I arrived in Moscow in the kind of cold that feels less like weather and more like a personal reprimand. The journey from Los Angeles was a marathon of waiting—in airport terminals, on airplanes, and finally in a blessedly half-empty Transaero flight where I could stretch out.
My first taste of the famous Moscow Metro was one of bewildered awe. The stations were like palatial ballrooms, all marble and mosaics, but the signs were a cryptic Cyrillic puzzle. This, combined with my own spectacularly flawed sense of direction, led to a farcical hour-long search for my hostel. I crossed the same icy crosswalk three times, asking unhelpful people for directions, before sheepishly consulting a kiosk map and finding the place was, naturally, a two-minute walk away. I dumped my bags and rushed to the Bolshoi, catching a beautifully classic opera in a temporary theater. I learned two things that night: Russian opera sets are wonderfully elaborate, and Russian applause is a slow, stately clap, not the frantic, seat-of-the-pants racket we make in America.
For the next couple of days, I embarked on the time-honored ritual of the solitary sightseer: walking until my feet ached, looking slightly lost, and taking an endless series of photographs of myself looking cold in front of famous things. I wandered through the Kremlin’s shadow, browsed the fantastical, Christmas-lit cavern of the GUM department store, and haggled amiably for Soviet trinkets at the Izmailovsky market. I paid a small fortune for a modest lunch of lamb and salmon from a vendor, then had to chase the man down to get my correct change. “Honest mistake,” he smiled. “Haha,” I agreed, without conviction.
I made pilgrimages to the gold-domed Christ the Savior Cathedral and the absurdly colossal statue of Peter the Great, who stared out over the frozen city as if mildly disappointed by the plumbing. A quest to find the panoramic view from Sparrow Hills was foiled by thick fog and my own navigational incompetence, so I consoled myself with a walk down Arbat Street and a sobering visit to the immense obelisks of Victory Park.
On my final evening, I decided to splurge. I took an elevator to a sky bar on the 31st floor of a tower, where I spent a truly astonishing sum on two cocktails with names like “Black Rain.” The view over Moscow’s glittering sprawl was worth every ruble. Later, back at the hostel, I sipped a beer that tasted, well, like beer, and chatted with a fellow traveler just in from the Trans-Siberian Railway. He was full of promising tales. Now, as I write this, I am packed and ready. The room is quiet save for the hum of the television. My head is full of images of onion domes, snow-dusted parks, and gilded theaters. A faint headache, perhaps from the altitude of the sky bar or the lingering ghost of that Russian vodka I bought as a test, nudges at my temples. In a few hours, I’ll board a train for Beijing, ready to trade Moscow’s winter grandeur for the rhythmic clatter of rails across Siberia.
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