– Arriving Moscow, registration, and what to aware...
We finally arrived to Moscow! [You can check other parts about our time and difficulties we faced on the train here: part1, part2, part3, part4.] Before arriving, the lady at our coach knocked our door and let us know so that we could prepare (around one and a half hour in advance). We packed everything in time and put our jackets and warm pants on...ready to face the frozeness!.
“We were gonna go for Airbnb but concerned about how we could register as this process requires the house owner...”
We had two big suitcases. We both needed a lot of clothes as we also traveled in some other cities in China before. Not all of the accommodations we stayed at offered a cheap laundry service and our bags were filled with souvenirs real quick (I guess, when you have a big bag, you just feel like you can keep buying and putting stuff in it...Hmm). We had to wear the same clothes twice or thrice....I even wore some of them for a week and of course, our jackets were never clean hahaha.
I wouldn’t say it was a mistake as we’d gotten to travel in many cities but it would have been better if we brought 2 small suitcases instead (as it would be easier to walk around in snow in Russia). We were actually gonna use big backpacks like others but we thought that when we stopped walking, we could just put the suitcases next to us or lay on them when we had no seats since they could stand on their own. Turned out, we didn’t do that often.
Before leaving the train, we were taking our plastic trash bins with us but the lady told us to just leave them on the train. She was really nice! We walked outside. The lady and we said goodbye to each other and she just closed the coach door after that. No attached feeling...I felt like hugging her actually.
From the train to the nearest metro station, it was quite rough. There were signs in both Russian and English but there was no escalator for going up or down. Sorry I didn’t take any picture there as it was rough as I said.
Figuring out which tickets to buy seemed easy but it really wasn’t. We checked online and we were certain about which type that each of us was going for. But when we were at the counter, none of the staff could speak English and we tried to ask for the Troika card again and again but for some reasons, the staff only let one of us have it. My guess would be that one card could be used by two people? That’s something I never experienced in other countries so I bought a United (Yediny) ticket instead. (I checked for options on this page: https://www.rbth.com/travel/326613-how-to-use-troika-card) If you guys know why, let me know what we did wrong!!!
Let’s talk a bit about our hostel called Hotel Artist on Kitay-Gorod. It was near to many tourist attractions including Kremlin. Everything was within walking distance. The nearest metro seemed quite far after a long day but there was also a bus station very nearby. Well, it was a bit hard to find this place. After leaving the metro, walking for a bit, and making a turn, Google maps told us that we had arrived already but we saw nothing close to be a hostel.
Luckily, we ran into a Colombian guy who studied there. He came to us and asked if we needed help. He spoke Russian and his English was perfect. He called the hostel for us and also asked pedestrians who walked by. We were actually very close to it but just didn’t get there yet. After getting inside, the lady at the reception couldn’t speak English but she was really nice and helpful. We had to take off our shoes every time we entered the hostel. Our private room was clean but there were no toiletries in the bathroom. There were also a kitchen and a washing machine that were free to use. The registration was free of charge!
Talking about the registration, it is always better to always register whenever you change your accommodation as you can get checked randomly. We were gonna go for Airbnb but concerned about how we could register as this process requires the house owner. We read on some webpages that some house owners refused to do this when their guests arrived. Some guest had to go ask at the police station and finally, the house owner was called by the police and told to deal with it. We could do that too but I don’t think anyone wants to be at the police station during the trip. So when choosing the accommodation, we always looked for a place that could provide us with this service, either for free or for a small charge.
We really enjoyed our time in Moscow. Everything seemed developed and the public transportation was convenient. We visited different places by just walking. We also wandered around at least 12 train stations. Since it was very cold, we didn’t have to line up to enter any attractions, except for the Lenin's Mausoleum since only a small group of people could enter each round.
One thing I didn’t know about for sure was that people who dressed up in the fairs were there for money. My friend was taking my picture and one of those guys just walked in and joined me, then asked for money afterwards. We refused as we didn’t ask for it, then other two guys came. They couldn’t speak English but they tried really hard. We finally just kind of walked away as there were many people there and they didn’t follow. We might have just given him a bit if we were not in (money) trouble ourselves (Check Part3 on why we had money issue!). My second plan was to scream!
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