Moscow
May 7 2018 - May 12 2018
Russia
1788 km
On our last day heading to Moscow, the highway got much worse: Heavy traffic, bad roads and almost no space with lots of sand at the side of the road. It was no fun at all, so after about 30 km we decided to cycle to the next train station and skip the last 50 km to Moscow.
Arriving in Moscow:
Exploring the city:
GUM mall at the red square:
Happy birthday Mr. Marx:
State historical museum and the Kremlin:
Less than 38 days until the world cup starts!
Moscow has the most relaxed traffic in the world! We have never ever experienced anything like this in any city, big or small. Cycling on six lane streets in the city is a breeze! The traffic is slow and very calm, the drivers are super friendly. Unbelievable for a huge city like Moscow:
More city shots:
The subway in Moscow is an attraction in itself. There are many beautiful stations. We heard there is even an underground subway museum and a rolling art gallery subway, but we didn’t find the time to see these.
There are many pedestrian crossings below the roads:
Some have these fancy vending machines:
We got our tickets for the trans-siberian railway! Many thanks to Alexej, who helped us a lot with tips and recommandations!
9th May is victory day in Russia. On this day Russians celebrate their victory over Germany in world war two. We went out to see the huge military parade going on in Moscow, but we soon realized that it’s impossible to even get close to it without tickets, special invitation or something like that. So after walking around for a few hours, all we could see were crowds of people also trying to get a glimpse of the parade.
In between the crowds, the Russian Communist Party had a rally. Here are some of their signs, celebrating their heroes from the past:
In the end, we got to see some helicopters and planes at least:
Celebration fireworks in the evening:
Red square, open for the public again:
Fancy street decorations:
Stumbling into one of the many malls, trying to find a drug store:
Soviet Arcade Machine Museum. Here you can actually play many soviet era arcade games, which most people from the west have probably never heard of:
Some of the games had an educational component. This one for example teaches you to learn traffic signs:
Many games from the 1970s worked purely mechanical, allowing the player to move a mirror reflection through a cabinet filled with plastic figures and terrain:
Crazy pattern recognition game:
Trying to break the high score:
Nice park close to our hostel, where we had some drinks in the evening. Drinking in public is strictly forbidden, but here everyone was doing it, so it might be tolerated.
Illuminated mall at night:
Memorial Museum Of Astronautics:
Belka, one of the first dogs in space:
The start of international space exploration efforts:
They also had a nice collection of space themed soviet era propaganda posters:
In the afternoon, we went to see a small indoor market:
Sputnik statue:
On our last night in Moscow, we went to a chiptune party in an industrial area. Bleep bleep:
Clown statues on our way back to the hostel:
