Dispatches from the middle

My last day in Moscow was windy and wet. And for some reason, though I don’t think I’d seen the sun since I left Edmonton – perhaps because I hadn’t seen the sun since I left – it felt particularly dreary. And I felt particularly tired.

But, it is a cardinal sin to stay cooped up in one’s hotel room on the last day of a trip to a new place! So I forced myself to head out; I had been wanting to explore the subway, and being underground would at least keep me out of the wind and wet. Moscow has the most amazing subway system I’ve seen yet, and I do love my subway systems. Kiev was also very impressive, and Stockholm wins for inventiveness with its cave-like theme:

But Moscow’s system not only features beautiful art and architecture, it’s also efficient and logical. Even without being able to read the signs very well, or at least very quickly, I was able to find my way anywhere I wanted to go. The order of the day, then, was a subway tour (followed by much café-sitting and cheesecake-eating). Moscow’s subway comprises a ring line, circling the center of the city, and then multiple radial lines extending out from the ring line and intersecting within it. Because it was an admittedly lazy day, I stayed mostly on the ring line, hopping off at each stop, taking a picture or two, and then hopping back on. The trains come at two minute intervals, which was a perfect interval for finding a nice shot and then being on my way. I could have stayed down there much, much longer, but let’s not forget how incredibly lazy the day was.

First of all, I always enjoy the extremely long elevator rides down to the trains. Only in Kiev have I seen trains so far underground. There are probably comparable subways throughout the world, but for me, this is it. People used metro stations as air raid shelters in cities all over Europe, Moscow included, during WWII. What would that have been like? Were the trains still running? Periodically? Could one traverse the city underground, walking along the tracks from station to station? Probably not – I suspect this is just my own subterranean fantasy. Wikipedia will have us know that the first line was opened in 1935 – I should perhaps have read this before I set off on my own – and that, while construction was delayed during the war, it didn’t stop. In fact, the metro system became more active than ever. In 1941, the Council of Ministers located its office on the Mayakovskaya platform – the first deep-level station – and Stalin was known to give speeches there. Here are a couple shots that I particularly like:

After my tour, I surfaced and had a late lunch in my favorite café. It is essential, I’ve found, to locate a favorite café wherever one goes. It’s a home base that is not a hotel room. After another somewhat forced, but very successful, wander, I returned to the same café – why argue with a good thing? – for an evening nibble. Thinking dinner, ending up with cheesecake. When I arrived, the waitress began rattling off what I assumed to be the specials for the evening. I kept hearing “cheesecake” and was quite fascinated with how familiar Russian had become, so I didn’t bother interrupting her. Still under the impression that she’d simply listed some options for me, I nodded in agreement, asked for an English menu, and sat down to contemplate my options. A couple of minutes later, the waitress came over with a cup of coffee. Now, I’m not a coffee drinker. At all. I realized she’d taken what I’d assumed to be a friendly acknowledgement of what I’d assumed to be her listing of the evening’s special as my ordering of the aforementioned coffee and cheesecake. Teach me to assume. So I ended up with my first cup of coffee, which I actually enjoyed, a piece of cheesecake I really would have been crazy to argue with, and some delicious lemonade. Incongruous, but satisfying. And I managed to successfully cancel the pain au chocolat. Boom.

And now I’m home, and still tired. Oh, so tired. Which is why this post begins with subways, ends with coffee, and consists mostly of pictures. Smiley face.