I’ve been to Russia to spend last Xmas and New
Year’s Eve. My two friends and I are Brazilian and we departed from São Paulo’s airport and landed in Moscow’s
Sheremetyevo Airport,
after making an 8 hour stopover in Amsterdam.
I have to register this was one of the greatest trips I’ve ever made. Getting
to know such a contrasting and contradictory country was a delightful shock. We
arrived late at night, and our first impression of Russia was not good at all, since
the airport was eerily deserted and the girls that took care of the border visa
check got a little bit rude and impatient as they realized we could not
understand a word they were saying. Then, having our passports properly checked
and stamped, we took the cab that was conveniently waiting for our arrival,
sent by the hostel team. I was really excited, almost in a trance, despite the
lack of comfort and space in the cab, since we put our enormous luggage inside
(we didn’t want to leave anyone behind to take another cab). Can you imagine
how it felt like experiencing snow for the first time? I mean, I’ve never had
snow falling over my head, neither have my friends, we come from a tropical
land. It took ours to get to the hostel, since the cab driver got lost in the
intricate web of streets and alleys of Kitay-gorod, the oldest part of
the city. When we finally got to the hostel, it was a bit disappointing. It was
located in a decrepit building and we had to carry our heavy luggage up stairs,
and it was like 4 or 5 floors. In the last floor, we finally found the door
with the hostel’s sign. It looked like it has come right from the soviet era,
and it was empty except from the receptionist, a really beautiful blonde girl
who, to our frustration, informed us that we would only be allowed into our
rooms after 12pm, and it was still 4am. To make things worse, she said they
were out of hot water! Can you imagine not having hot water in the Russian
winter? No shower at all. After handing the bad news, she said we could leave
luggage there and take a nap at the sofas. A little bit more comforted, we paid
everything beforehand, including the tax the hostel charged us in order to get
our papers legal and make our registration in Moscow’s foreign agency (something that can
be done really easily and without costs by a native person, as we discovered
later in saint pete). Starving to death, we left our things (which were locked
with padlocks) in the hostel´s hall and headed to the closest restaurant/ bar/
any place that served food at that time of the night. We found then a bar
really close to the hostel which was opened and had food. Struggling with the
language, we ordered some blinis,
those Russian pancakes, stuffed with sour cream and smoked salmon (a
combination we found to be ubiquitous in Russian tables), beers and some
pinches of vodka. These vodkas we ordered turned out to be some of the best we
drank in our trip. It didn’t even feel they were alcoholic, so light and smooth
they were. Definitely this was the best way to wait for our rooms to be ready.
This mix of excitement, bewilderment and tipsiness provided by the alcohol kept
us awaken and chatting for hours long, despite the tiredness.
We headed then to the hostel and we took a
three-hours nap in the sofa, while many different people entered the hostel
hall. Finally, our room was ready and we were able to get some proper rest.
Waking up at night, we went to see the Red Square.
It was really cold outside (we were not yet used to the cold weather, and not
yet warmed up by the huge amounts of alcohol we were about to consume in the
following days). The sky seemed really enlightened, almost orange, something
I’ve never seen. When we reached the Red Square,
the feeling was indescribable. It looked like a dream, a huge square paved with
cobblestones covered in snow. In the left, there was the Saint Basil´s
Cathedral, looking like a toy castle made with candy. In the front, Lenin´s
tomb and the Kremlin, and in my back there was the GUM, the huge shopping mall
dated from before the soviet era. I was in Moscow’s ground zero, from which most of
Slavic culture took shape. Breathtaking, indeed.
