Privet!!! from Russia

After being some days in the modern Nordic countries, I arrive at Moscow airport, it was a bit shocking, If you are lucky your hotel concierge speaks English.  Beware, the Russian language is not understandable their alphabet is quite different with the one we are use too.  I have practiced mimic in other countries with no English speaking to try to communicate, but in Russia I spend half an hour trying to ask for a direction without success.  I definitely recommend you to have written in your pocked some basic phrases.  (Hi, you are so beautiful, where is the restroom).

Most of the tourists are Russian themselves, everyone else who comes to Russia comes with a guided tour. To be in this city you must have papers at all time, there are military soldiers everywhere.  We stick to our guide for the first two days, and we realized that we weren’t going to visit all the destinations at the pace we wanted we decided to visit Moscow by ourselves.  We walked without a travel guide for the next days without any problem until the last day in Moscow, we saw a Russian officer took a picture to some other Russian tourist and asked him to take us one, all on a sudden started harassing us about out papers, we weren’t afraid, had every paper with us, until he started shouting “Problem.. problem”, (Huge Russian guy, like the ones you see in the movies), our hotel didn’t stamp the last night stay in our tourist visa, by then we were shaking.. We figured out he wanted money, if you are stopped there is a good chance you will have to pay a bribe.  Bring your consulate phone number just in case.You must register as soon as you arrive to each city.  We were told not to go to the flea market near our hotel, because it was dangerous, but we went anyway.  Our guide was right, the ambience felt very tense, most staring at us scarily, we only stayed a couple minutes and started walking fast back to our hotel.Walking around St. Basilic and the Red square was amazing, I found that the colored marshmallow forms of St. Basilic made me hungry every time I walked nearby. We continued our trip to mother Russia, in our last city destination, St. Petersburg, it’s very different from Moscow.  The church of the savior of spilled blood is one of the most spectacular churches I have ever seen.  Almost all the churches are cover with very detailed colorful art work that will leave you astonish.  The Hermitage museum is also a must see, this art museum has a very complete collection compared with the Louvre.  We took a night boat trip thought the Neva river, incredible views of the city and gorgeous illuminated bridges, recommended.  It was in that night boat trip, were we learned how Russians drink the vodka, plain vodka shots and you passed with bear.. that is all I remember. I had to see it from my own eyes, it is true the women are more beautiful than other country in the world.  Visiting this country was definitely a unique experience, the vodka, the incredible buildings and it’s history, it’s caviar gave an amazing touch to our trip.do svidaniya