Day 3: Moscow in Russia Travel Log

The first full day in Moscow was spent on the boat at first. La Professeure had a late start (she still had jet lag), so I got breakfast and checked out various public areas of the ship. Then she met up with me and we worked on a short presentation about having rats as pets.

We got lunch with our parents, and then went off to our first excursion. At this point we were so experienced as cruisers that most of the preparation routines are muscle memory now.

The boat is docked on the Moscow canal at Rechnoy Vokzal. The bus took us a very short distance (maybe 3 minutes walk) to the nearby Riverport Park. We then walked through the park, and then the Friendship Park, to the Metro station. There we took it to Mayakovskaya station to see the decoration of Alexey Dushkin. Then we hop back on the subway to Teatral’naya for the sculptures there, and then Red Square. The subway signs are in Russian and English, and it is like a Rosetta Stone for me to figure out the mapping between Cyrillic and Roman alphabets. I still have no idea what words mean, but at least I know how to spell it.

We spent 1 1/2 hours walking around Red Square. We mostly took pictures of the buildings there: Lenin’s grave, the Red Wall, Saint Basil’s Cathedral, the GUM department store (which was packed and hot because it was a half-price ice-cream day), the historical museum, and wen to the Alexander Park in time to see the end of changing of the guards at the tomb of unknown soldiers. We tried to get some ice-cream but there wasn’t enough time.

We then proceeded a long stretch of walking, across Alexander park, cross the Moscow River on the Borovitskaya Pl., past the library, Pushkin museum, and got picked up at the church of Christ the saviour by our bus. At that point we just sat in the bus, which drove us around town and dropped us off Sparrow Hill for a photo op.

Then it was to the Cultural Center of GlavUpDK for a performance of the Moscov Orchestra. The performance was very entertaining; the performers are graduates of the Moscow conservatory - the conductor is a faculty there and can hand-pick the best students, and it showed. The performers were all technically and musically proficient. It was an hour of music performed on traditional Russian instruments (but most tunes are recognisable to us - like Lara’s theme from Dr Zhivago or Tetris theme). Everyone had a great time. By the time we were done it was already 8:30, and by the time we got back to the boat it was 9:30.

However I got confirmation that I am allowed to use the piano in the ship’s big lounge. Yay.

Last updated March 26, 2020