This is the 12 May 2005 edition of this page, showing the report for this visit.
CHAPTER ONE
From Malvern to Moscow
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Departure, for me, was in the afternoon of Friday, 19th May 1995. A furious
half- day at work was spent in the morning, before I retreated home to make the final
preparations before departure. This trip had been 'blessed' by the people at work.
"So what?" you may ask. If you DO ask that, it's probably because you skipped the
Introduction. Perhaps you had better click on that page before continuing. This was,
indeed, the previously-forbidden land!!!
Thus here I was at home waiting for my taxi from 'Top Cabs' to arrive. It did
so at 1.30pm and took me (as the guy did in 1993 when I was on my way to Norway) to
Malvern Link Station for the princely sum of £2.60. On arrival at the station, my
return-rail-ticket to Paddington, costing a further £35.40, generated the right sort
of change to allow me to pay the taxi-driver.
Inter-City whisked me off to London (where it arrived at 4.20pm) with only a
quarter- hour hitch at Oxford. Our driver's schedules meant that he had to be
replaced by someone else. HE regained ALL the lost time between Slough and Paddington.
I was due to leave London the following day, so I went to the Border Hotel in Norfolk
Square for my overnight stop (privately arranged). A new badly-informed Australian
receptionist worried me by saying that I would have to confirm the flight and NOT
go two hours before its scheduled takeoff - as Instone's instructions had indicated.
Her new guidelines worried me until I rang the 'Instone' number from Paddington
Station. They set my mind at rest, - the Aussie was wrong!
I then mooched around Paddington and its streets and also got some food for
tomorrow's en-route-breakfast [because of the 'early start'!]. The Aussie girl had
told me that they can't do breakfasts that early. I believed her this time.
Unfortunately, they don't do packed-breakfasts in lieu. She charged me the balance
for tonight (£15) as I'd already paid the œ20 deposit for my two nights at the
'Border' (one on the way out - and one on the way back from Russia).
To pass the time and keep me amused in my little room [never been in this one in
the Border before] I decided to watch some British TV before going to sleep. Later,
after BBC's "999" - and being duly impressed - I turned in for the night earlier than
usual. I am normally a 'late to bed guy' - but tomorrow will be somewhat earlier than
usual - with a time-critical connection at Heathrow. It'll be completely different
from anywhere else that I've ever been!!
I awoke in plenty of time. "TODAY'S THE DAY".A new country. A new experience.
Having risen at 5.30 a.m., I was ready at 5.45 a.m. for departing from the hotel for
an Underground Train between 6.00 and 6.30 a.m.. I need to check-in at Heathrow at
7.30 a.m (i.e. 2 hours before the flight. As the hotel cannot provide any breakfast
at this early hour, I will be consuming some items that I bought at a local shop last
night. Thus my 'English' breakfast, before travel to Russia, consists of Belgian
Frangipanes plus American Cherry muffins. Yum -- Yum !!
So I now know that the English impression of an American Muffin is a 'fruit
cake'. (I suppose this is our retaliation for the american's manufactured impression
of an English Muffin which turned out (several years ago) to be a 'crumpet' (- as we
know it) sawn down to half-thickness!! Surely there ought to be an 'International law'
against this sought of thing (it's called misrepresentation!!).
Fully feeling that this is to be a "day-of-difference", a day that will start to
give me new insights into 'alien cultures', I left my room at 6.0 a.m. and reached
the Bakerloo Line ticket-machine at 6.05 a.m (that shows the closeness of the hotel
to the Station!). I fed in my "Ticket-type" ('Adult single' seemed an appropriate
selection from the menu it offered), the "Destination" (I selected 'Heathrow 1,2,3')
- and- after a period of electronic bleeping - it displayed the amount (£3.10) which
it required. (I had already played with this machine last night to enquire what it
would need today!) The amount decremented with each coin that I inserted, and when
the final coin was inserted it decided to issue my ticket - although not from the
orifice expected!!
I boarded the train at 6.10 a.m. for the 6-station journey to the 'change' at
Piccadilly Circus (where I arrived at 6.30) for the Piccadilly Line out to the
airport. That 'Line' would give me a longer ride of 20 further stations to Heathrow.
I arrived there at 7.20 a.m. and acquired a trolley for the journey to the 'departure
area' of 'Terminal 1'. Eventually, I found an (unannotated) check-in desk for Moscow.
[This is IT, Roy!! It gets very 'specific' from here on!]
Having cleared 'Check-in' and a hand-baggage X-Ray check, I progressed by
stepping through a 'personnel' detector which bleeped. "Must be the keys", I guessed.
Whatever it was, it gave a guy (unfortunately) the excuse to 'frisk' me. Having
recollected the hand-baggage, I then went for a ten microsecond (well, damned short
anyway!) Passport Check. Well, it was a British Passport!!
Proceeding to the "International Departures" lounge, I then awaited the screen's
display of what gate I would need for flight number BA872. I had already answered
questions about the contents of my main case at the original 'checkin desk' - and the
long wait in the generic departure lounge enabled me to catch up with toiletry and
other matters - including writings into diaries and note-book. During this period,
I also had swigs of orange squash (brought from Malvern) to help my air-sickness
tablets (two Stugeron) down.
Whilst in the 'holding pattern' in the International Departure Lounge, I watched
the multi-coloured VDUs giving the data-base fields of 'Flight No.', 'Departure Time',
'Destination', 'Message' and 'Gate No.'. The messages could be one of 'wait in lounge',
'go to..', 'last call' or 'boarding at..' When I travelled from Terminal 3 in 1993
(to Norway) and 1994 (to Iceland) the displays had been Black & White. Now, however,
we have more presentable colour displays with more information - like "Terminal One
International Departures" [at the top], "Day and Date" [bottom left] and "Time" [at
the bottom right]. It was now 8.32am on Saturday 20 May 1995.
I still await the 'Gate Instructions' to get to my aircraft (but they don't
display the aircraft-type which one still has to read about when one gets to one's
seat). I have already reserved a non-smoking seat, 13F, a window-seat which I prefer.
Halfway through writing my airport notes ready for this book, the 'assignment' to
Gate 24 arrived on the screen and came over the PA system.
Having travelled the journey (on foot) to Gate 24, had my 'boarding-card' marked
and had my presence, as "13 FOX", mentioned by the guy to the girl with the paperwork,
I then sat down in a VERY BIG lounge at 8.40 a.m..
There I waited, and waited, and WAITED, - then the disabled and a few other
people, with difficulties, got on the 'plane'. After a wait of a few minutes,
'Rows 25-40' were called to enter - then 'Rows 10 onwards' (that includes me folks)
had our turn!! Listening to the conversations, some people were speaking English and
some German. Both in the lounge, and in the plane later, the talk was of 'Bird
Watching' (globally - not parochially).
On arrival at my seat, - not a 'window-seat' or where I had expected it, I moved
twice and then eventually was able to see the documentation (in the pocket in front
of me) concerning our route and aircraft. So this is a Boeing 767, my first experience
of one of these great aircraft! The seating format is "AB DEF JK", so you can see
that 13F is an 'aisle- seat'.
Shortly after take-off, the guy in the next seat to me (E13) moved off to
somewhere else and swapped his seat with a girl having an American accent. (I didn't
actually find out until a little later when she asked me a question!) This is what our
great orgy of 'seat- swapping' produced. Due to moving time-zones, I put my digital
watch ON three hours, - followed by putting it BACK three minutes due to its
accumulated 'gains' in the UK
In the skies above Berlin (approximately) I made a necessary visit to one of the
toilets. I can't pinpoint the spot exactly, as we are cruising at 37000 feet at a
speed of 540mph. As we weren't "standing in the station", by any stretch of the
imagination, I activated the flushing mechanism. [Even if we had had an 'outside
toilet' the flush would have distributed the contents over quite an area! However,
believe it or not, the '767' has inside toilets! Boeing really knows how to make
aeroplanes!]
Thereafter, we had the typically beautiful British Airways meals. I don't know
what the specific components were, but there was a 'meat course', plenty of salad
items, coffee, cheese, fruit-juices etc..
The remnants of this feast were cleared away over an hour before our scheduled
landing. I had my first sight of Moscow from low-level at, just about, 4pm with
touchdown at 4.02pm.
In the terminal building, there were TEN parallel queues for 'checkin' - ALL
proceeding at about zero velocity (slower than I'd ever seen it in all my travels!).
"Sod's Law", I can add, still applies in Russia - as my chosen queue was the slowest
of the lot!!!
The first Russian that I conversed with (albeit very briefly) was the girl on
the arrivals desk with Passport/Visa Control. Mind you; before I got that far, there
was an eternity in these multiple queues whilst the Russians taught themselves about
people-processing (in a visitor-context)!! During that eternity, there was plenty of
time to talk with fellow-passengers on our cruise. I spent the most time talking with
David and Non from South Wales. I spoke with them both before and after the
arrival-control, or whatever it's called in Russia.
Four people didn't turn up, so we went eventually, at 5.25pm, to the coach (my
first 'Intourist' vehicle - and we got a lot of these during our Russian Tour!!) Our
tour was by INSTONE, and there were many other Instone Groups, here, for a variety of
tours. Our Intourist Bus moved off at 5.35pm, taking us to our boat. Our boat, the
"Russ", had 29 people for it from our plane. Twenty minutes was all it took to get
there (the courier giving descriptions of interesting places en-route) from the
airport in NW Moscow to the canal in the inner part of NW Moscow.
There were a lot of cruise boats lined up at the canal terminal as the
Photo-collection shows. I arrived at my cabin (No 437) on board the"Russ" (that's
the anglicised spelling - rather than the Cyrillic Script version!!) at 6.05pm - very
hot and sweaty due to the wait at the airport and the temperature inside the bus.
After quickly arranging a few items in my cabin I got out into the fresh Moscow
air to walk and enjoy the scene at the water's edge - and their magnificent Terminal
Building. Down at the water's edge, and on the promenade, I walked and took a number
of photos which are shown in the 'RUSSIA" album. In particular, I took a fancy to the
Terminal building (constructed between 1933 & 1937) - not only photographing it, but
making a number of visits to it during our days in Moscow. Sorry not to have Cyrillic
script on my word-processor, but the description of the annotation really needs it!!
It shows that the building is to celebrate the opening of the VOLGA-MOSCOW canal at
that time.
River Terminal and Promenade
We had our evening meal at random tables rather than those which, later, would
be assigned to individuals. There was a good selection - but no options!! George &
Peggy, from the USA, joined me at my random table. The MS Russ and the MS Lenin
(again, sorry about no Cyrillic characters) were like two-peas-in-a-pod and lined up
side-by-side in the canal by the promenade. (Essentially, double-parking!). I decided
to walk along the quay-side (just like in the West) - and its attractiveness was
appealing. The opposite side of the quay to the canal was a wooded area, and a
ventured a slow walk through its attractive scenery. (Nice views over the water too!!).
On board the "Russ", I noticed the boat's schedule on a notice-board - and it
seems to refer to the old 'impossible' route-timings, as published by Instone's
before their modification after some of us had queried the schedule. About this time,
my mind hit a spell of considerable confusion, caused by my apparent loss of (a) my
own printed schedule, (b) my photo-record book etc.. I couldn't recall whether they
were still at home, on the boat, in the Border hotel or on the 767 aircraft!!! Maybe
they were somewhere else, - the mind was too tired and confused to think!! Where did
they get lost?? Too complicated to solve now, Roy - it's time you went to bed!!
Overnight, there was considerable whining from the generators either on the
"Russ" or its sister-ship.
In the early morning of the 21st May, there was quite a lot of noise from the
corridor outside the cabin - somewhat before 7.30 a.m (still, I presume, the 'quiet'
hours). Maybe, I thought, it's the 'First sitting' breakfast people. Basically, one
learns, quite quickly, that there are two sorts of people on this planet. Firstly,
there are the 'quiet people' and secondly, there are the voluble Americans. Not all
Americans are included in this sweeping statement, - just the significant majority!!
If you can't beat them, join them!! I went for a coffee in the bar before
breakfast - which appears to be a Russian custom - and joined an American couple (a
quiet nicely spoken friendly pair of people). Later, we were joined by an English
couple. All these encounters were at a randomly chosen table, but, for breakfast,
we were shown to our permanently assigned tables (Number 9 for me) and eating partners. My group of travellers contained a Yorkshireman (more about him later) who was partly deaf - and an American couple. The Americans who were very pleasant quietly spoken individuals, introduced themselves as the 'Pastors' - namely Priscilla and Al. Al was a great guy and we became the best of Travelling- buddies for the trip (more about that later, as time goes on).
The Yorkshire guy's name was Eric and he spoke fluent Russian to our waitresses
(this being his eighth or ninth visit).
After breakfast, we picked up our packed lunches and joined our courier (Lydia)
on bus 6 (which covered tables 5 - 11). This coach had cracked windscreens but it was
an 'unknown' company ('Intourist') who had let them get in that state!!
We drove off to a Metro-Station and went for a ride for a couple of stops
before getting off at an interchange station (under Lydia's guidance). We were to
wander about this station for a considerable time, - as everyone had heard of the
'beauty' of the Moscow underground stations! This one had 'works of art', statues
- and a tremendous decor. Pillars were a tasteful mixture of marble, onyx and most
precious stones that you could care to name. The ceilings had 'art-work' covering
them depicting a wide variety of tableaux.
All too soon, really, we had to catch another train. Eric, our partially deaf
Yorkshire- man, walked uneasily with a stick (also partially crippled) - at a great
rate-of-knots (even up and down the many stairs in the subways). Kind folks gave him
assistance on the supersonic escalators. They were very quick, - a great surprise to
all of us!!
Let's carry on the way by going to Red Square!!
or Return to Russian index for reorientation.
or Return to Roy's home page for full list of books and other writings either finished or under preparation.
EMail (?) to: Roy's Location.