Moscow

Arriving in Moscow was quite bizarre,Airport somewhat smaller than i thought (found out later that there are 3 seperate airports )all somewhate dated and not that friendly ,fortunately for us Lisa a friend met us and organised a car ....thank God!! as no one speaks english and street signs etc all in russian which is a mix of 36 characters and geometric designs some people call these false friends because some of these look like english letters but pronounced differently ....

The car journey was hair raising to say the least,at one point we looked over his shoulder and we were doing 140km then we were ducking and weaving between cars and changing from one lane to another, we actually lost count of fresh crash debris beside road,multi pile up and cars everywhere,all cars we passed or passing us seem to have huge dings in side...i think i left some of my fingernails in base of seat. Car parking is hilarious, as they seem to park wherever they damn well please, on pedestrian crossings, footpaths etc.





The Kremlin and Red Square

No visit to Moscow is complete without a visit to Red Square and the Kremlin, the Armoury and the Diamond Fund (Tsar's crown jewels, including the coronation crown of Catherine the Great and the Orlov Diamond, a 189.62 carat diamond given to Catherine the Great by her lover Count Orlov). Beautiful carriages, Faberge eggs and stunning presents from foreign diplomats to the tsars.

St Basils



Honey bread at the markets



Foodie finds:

Gastronom in GUM (гум)

GUM, the former state-run department store on Red Square, in previous years stocked very basic fare and no deluxe food items. Now it's a glamorous shopping precinct, stunning inside and out, and has no shortage of designer shops. Don't let the KGB style security in each shop scare you as it did me, and whatever you do DON'T take a photo (like I made Lisa do). Please appreciate this photo of the patisserie display cabinet in Gastronom in GUM. This shop is like Sydney David Jones except Verve and Laurent Perrier cost over 4000 rubles a bottle ($200). Unfortunately I couldn't write the food prices down as security was bearing down on us. And they didn't look like Daniel Craig. Sorry girls.




Tsum (цум)

Not far from GUM is Tsum, another old Soviet department store which had been funkified and is patronised by Moscow's elite. Please see photos below taken in the supermarket whilst security and attendants were looking the other way.





Denis Simachёv
In the middle of a pedestrian street full of designers is Denis Simachёv Shop and Bar. Groovy cocktail bar below and designer fashion shop above. Full of glamorous Russian girls and not so pretty men. We sampled some great cocktails and pizzas. The menu cover was quite groovy as you can see below.





Yeliseyevsky

A 24 hour supermarket, which looks glamorous but the quality is not as good hence prices are slightly more reasonable, except for the raspberries and blueberries which we worked out to be $60 a punnet. Very interesting as we've just purchased two punnets in Berlin for $6. Thank god we gorged ourselves on berries there.



Fashion

What you (or dogs) can wear in Moscow. Interesting to note here is that girls seem to be obsessed with designer labels, but the ensembles sometimes are probably not quite what the designers had in mind. Unlike Berlin where everyone dressed down or didn't wear make up, here in Moscow it seems to be the opposite. My particular favourite is the tracksuit which was heavily embroidered and with fluro racing stripes. Unfortunately this was a movement shot so we didn't quite capture it but you get the general idea.









Special thanks to Lisa for pics and the laughs putting this together.