2576 km

MOSCOW

Hello from Moscow! I must admit I am very pleased and surprised. Everything has a grand scale around here. Massive buildings, large stations, spacious trains… You just get space in this metropolis and that’s unique. At least for me. While on the 3 hour 40 minute flight, I’ve been reading and educating myself about Moscow. Probably there is not much I’ve remembered, but let me try to recapitulate what I know.

Moscow counts about 13.3 million souls within city limits and 16.8 million within urban area, which makes it the greatest city on the continent. Apparently it is the greenest city too with about 40% of it’s area accounting to parks, gardens and even a wild forrest in the middle of it. The name ‘Moscow’ comes from its location on river Moskva and its meaning is, hold on to your hats, ‘place on river Moskva’. It is home to Europe's tallest free standing structure and after completion will home the tallest skyscraper too, The Federation Tower. Stop me here, cause I don’t remember much more and you don’t care about trivia.…

We've landed at Domodedovo Airport around 12.50 local time. 45 minutes and 470 Rubles per head later we were standing on the Metro platform heading for our Retro Hostel on Ulitsa Pokrovka. They were telling the truth, everything is walking distance, but why would you walk when the Metro stations are so beautiful and a single fare costs 50 Ruble?! ...and a 3 day pass 400! Damn you TfL, what is happening to all that money???

It was around 4pm when we decided to raid the Red Square where we stayed for the rest of the evening and been returning to quite often during our stay. Not that there is nothing else to see, is just fascinating and you’ll not manage to stay away...