I slept in to a pretty reasonable hour yesterday morning, I had stayed up very late the night before. The danger with hitting the local nightlife (especially in a big city like Moscow) while traveling is that you run the risk of sleeping the entire day away which ultimately takes away from the sightseeing experience (unless you’re here just for the nightlife). But, trying to juggle both, I forced myself to wake before noon and to set out. I munched on some leftover bread and cheese that I had from the day before and a yogurt, sipped my morning dose of coffee, and ventured out to the refreshingly cool streets of Moscow. I had a plan set in place: wake before noon, do a self guided walking tour of Moscow’s oldest, most scenic neighborhood of Kitay Gorod, my neighborhood, and then meet up with Shaun and Karen for a free walking tour in the city, the theme of which was vodka. I didn’t know what to expect with the free guided tour but I was invited, and who am I to turn down a free walking tour?
But first I set out to complete a two hour or so self guided walking tour of Kitay Gorod. The walking route was recommended from my guide book. Kitay Gorod, as I mentioned before, is Moscow’s oldest neighborhood, some of the architecture is the most interesting in this city, very European, pre-Soviet architecture. Kitay Gorod translates to China Town, but it’s not a China Town, there’s no Chinese anything, but I recently found out the word “Kitay” (meaning China) is the derivative of another word, “kita” which means, “wattle” and is in reference to the way the old city walls were built with earthen clay, a wall that surrounded the suburb and connected to the walls surrounding the Kremlin. Kitay Gorod is the sprawling neighborhood just to the northeast of the Kremlin. Anyway the tour was nice. I wandered through quiet, cobblestone side streets and past famous hotels and shopping districts as well as several very old churches. I decided to listen to the soundtrack of the new movie “Anna Kerinina”, an old Tolstoy classic, and an excellent, classical take on Russian music from its Imperial past. On my walk, I passed a small souvenir bench, set up outside Red Square on one of the small side streets and for 50 rubles (or about $1.30), I bought a small magnet with a picture of the Moscow cityscape. I decided that I would start to pick up these magnets whenever I find them in my travels as a sort of collection. This way I don’t have to buy (and carry) souvenirs. I decided to start doing this when I saw a cool magnet of Bobroviy Log, the ski resort in Krasnoyarsk. I now have one from Krasnoyarsk, Ganina Yama in Ekaterinburg, and now Moscow. I’ll keep my eyes open.
After I finished the relaxing stroll around Kitay Gorod, I hopped the metro across town to the meeting place for the free vodka walking tour where I was supposed to meet Shaun and Karen. I found them without any problems and while we waited for the organizers to show up, we caught up and swapped travel stories since we had last met, in the train from Irkutsk. There are two branches of the Trans-Siberian line: one splits near Ekaterinburg and takes a northerly route to Moscow passing through places like Perm (which is the route that I took), and the other route swings to the south after Ekaterinburg, going through Tartarstan before ending in Moscow. Shaun and Karen took the latter. They had stopovers in Novosibirsk, a large Siberian city, where they participated in a local homestay, living with a local family for a few days, and then they stopped in Kazan, capital of Tartarstan, a region to the south of Russia, home of the famous Tartars, an ethnic group that was said to have been the eternal, mortal enemy of Genghis Khan when he dispatched some of his Mongol horde to wreak havoc on the western portion of Russia. The Tartars were eventually conquered (as was most of the world) by the Mongols and after the occupation, the Mongols breeded themselves into the Tartar population and so today, most of the Tartars are descended from the Mongols. Quick fun fact: Genghis Khan (Chingis Khan as he is more appropriately known) was proven to have so many “relations” with the women of the people he had conquered that he has over 20 million direct descendants of people living today. This was proven from a study done by a British research group who completed the study through DNA sampling (somehow....)). Anyway, their trip sounded cool.
While we were waiting for the organizers to arrive we met two Russian women, fluent in English, who found us and asked if we were participating in the tour. We said we were and they told us they represented the Russian, English language news television channel, Russia Today, and that they would be filming (with the help of their camera crew who hadn’t arrived yet) the tour for a television program they were hosting. So we were excited about that. Russia Today is actually pretty cool. They coin themselves on their website as, “the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news.” I’ve actually seen their programs before, usually in international hotels whenever I don’t feel like watching CNN or BBC. It’s how Russia sees the world and the programs are often very entertaining like for example they were going to do an episode on this tour designed for expats and travelers in the city. The organizers and the cameramen finally arrived with a group of about 10 or 12 other people for the tour. Altogether it was a group of about 15 people, mostly European travelers, and a few Russian, English speaking girls. It was a cool crowd. The organizers introduced themselves as natives of St. Petersburg and they give these free tours as a way to interact with foreign travelers and speak English - they were mostly university students. They had done tours in “Peter”, as St. Petersburg is affectionately known, with some success, but this was their first in Moscow. And then they described a little about what the tour was going to be about. Basically, they wanted to do a walking tour around central Moscow, visiting all the “local haunts”, the local vodka bars that had been servicing Moscow’s drunks since Soviet days. Some of the places we would visit were new, styled to be like the old Soviet drinking holes, but some were the originals themselves and we were lucky to visit them because usually they are strict on forbidding foreigners from entering, for Russian eyes only.
And we got a brief history of why vodka is so synonymous with Russian culture. To be honest, I remember basically nothing from the history portion except that way, way long ago, vodka was not popular at all in Russia until it was used as an herbal medicine. They used to mix the vodka with honey and garlic and was a “cure all” of ailments. Apparently one thing led to another and blam-o, everyone drinks it now. There’s a reason for the vodka stereotype, all Russians really do drink vodka. But to be fair, they only drink good vodka. Shaun had previously talked with a Russian guy about the types of vodka they drink and when he told him that he usually drank either Smirknoff or Stolichnaya when drinking vodka because they are cheaper in “Auzz”, the Russian guy laughed and said Russians wouldn’t drink vodka either if they had to drink that stuff.
So, we started walking. Our first stop was one of the originals. We sat down at a few tables, ordered a few trays of shots and some plates of pickles (all of this was free), and received a lesson on how to properly take the shot. To explain, you first make a toast (to whatever), raise the glass and bottom out the shot glass. Then you put the glass down, take a pickle, sniff the pickle, and then eat the pickle. So we did just that and it was awesome. I had gotten to know one of the Russian girls on the tour, Dasha, a student and fluent English speaker, and I asked her what the word was for “cheers”. At first she didn’t know, she said she didn’t think there was a translation. And then someone else, a foreigner replied, “it’s nostdroveya, of course”. Dasha said that was technically correct but that no Russian would ever use that word. They really don’t have a translation for cheers. Rather, they just make a toast, each time, and often the toast is as simple as, “to drinking”. I kind of like that but “cheers” is easier, you don’t have to think about it.
The next place we visited was one of the new bars, styled as if it was from the Soviet days, but it had a new, trendy twist. Apparently, it is one of the hottest new bars in the city. It was here that Shaun and I got cornered by RT for an on screen interview (let me know if you find it!). They asked our names and where we were from, what we thought of the tour, and what we thought of vodka. It was short but pretty cool. Afterwards, we all ordered some shots at the bar and I ordered some Russian red caviar on toast, a popular dish in Russia (it sounds expensive but its cheap and delicious).
The last place we went to (there were others we were supposed to visit but we were lingering too long in the other bars, we were having a really great time) was the real deal. The kind of place that you can’t just walk into without a Russian. It was built during the Soviet days and was no more than a plain basement with white washed walls and some basic, standing tables, underground, beneath the street. Two women worked the counter and offered five types of vodka, all of them cheap. They were only sold by the shot. And they had a small menu of bar food. We ordered some pelmeni with sour cream (Russian dumplings) and some shots (of course). At the other tables were some highly intoxicated older gentlemen, swaying on their feet, bracing themselves with their table, eyeing us foreigners speaking English. At one point, an old guy with a long, white beard yelled something incoherent (even for the Russians with us) in our direction, probably irritated by our demon languages. It got quiet briefly and then the good times sauntered on. This place was awesome. We stayed for hours until closing time at 9. We and the drunks were kicked out by the two women working the counter, and we parted ways, thanking the Russian, student guides. I’ll keep in touch with some of the Russian students I met on the tour and I said a final farewell to my traveling buddies, the Aussies. They had a flight today to Minsk in Belarus as they continue conquering the world, Chingis Khan style.
All in all it was a really great time. My goal was to return to the hostel and get some sleep and do some more sightseeing today which I will begin in another post so that this one doesn’t ramble too long and you lose interest. So, see you in the next post!
But first I set out to complete a two hour or so self guided walking tour of Kitay Gorod. The walking route was recommended from my guide book. Kitay Gorod, as I mentioned before, is Moscow’s oldest neighborhood, some of the architecture is the most interesting in this city, very European, pre-Soviet architecture. Kitay Gorod translates to China Town, but it’s not a China Town, there’s no Chinese anything, but I recently found out the word “Kitay” (meaning China) is the derivative of another word, “kita” which means, “wattle” and is in reference to the way the old city walls were built with earthen clay, a wall that surrounded the suburb and connected to the walls surrounding the Kremlin. Kitay Gorod is the sprawling neighborhood just to the northeast of the Kremlin. Anyway the tour was nice. I wandered through quiet, cobblestone side streets and past famous hotels and shopping districts as well as several very old churches. I decided to listen to the soundtrack of the new movie “Anna Kerinina”, an old Tolstoy classic, and an excellent, classical take on Russian music from its Imperial past. On my walk, I passed a small souvenir bench, set up outside Red Square on one of the small side streets and for 50 rubles (or about $1.30), I bought a small magnet with a picture of the Moscow cityscape. I decided that I would start to pick up these magnets whenever I find them in my travels as a sort of collection. This way I don’t have to buy (and carry) souvenirs. I decided to start doing this when I saw a cool magnet of Bobroviy Log, the ski resort in Krasnoyarsk. I now have one from Krasnoyarsk, Ganina Yama in Ekaterinburg, and now Moscow. I’ll keep my eyes open.
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| View of a side street lined with old churches, observed on my walking tour of Kitay Gorod |
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| A side street in Kitay Gorod through a historical complex that now is home to expensive shops |
While we were waiting for the organizers to arrive we met two Russian women, fluent in English, who found us and asked if we were participating in the tour. We said we were and they told us they represented the Russian, English language news television channel, Russia Today, and that they would be filming (with the help of their camera crew who hadn’t arrived yet) the tour for a television program they were hosting. So we were excited about that. Russia Today is actually pretty cool. They coin themselves on their website as, “the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news.” I’ve actually seen their programs before, usually in international hotels whenever I don’t feel like watching CNN or BBC. It’s how Russia sees the world and the programs are often very entertaining like for example they were going to do an episode on this tour designed for expats and travelers in the city. The organizers and the cameramen finally arrived with a group of about 10 or 12 other people for the tour. Altogether it was a group of about 15 people, mostly European travelers, and a few Russian, English speaking girls. It was a cool crowd. The organizers introduced themselves as natives of St. Petersburg and they give these free tours as a way to interact with foreign travelers and speak English - they were mostly university students. They had done tours in “Peter”, as St. Petersburg is affectionately known, with some success, but this was their first in Moscow. And then they described a little about what the tour was going to be about. Basically, they wanted to do a walking tour around central Moscow, visiting all the “local haunts”, the local vodka bars that had been servicing Moscow’s drunks since Soviet days. Some of the places we would visit were new, styled to be like the old Soviet drinking holes, but some were the originals themselves and we were lucky to visit them because usually they are strict on forbidding foreigners from entering, for Russian eyes only.
And we got a brief history of why vodka is so synonymous with Russian culture. To be honest, I remember basically nothing from the history portion except that way, way long ago, vodka was not popular at all in Russia until it was used as an herbal medicine. They used to mix the vodka with honey and garlic and was a “cure all” of ailments. Apparently one thing led to another and blam-o, everyone drinks it now. There’s a reason for the vodka stereotype, all Russians really do drink vodka. But to be fair, they only drink good vodka. Shaun had previously talked with a Russian guy about the types of vodka they drink and when he told him that he usually drank either Smirknoff or Stolichnaya when drinking vodka because they are cheaper in “Auzz”, the Russian guy laughed and said Russians wouldn’t drink vodka either if they had to drink that stuff.
So, we started walking. Our first stop was one of the originals. We sat down at a few tables, ordered a few trays of shots and some plates of pickles (all of this was free), and received a lesson on how to properly take the shot. To explain, you first make a toast (to whatever), raise the glass and bottom out the shot glass. Then you put the glass down, take a pickle, sniff the pickle, and then eat the pickle. So we did just that and it was awesome. I had gotten to know one of the Russian girls on the tour, Dasha, a student and fluent English speaker, and I asked her what the word was for “cheers”. At first she didn’t know, she said she didn’t think there was a translation. And then someone else, a foreigner replied, “it’s nostdroveya, of course”. Dasha said that was technically correct but that no Russian would ever use that word. They really don’t have a translation for cheers. Rather, they just make a toast, each time, and often the toast is as simple as, “to drinking”. I kind of like that but “cheers” is easier, you don’t have to think about it.
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| Shaun and Karen, listening attentively to our guide |
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| My first vodka shot of the night |
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| The group outside Kamchatka, the trendy vodka shot bar |
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| Shaun and me during our interview with RT |
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| The old Soviet era shot bar, usually reserved for Russians |
The last place we went to (there were others we were supposed to visit but we were lingering too long in the other bars, we were having a really great time) was the real deal. The kind of place that you can’t just walk into without a Russian. It was built during the Soviet days and was no more than a plain basement with white washed walls and some basic, standing tables, underground, beneath the street. Two women worked the counter and offered five types of vodka, all of them cheap. They were only sold by the shot. And they had a small menu of bar food. We ordered some pelmeni with sour cream (Russian dumplings) and some shots (of course). At the other tables were some highly intoxicated older gentlemen, swaying on their feet, bracing themselves with their table, eyeing us foreigners speaking English. At one point, an old guy with a long, white beard yelled something incoherent (even for the Russians with us) in our direction, probably irritated by our demon languages. It got quiet briefly and then the good times sauntered on. This place was awesome. We stayed for hours until closing time at 9. We and the drunks were kicked out by the two women working the counter, and we parted ways, thanking the Russian, student guides. I’ll keep in touch with some of the Russian students I met on the tour and I said a final farewell to my traveling buddies, the Aussies. They had a flight today to Minsk in Belarus as they continue conquering the world, Chingis Khan style.
All in all it was a really great time. My goal was to return to the hostel and get some sleep and do some more sightseeing today which I will begin in another post so that this one doesn’t ramble too long and you lose interest. So, see you in the next post!
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