From Moscow to Beijing by train. Part One : Moscow

[Nantais]

Last July, I went on a two weeks trip, travelling by train from Moscow to Beijing, going through Siberia, Mongolia and northern China.
It was a great trip and I took some pics...
well, actually I took more than 900 pics ! so I will post them (well, not all of them) in several threads.
So, here we go, part one : Moscow.

1- Flying from Paris to Moscow over rural Europe (eastern France or Austria, I don't remember...).


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3- Well, clouds !



4- The Moscow airport :


5- On the motorway, outside Moscow : forests and ads.


6- The glamourous outskirts of Moscow :


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10- Russia !


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12- My hotel in Moscow :


13- A very Orwell's 1984-like neighborhood...


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19- What kind of business is that ?


20- Russian shop !


21- Russian metro :


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23- So, let's see, there are Napoléon, Mickey Mouse, Lénine, Staline, Pouchkine, Gagarine (?)... all of them in the same shop !


24- I hate these tourists who take pictures of them in front of the Lénine statue. So cliché !


25- The subway of Moscow :


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39- On the Red Square :


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43- The Kremlin :


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45- The Minister of Truth :


46- A Moscow's street :


47- I hate these fucking tourists who think they are so smart taking a pic of themselves with a CCCP T-shirt and a Russian cap in front of the Karl Marx statue !

[Minato Ku]

What are your impressions of Moscow ?

[Carcharodon]

Have you seen this movie?


http://www.amazon.com/Transsiberian-.../dp/B001CIOCJ4

[highriser1]

This is interesting. I heard they really take care of their subway's and it looks like that is true. I'll check back for your other pix!

[RobertWalpole]

While it appears to be very interesting, Moscow -- unlike St. Petersburg -- looks like a real dump.

[pip]

Cool trip. Looking foward to the others.

One thing I have got to say. Russian sure knows how to build subway stations.

[stepper77]

Nice to see a little bit of Moscow. I look forward to seeing more of your trip.

[ColDayMan]

Neat shots!

[Nantais]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

What are your impressions of Moscow ?

Well, I only spent one day and half in Moscow before taking the train, so it's a very short time to really enjoy the city and have an actual impression of it.
All I can say is that Moscow feels huge : very large streets, tons of motorways, huge housing projects.
It feels also a bit more cosmopolitan than what I expected. Moscow is like the center of its own world (the ex-USSR), you really get this impression there, that you are in the center of some parallel world with people coming from all the ex-USSR to Moscow.

BTW, here is another pic (the 23rd) than I forgot to post :

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I found it amusing.


Next step : from Moscow to Irkoutsk, across Siberia.

[Chelsea Spy]

looking forward to part 2!

[Nightsky]

Nice, such an exciting trip, I look forward to see the rest!

Did you see any of the "7 towers of Moscow", the gothic skyscraprs from the communist times?

[Infernal_Elf]

very intresting thanks alot for the tour the russian goverment shure do keep the subway and the historical buildings in tip top shape.

many great shots here.

[Nantais]

Thanks you all for your comments. I will try to post the second part this afternoon. I took tons of pics in the three days-four nights train journey to go from Moscow to Irkoustk, near the Baikal lake.

@Nightsky :
Unfortunately I didn't have the time to see one the Seven Sisters, apart from afar. I spent only one day and half in Moscow before taking the train to Irkoustk, and it's too little time to really enjoy Moscow.

[TwasBrillig]

Comrade Lenin says: "Greatest metro station of all time!"

[chinghis]

Just coming back to this forum to look through Noirish LA, saw your post. Many thanks for the pictures. Makes me wax nostalgic - I did three extended stays in Moscow in the 80s and 90s. Looks like nothing, yet everything, has changed. I'll go visit Part II now, I'm sure that out in the hinterlands even less has changed.

[Bedhead]

Great tour! Those metro stations are something else.

[FREKI]

Nice pics mate!

[Buckeye Native 001]

Those subway stations are incredible

[Robert Pence]

Wonderful photos! Moscow fascinates me.

Originally Posted by Carcharodon

Have you seen this movie?

http://www.amazon.com/Transsiberian-.../dp/B001CIOCJ4

Transsiberian is an excellent film. I was so taken by the visuals the first time I saw it that I had trouble keeping track of the plot twists and turns. I went back to see it again, a couple of weeks later, just to try to pick up on what I missed the first time.

[rockyi]

Very cool! Thanks!
I'm doing this backwards, I viewed the Irkutsk thread first.