Greetings and thanks to our friendship family – and take good care of my cactus

today’s program was: driving, national park, lakes, hiking, an osprey and a moose …

April 22nd
We had a good, but rather short night’s sleep in the train as we arrived at about 9 a.m. But that night train was a nice experience after all. Only a shower in the morning would have been nice as well. From the train station we were taken onto a bus tour through Moscow. We saw Novodevichy Convent, the Red Square, Sparrow Hills (where one of 7 huge stalinistic buildings is situated), the Peter the Great Statue and much more – such as the chaotic traffic in Moscow. We had the chance to get off at some places to take pictures and especially the Red Square we would see again and again during our stay.
After the city tour we went to check in at the Hotel Cosmos just across the All-Russian Exhibition Center. We had loads of time before the next event and visited that after we had relaxed in our rooms for a while. The All-Russian Exhibition Center is an older exhibition center mainly featuring pavillons of the Soviet nations and inhabiting huge, stalinistic architecture. In its middle there is the golden “friendship of nations” fountain. During our visit there was also a fun fair set up … Just next to the exhibition center there is also the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture that was once presented at the World’s Fair in Paris (1937).
In the evening we attended a guided subway tour. The old parts of Moscow’s subway are mainly from the 50’s, i.e. from the old Soviet days. To show off the domination and future paradise of Socialism the decorations of the subway were very rich, ranging from pictures, over mosaics to gold.

April 23rd
The next day we had a Kremlin tour. The Kremlin is not only a single building, but a fortress (“Kremlin” derives from the Russian word for fortress) with at least 3 churches and some presidential buildings. It has originally been a fortress to take refuge in and as a seat of the rulers of Moscow. Before the Russian emperors lived in St. Petersburg this was also the center of their life. The funniest features are a huge/biggest cannon that has never fired a shot and a huge/biggest bell that has never been rung. After our tour we were lucky to see a presentation by Russian soldiers supposedly practicing for a presentation at May 9th festivities. Horses, marching and music produced a nice program.
For the rest of the day we walked around the area of the Kremlin as the travel company didn’t manage to get tickets for the ballet. We saw an oldtimer rallye starting at the Kremlin and walked all the way to Peter the Great Statue next to the old chocolate factory. In the end of the day we had a nightly bus tour through Moscow that also took us to the illuminated Kremlin and the Red Square. There the humongous and expensive shopping center (just across the Red Square) was lit as if it were Christmas

April 24th
On our last day we checked out at about 11 a.m. and supposedly through that missed the chance to see Lenin. However, we went to the circus, which was very nice, even though we didn’t understand a word Afterwards we were taken to Arbat Street, a long shopping street. Whatever it was, but there were loads of (mainly) school students offering “free hugs” along the whole way. It felt like someone had sent all schools to this single street. Other than that we found a closed post office and had lunch from McDonald’s before we were taken further to an old Soviet bunker. That bunker was once built and used secretely to be home to the airforce command. The structure resemblemed that of a subway and could resist even nuclear strikes being located about 60 m beneath the earth’s surface. Our last stop before the train station was the Red Square again. We took some last photos and said good-bye to Moscow.
At about 10.50 p.m. our train (a night train again) left for Finland. We had a fabulous evening with a whole bunch of people in our 4-person cabin.

April 25th
We had to get up early for customs (7.30 a.m.), which first came through the train on the Russian side and then again on the Finnish side. At that point we somehow realized that Russians really seem to have a different mentality. The Finns seemed much friendlier and welcoming. Kind of felt like coming home
All in all this has been a trip that we wouldn’t want to miss. We’ve had great retentions towards Russia, which in 99% of the cases did not come true. Whatever the causes we are even considering going back to Russia for another nice stay in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

Afterwards there were free guided tours to the “Fire! Fire!” exhibition as well as free access to the other exhibitions. As we had already visited Fire & Fire we played some XBox 360 again and went to the other exhibitions after they had opened. We have to say, some was nice, but sometimes the sense in arts is just hard to grasp. Anyway, now we have seen all of Logomo and had a nice bike ride too

The sheet has 3 squares with 25 numbers each. A woman draws random numbers from a tombola one after the other until someone has a bingo. There are prices to win that range from sweets to plastic race cars First round is one horizontal row, second is two, etc. Getting a full square is pretty hard.

We got not a single Bingo right, but we had fun anyway So maybe it will soon be us and Bingo again.

So let’s all say good bye to the good times of ice hockey …

That last game has been pretty intense at some points we have to say. Johannes has been hit in the face just once and fallen on his own or caused by others a bit, but Verena has rather hard been hit on or run over for at least 3 times But it was fun as always. Hope, we can go again and the season does not end now.