Central Asia Part I - Behind the (now defunct) iron curtain in Москва!

My trip for summer 2013 was as follows: London-Moscow-Almaty-Bishkek-Karakol-Bishkek-Almaty-Moscow-London. Basically I was going to meet Martin in the northern stans as part of his trip across Asia, an area i'd never been to before.

I left LHR on Friday 23-Aug and flew Transaero airlines, selected on cost and the fact that they are one of the few airlines flying to the area that are of international grade! One of my co-passengers was quite clear about how things work on Transaero... 'This is Russian airlines. You do what you want. No rules in Russia.'

First up was a 24 hour stopover in Moscow... a taster stopover as I refer to it. Once i'd figured out that I needed a metro map with both western and Cyrillic script I was fine... This is to be able to follow notes for where I wanted to go and actually understand the directions in Russian in the metro... Obvious I hear you say!

I arrived in town in an absolute downpour... but still managed to head out for a few photos around Red Square and the Kremlin after a quick bite.

St Basil's Cathedral at night

The weather on the Saturday was crap, so I sacked the idea of staying outside or visiting the Kremlin (one for another visit) and went on a tour of the much lauded metro. My inspiration came from the following very informative write up... http://listsoften.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/ten-stations-of-moscow-metro.html

I was expecting the entire stations to be the attraction but in fact the interesting part of the Moscow metro is really only the platforms. This is where the artistic effort has been made. Each station is different, with the style inspired by period, location, architect, or quite simply whim... It's truly wonderful to visit!

Komsomolskaya metro station

Belorusskaya metro station

After a few hours I got rather hungry and headed off for a late lunch at the famous Cafe Pushkin. Food is good but overpriced, however you're paying for the service and the decor (which are both fantastic!). There's even an old iron lift to get upstairs... still in service!

Cafe Pushkin

By late afternoon it was time to head back to Vinokovo airport for my overnight flight to Kazakhstan.