can find some of that, but actually what I am seeing is more like five or ten story building arranged around green spaces like a college campus. I am eager to get a look at the city center (I will be heading there in about fifteen minutes).

Rather than succumbing to the temptations of an afternoon jet lag nap, Scudder and I wandered off to some of the shopping spots behind the hotel. Nikita came with us just long enough to make sure we knew where things were and helped us change some cash. We looked at a few shops and got ourselves a bowl of borscht - the standard beet and cabbage soup – which was really quite good. On the way back to the hotel – leaping over icy puddles of snow melt – we negotiated buying a few bottles of water (voda) in a little store nearby that sells mostly cakes, candy and dried fish. Feeling flush with accomplishment and interaction we got back to the hotel in time to clean up for our dinner rendezvous.

Dinner was wonderful. Two more student guides met with us – Karina and Dennis – second year students at the college. They drove or taxied us to the restaurant and pointed out the especially Russian things on the menu. The best thing I had was called a “two pea” soup – which actually did involve a few types of peas,but mostly it was like a good leek and potato soup and had a nice grilled lamb chop set right in the soup bowl. My kind of soup. Then an entree of a kind of stuffed dumpling, pirogi, garlic toasts – a nice Czech lager – trying other people’s stroganoff – all good stuff!

All in a very nice start! Made it back to the hotel around 10 PM and slept like a log until 8:30 this morning. Actually, I feel pretty much with the time zone right now – a successful transition.

Today, I am just about out the door right now for the big turista day: Red Square. Keep tuned for more later – and pictures.

Photo: This is above an entrance to the Church of the Annunciation in the Kremlin.