Moscow to St Petersburg

Day Three. Couldn't get to sleep, couldn't wake up. Nearly missed breakfast again. Porridge with salt. Yummy! Not. Asked reception for maps of town and of underground, as promised in room brochure. She thought that all the maps had gone. There was a Metro map on the counter. I took one.

last view of Moscow

Her colleague told me to take the Metro to Komsomolkaya, and a lady there turned my eticket into a regular ticket. E voila. My route home is certain. And all the trains and boat booked in sequence after that. I can't break the chain.


Sit at Leningradsky station and drink tea for a hour . .
And spotting Krasnye Vorota from the other side I realise how close I came to finding the station yesterday. I find this very comforting.

Get on 2.30 train and now my holiday begins. Enter Zoya and granddaughter Olya, already ensconced in our four bed compartment. She is happy for me to shout " Minutochkoo" every so often as I resort frantically to the dictionary. By 6.30 we have swapped food, mugs, and earrings; have photographed each other and have passed out.

Also discovered a similar passion for tea and the samovar. But by now I have also bought my own little carton of moloko. Above is my last look at Moscow in the January snow. And now I am on the sleeper train to St Petersburg, drinking the tea, and drinking in the dictionary.


passing station at night

Zoya, Olya by samovar

Sadly, just like Moo, a ten minute nap earlier on in the day and I can keep going all night. And I do. At first it's really romantic watching the snowy dachas and little stations in the night. Then I resort to watching the end of the excellent Eric Cantona and Steve Evetts film that Walt left on iPad. After that it's listen again to all the old podcasts of "From Our Own Correspondant". Each one gets me to sleep than I wake to find it's finished and have to set another up. At five, Olya is also awake, shining her mobile torch to see what I am up to. It is still very very romantic, but now sleepless and romantic.









Here we have snow, freight trains, snow, dachas, snow, tea, snow, stations, snow, a setting sun, a train corridor, snow, Zoya and Olya by the samovar, snow, railway tracks, snow, tea, snow, tea, snow . . .

Na Dzrorovye!
And then this slow sleeper train which has stopped at sidings all night en route now gets in half an hour early. We tumble into a cold and very dark Saint Petersburg at 7 am.