Day 3: Moscow Greeters

Today was an exciting day, we were finally going to meet Ludmila, the Moscow Greeter, we had organised to show us around Moscow. Ludmila met us at the hotel just after 9 in the morning. It was raining, so we all had our drizabones on and wandered up the street. Our first stop was a look at some buildings that they actually shifted back to allow another Stalin era building to be built in front, between the buildings and the street.

We then went down to the Metro station and caught the train to the Exhibition of National Economic Achievements, which sounds pretty boring, but is actually an assortment of magnificent pavilions representing different territories of the former Soviet Union. The pavilions are huge and decorated to showcase the produce of that region.

After walking around maybe a third of the park (the whole park is 206 hectares), we found a coffee shop, so went inside for morning tea. Ludmila encouraged us to try some traditional Russian cakes made with curd - fermented milk (maybe that's what I could have done with that milk I bought yesterday), which were delicious with jam. We also had pancakes and chocolate cake, with lattes.
(Lucky we did all that exercise).

We then walked across to the Cosmonaut Museum, a collection of artefacts of the Soviet space programme housed beneath a huge monument to space, where we spent another hour wandering through all the displays.

Next, Ludmila took us for a short tour through some of the Metro stations, telling us the history of the stations and the significance of the murals decorating the stations. During the reign of Stalin, 13 stations were uniquely decorated to "embody Soviet brilliance" and encourage citizens to look up. These stations and their architecture and design look incredible.

After this it was time for lunch and then a walk around Novodevichy Cemetery, where many famous Russians are buried with incredible gravestones, and the Novodevichy Convent

and a walk through Sparrow Hills, where we caught the Metro back to our hotel. 

Where we arrived back just before 6pm. A full day of walking, surely that entitles me to morning tea again tomorrow. 

A truely amazing, informative, exhausting day. Thank you Ludmila.

Now to bed.