Moscow just stole my heart! I am not sure if it’s because of coming from Asia and traveling around Asia for a very long time but it all looked so well taken care of and so baroque and classic… loved it.

On the first day we had the 2nd most satisfying shower in the whole trip and we went to the Red Square to try to get some nice pictures of the St. Basil Cathedral and tried to understand the city a bit more by walking around it.

The second day we went to the Tretyakov Gallery, where we spent 4 hours seeing all the amazing paintings that for sure will never leave Russia. The collection is all framed between the 1600 and 1800 and it’s quite recommendable! In the afternoon we bought tickets to see the Kremlin Armoury and the Kremlin from the inside and all the cathedrals. Big mistake: it took us more than 2 hours to see the Armoury and the Kremlin was closed by when we ended seeing the Armoury. Then again, the craziest museum I have ever seen, probably. Russia is so rich in terms of antique presents and objects!! Do not be fooled by the name of the museum, it has everything you can imagine: dresses, carriages (??!!), weapons, thrones, kitchen ware, holy items, Fabergé eggs (what?!) and jewellery.  After that, we did an amazing fancy subway tour! It’s really very difficult to understand the subway platform system and all the names of the stations in cyrillic, so study them wisely. We went to Park Pobedy, Mayakovskaya and Elektrozavodskaya (always starting from the Red Square one, which is VERY deep, the 3rd one in the world).

The next day in the morning, we tried to get into the Bolshoi Opera. I said try because only I got to be in. They just open the doors of the opera 3 times a week and they start at 11:30, so you must be there at 10:45 at least and there might already be a line. They only take 15 people every day and they did a big exception with us because there was a huge line and people started to get aggressive because not everyone could make it in!! It was pretty nice and pretty expensive (1,600 rubles). After that we got to sneak in the Kremlin with our previous day ticket (muahaha) because no one paid attention to the date printed in the ticket (which you should stick to).

And when night came we took the amazing 7 hour train to St. Petersburg! Where we shared the whole wagon with plenty of Russians and we have to say it wasn’t crazy at all! The controller of the wagon gave us all fresh sheets, pillow covers and a towel and we got some semi-mattress and a blanket to sleep on. After the train departed, everyone set up their beds with Soviet productivity and they dismantled them the next morning at 5am in the same manner! The controller of the wagon turns the lights on 30 minutes before arriving and makes sure everyone is awake 15 minutes before it. It was a very interesting experience indeed.