Moscow really impressed me. I had expected a much older, decrepit, Lada filled, Soviet-town, but in some ways Moscow is a very Western city. It confuses your brain. You look at the Cyrillic street names and metro stations and feel complete lost. But then you stay in a Radisson hotel, go out for an Italian meal and drink a German beer. I also learned about the enigma that is Russia. One in five people is not of Russian descent, but from one of the many ethnicities including the various Caucasian and Asian peoples.
You can see the melting pot of cultures in the food — we had some good Georgian food one night with red wine from Azerbaijan not recommended. Muscovites were in general friendly, although it really does vary. You get very grumpy taxi drivers and waitresses who never smile but on the other hand there was a really friendly guy in the coffee shop at work.
The Aeroflot crew were particularly emotionless on the flight from Amsterdam. Given the cold weather, Muscovites do have serious winter fashion style. But in fairness Russians do have a taste in footwear and headgear J. Dublin had a bad reputation for taxis up to 10 years ago, but it looks like Moscow now has inherited that title. In most major cities you have no problem picking up a taxi. In Moscow you have to pre-book the taxi and even then it may not show up on time.
Getting from the hotel to the office involved allowing enough buffer time in case the taxi was late or got stuck in traffic which can be bad or even got lost. So we preferred taking the metro, which is one of the wonders of Moscow. There are over stations and trains come every 2 minutes.
The metro must also keep unemployment near zero — there are people idly employed doing all sorts of jobs — including someone at the bottom of each metro who has 2 old phones in their little hut and seem to be there to ring in case the escalator breaks down. The Police You could say Russia is still a police state and given by the number of police on the streets and in the metro, it could be true.
