Moscow, Russia

I can only say three good things about the Moscow metro. The first is that some of the stations are beautiful and feel like old train stations, but still I prefer sleek, modern metros. The second is that the trains are extremely frequent and I've never waited at the platform for longer than one minute. And finally, strangely, Russians always wait for passengers to exit the train before boarding themselves. I've never seen this anywhere in the world. This is not to say that Muscovites are polite when using the metro, quite the opposite really (as with everything). This only makes the fact stranger. To get on the metro you go through the standard electronic entry thing, swiping your ticket in front of an electronic reader which indicates that it's been read, just like any metro anywhere in the world. What didn't make sense to me at first, though, was that there was no barricade. You just swiped your ticket and walked through. How was this controlled? The one time my ticket didn't read correctly I found out. I guess there's a motion sensor and when somebody passes through without first swiping a ticket, metal bars shoot out and form a barricade. If you're fast you'd make it through, but if you're like me and fast but not fast enough they come out and hit you right in the balls. Very painful and very Russian. After this I was expecting somebody to come up to me and tell me that I'm going to jail unless I pay them 1000 rubles, but nobody seemed to notice. There are a hell of a lot of strip clubs here. Pretty much one on every corner. There even seems to be a McDonalds style chain company of strip clubs. Most of Moscow consists of big, ugly Soviet style appartment buildings. Every single one of these looks exactly the same. That's communism for you. My hostel is located in one of these buildings and the hallways remind me a lot of public schools in the US, at least when I was in kindergarten in the early 90s before "modernization." Very bland, institutional and depressing. I was surprised to find that there are a lot of Asian looking people here. I suppose most of them are native Russians, originally from Siberia or some Asian place (Moscow is in Europe), but they very well could be immigrants from the Stans. My hostel is run by people from Kyrgyzstan. Either way, there are a lot of them. This morning was sunny but now it's snowing again. Tonight I'm taking an overnight train to St. Petersburg. That is assuming, of course, that I manage to get on the right train, which is doubtful. I keep thinking of the scene in Kite Runner where they all make a toast to the words "Fuck the Russia!"

One month ago I was in Dubai.
Two months ago I was in Cairo.