MOSCOW for Victory Day (День Победы)

According to good ol' Wikipedia, Victory day is: The Soviet Victory Day[1] or May 9 marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War (also known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some post-Soviet states). It was first inaugurated in the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union, following the signing of the surrender document late in the evening on 8 May 1945 (9 May by Moscow Time).

Victory is probably the biggest holiday here next to New Year's. You've probably seen the HUGE parade that occurs on Red Square every year that basically showcases Russia's military power.... in an absolutely over -the -top fashion.

Obviously a couple friends and myself wanted to head to Moscow to experience this crazy day first hand.

A little summary of events:

-Our eight hour train ride to Moscow from Petersburg was great. Train was clean, bathroom had toilet paper AND hand-towels ( I know, insane), and besides the unidentifiable red stain I found on the sheets that were given to me , everything went smoothly.
-We arrived in Moscow around 630am, which was great... we were able to figure out the insane Moscow Metro when it wasn't so crowded. Although later it looked like this:



-After visiting Tolstoy's Moscow estate (which had all of his old things almost exactly as they were left), we visited the famous Novodevichy Cemetery, where people such as Yeltsin, Krushchev, Bulgokov, Gogol, Checkov, etc were buried. For a cemetery, it was pretty lively.

-Went to STARBUCKS on Старый Арбат, where I payed for an overly-priced chai tea latte. The 190 rubles was worth it to feel like I was in America for 20 minutes.


My Starbucks cup says "Masha"



- Aaaand after this we decided to check into our hostel to take a little nap... no I'm just kidding. The hostel didn't "receive" our reservation. Uhhh.. Even after we showed the hostel lady our confirmation number that was sent to us through Hostel International she said :" Well, even though you have a number, we don't use Hostel International here. And anyway, theres no space"..Yay! But no fear, we found another hostel next to Старый Арбат so all ended well. The new hostel had a naked baby running around and some Russian teenage boy kept hanging out in our room while we were trying to nap... BUT the place had real beds so I was happy.

-The next day I woke up with a wicked cold but I'm a champion so we left the hostel around 8 to try and see the parade. Everything was closed but we did see the flyover:




-After a lot of walking around we went to see if Red Square was opened (it had been closed for the parade). It finally was! We had to go through 4 security check points- which, sorry Russia, weren't very effective-- glancing into a bag for 3 secs isn't really... "security".

It was a lot smaller than I expected, and full of people waving Soviet Flags...

Anyway here's a pic of me in front of the gorgeous St. Basil's Cathedral:


All in all it was a great trip and I definitely want to go back!


For further enjoyment:

Nastya beat me over the head with an umbrella today. She stopped right before her mom came by the room and gave her mom a big grin. The mom walked away smiling at the fact that the two of us were "getting along".