Welcome to page 1 of our Moscow adventure.

Got up at 5:30 a.m. as planned and got to watch our arrival into St. Petersburg. Leaving the Gulf of Finland, we entered a narrow channel filled on both sides with massive, cluttered and dirty shipyards. We were already up for breakfast when we finally tied up at 6:30 a.m.

      

Shortly thereafter Lee and I made our way over to the meeting place for our Journey to Moscow that we had booked through Celebrity several weeks ago. Even though our time in St. Petersburg was only two days, the opportunity to spend a day in Moscow was too tempting given our proximity to the capital of Russia.

Hooking up with Carole and LeVerne at 6:45 a.m., who were also on the tour, we waited for the ship to clear customs with the rest of our 60 plus fellow Moscow travellers. Finally we got the nod and trooped down to the gangplank for disembarking. The checking out procedure from the ship went quickly and as we went ashore, we were immediately met by a local band that welcomed us to Russia. After a short walk to the customs shed, authorities were quite efficient in processing us through. We were asked for our passport, a photocopy of the picture page and our tour ticket. In return we received a passport stamp, a little red rectangular card we were asked to keep with our passport and a gesture to proceed through. Quite painless and no hassles at all.

It will be interesting to see how our clearance into Russia goes tomorrow. Rather than book a Celebrity tour, the eight of us have arranged for a private tour of St. Petersburg with our own van, driver, guide and itinerary. While researching tour companies and working out itineraries over the internet prior to leaving Canada, I was subjected to quite a bit of negative information around the ability to leave the ship without your own visa or with anything but a ship sponsored tour group.

But after sifting through everything I could find on the subject, I decided the risk was well worth the gain by going off on our own. After all, the company I booked with assured me there would be no problem touring under their group visa. Laverne and Bert and Denise and Bruce had gone the private tour route with the same company today so I guess we'll get a full report on how it went when we meet over breakfast tomorrow morning.

From customs it was over to our bus and the forty-minute drive to the airport. The scenery improved immensely once we cleared the checkpoint out of the seaport area and proceeded into a more commercial and shopping area. Turning down Moskovsky Prospekt (Moscow Avenue), the main thoroughfare out to the airport and the main highway to Moscow, we passed by some pretty impressive buildings, ornate bridges and memorials along the way. But they'll have to wait until tomorrow, as today is Moscow day.

Arriving at the St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport, our guide Nadia handled all the tickets and paperwork. Passing through security (certainly no worse than at home), we proceeded to the lounge, into a shuttle then on to the plane.

    
  

After settling into our seats, we taxied out and took off at 9:40 a.m. Shortly after takeoff we were served a ham sandwich, some sour yogurt, a chocolate bar and coffee for breakfast … and no $5 charge! Meanwhile, a lady got up from her seat in front of LeVerne and the seat back flopped right forward onto the seat cushion. Thought he was going to put his feet up and stretch out for a little nap, but the lady soon returned and the seat back was put back into it's upright position.

      

Speaking of seats, there isn't much legroom in a Tupolev TU-154 airliner. My knees were jammed up tight against the seat in front of me but mercifully, the flight was a short one and we landed at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport without incident at 10:50 a.m. It also helped that the aircraft didn't rattle too much. Welcome to Moscow!

    

Evidently, we have a Russian cousin who works as an air traffic controller in Moscow. Carole asked our guide Nadia if she could make some inquiries to try and locate him at the airport so we could meet with him for a few minutes. Unfortunately, despite Nadia's best efforts, our cousin was not to be found. I guess it wasn't too surprising as we learned there are three international and two domestic airports in Moscow.

  

After deplaning, we boarded our tour bus and were joined by our Moscow guide Ludmilla who immediately welcomed us to "The Evil Empire". With that icebreaker, off we went. We had been warned about Moscow's incessant traffic jams and within four minutes of leaving the airport, we experienced our first one first-hand. Two hours to crawl three kilometers. However, we finally were able to merge onto Leningradsky Prospekt (Leningrad Avenue) and began to make decent time. Crossing the Moskva River we made our way toward downtown and our first stop, the Metro.

    
    

First opened on May 15, 1935, the Moscow Metro spans almost the entire Russian capital and is one of the world's most heavily used metro systems. It is well known for the ornate design of many of its stations, which contain beautiful examples of socialist realist art. The deepest station is 84 metres (275 feet) underground. The St. Petersburg Metro has even deeper stations which makes it the deepest subway system in the world due to the unique geology under St. Petersburg.

Although this has not been officially confirmed, many independent studies suggest that a second, deeper metro system exists in Moscow under military jurisdiction and is designed for emergency evacuation of key city personnel in case of attack. It is believed that it consists of a single track and connects the Kremlin, chief HQ (Genshtab), Lubyanka (FSB Headquarters) and the Ministry of Defence, as well as numerous other secret installations. It's speculated that this track would allow for the evacuation of a small number of randomly chosen civilians, in addition to most of the elite military personnel.

Our station was the Mayakovskaya, the most famous station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line of the Moscow Metro. Considered to be one of the most beautiful in the system, it is one of the finest examples of pre-World War II Stalinist Architecture making it one of the most famous Metro stations in the world.

    

So, onto the escalator and the long ride down to the platform which was situated in a very large hall 33 metres (108 feet) underground. From there it was to the edge of the platform to wait for the next train, which came rumbling in about 17 seconds after we arrived. The doors open for about 6.7 seconds so you've got to move fast to get aboard, which we did. The plan was for our group to travel two stops and pile out at the second. Once on board, my first impression was that there was quite a crowd in the car; the second was that something stunk to high heaven.

  
    

At first I thought it might be LeVerne, who was next to me with his arm above his head reaching for the handhold, but it turned out to be a local with overpowering B.O. The total length of our ride was around 86 seconds, which was good because that meant I could do it taking only two breaths. The second the doors opened at our stop we all bailed out without any extra encouragement and hustled for the escalator to take us up and out.

  

Click on the button below to continue on to page 2 of our Moscow adventure.