By KMorris117
Every semester, my program schedules a trip for all of the students to Moscow. It is always very exciting because it is the first time we are allowed out of St. Petersburg. For the first 7-8 weeks, our Passports/Visas are going through the Russian bureaucracy and getting both extended and changed to multi-entry. So as much as we all love Petersburg, we were all very excited for the chance to travel and see something new.
We boarded a train on Wednesday night at about 11pm. The sleeper train, which was small yet comfortable, arrived to Moscow by 8:30 the next morning. Running on little sleep but lots of coffee, we then hopped on a bus for a tour of the city. This is where I found the first major different between Moscow and Petersburg: traffic. There are cars in St. Petersburg, but there are SO MANY CARS in Moscow. It was like sitting in New York rush hour traffic. Still, we got to ride around and see different spots throughout the city, many that we visited again for detailed tours later on in the trip. It was pretty cool seeing the iconic sites, like the Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral. Also by driving around the first day, we got a better sense of the layout and size of the city. Moscow is huge. It is about 3x larger than St. Petersburg and much more spread out. To be honest, it looked like any other metropolitan city. I did not get the same sense of culture that I do in St. Petersburg, but of course it was only the first day.
We get the rest of that night off to nap and explore for ourselves. The next morning, we went to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, it is considered one of the most elite universities in Russia. A large majority of current Russian ambassadors and many government officials graduated from this university, and it was incredibly interesting to hear about the institution. We also heard a few talks from different professors regarding current US-Russian relations. After that, a small group of us headed out to the House of Moscow Oblast Government. The huge glass building hosts the Moscow regional government and the Governor of Moscow Oblast. In comparison to many of the old buildings that Moscow has, this one is very new and very modern. We got to sit down and chat with an official about some projects they are working on for the region, and it was a very interesting afternoon.
The next day we visited the place where all the power resides: The Kremlin. The Kremlin is more than just a building; it is a collection of churches and cathedrals, museums, administrative buildings, and the official residence of President Putin. It was pretty surreal walking around a place with so much history and, as an International Affairs and Security Policy major, a place that I have read and written so much about. We had an excellent and very knowledgeable tour guide who knew some of the most interesting facts about the complex. We later saw the Changing of the Guards ceremony outside The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and it was very much like the procedure out at Arlington. It was very nice that day, so we walked around and spent the rest of the day exploring the city.
After visiting The Museum of Contemporary Russian History the next morning, we all parted ways to go enjoy our “Travel Week” or Spring Break. I visited both Georgia and Prague, and I will discuss them both in detail in a later post.
To wrap this up, I wanted to give me over impressions of Moscow. To be honest, I did not love it at first. There is so much hype when it comes to Moscow and Muscovites, but to me it felt like a very normal, very big city. However, it grew on me. As we began to see more of the city, I was able to see why people enjoy it so much. It is incredibly fast-paced and there is more diversity than St. Petersburg. It was a less exciting Russian version of New York, but there is still some intrigue that comes with learning and exploring it. I am debating another weekend trip out there just because I feel like I only got a small taste of the city, and I think I could find some spots I really enjoy if I go back again. Still, I can say I favor St. Petersburg a bit more, and was incredibly excited to return back home to it after my travel week ended.