MOSCOW Oct. 7-12, 2006Sad but true I arrived home from Moscow today. Annie and I will write a joint report about the Kremlin Cup, so I won’t go into any detail here but maybe some more general travel details are of interest to some of you. One tip in advance: If you ever go to Moscow, don’t fly with Aeroflot!
Apart from shattered kneecaps due to severe lack of space, they also don’t seem to be too reliable as you will read.
My Moscow experience started rather slow – with a 5 hour delay due to foggy weather in Russia. Therefore Jesse (my non-tennis-watching husband) and I arrived on Saturday close to midnight. Thanks to Annie, a taxi was already waiting for us so we had an easy time getting to our hotel. Spasiba, love!!!
Arriving at the Hotel Kosmos was quite an experience. The place is huge (25 floors and more than 1000 rooms) and also houses a casino. The façade glittered like a Christmas tree! It felt like being in Las Vegas! Slot machines we displayed in the hallway and people in evening dresses hung out in the various bars. Bizarre! We made it to our room in the 24th floor by 2am and went straight to bed since we had a date on Sunday morning with the Admin.
Hotel by day and by night:
Right on time at 10 am Annie was waiting for us in the lobby. It was sooo much fun to finally meet her! She had arranged everything for a convenient stay: She had gotten us Metro passes and even a Russian SIM card for Jesse’s cell phone so he could be in touch with us while roaming the Moscow streets. Eternal thanks for all, Annie! ;D ;D
Sunday was my only chance to refresh some old Moscow memories so the three of us did a little sightseeing tour. We strolled along the old Arbat street , visited the big cathedral that was rebuilt in 2000,
walked along the Moskva river
and ended up at the Kremlin, right in time for the change of the guards at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.
The Red Square was closed for the public, so we just got a glimpse of it. Annie took us along some back roads and we ended up in front of a nice restaurant, the Café Pushkin. Here our ways parted since Annie had family duties. Jesse and I had a real Russian meal and checked out St. Basil’s church
and the shopping mall GUM before heading back to our hotel. When I visited Moscow in 1990, the only thing that was for sale in GUM were Jeans – one model, one size only, with people queuing up for them! Nowadays, GUM is a VERY exclusive mall with designer after designer. A shopping heaven! Things have definitely changed…
The one thing that hasn’t changed is the Moscow metro. The cars still seem to be the same as 16 years ago, noisy wooden affairs. But they are the most convenient mode of transport in the city – once you got the hang on the Cyrillic station names! The escalators going down to the stations were truly impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever been so far underground for public transportation!
What also hasn’t changed is the language barrier. Some road signs are in Cyrillic and Latin these days but for most of the time it’s extremely hard to decipher anything. Also, the majority of the Moscovites don’t seem to understand or speak English. Jesse found out the hard way – he got lost in the city and wasn’t able to get any help since no-one understood him! Poor guy. He still had a good time and checked out the Kremlin and various museums while I was out drooling over hot tennis players.
Talking about tennis: Maybe I can say a few words about the stadium. The Olympic stadium is an impressive affair, a reminder of the Olympic Games 1980. For the Kremlin Cup, the stadium was divided into the Center Court, three small courts, a training court and the VIP area without any problems; that should give you an idea about the dimension of the place. The interior apparently hasn’t changed since 1980, though – the stadium is in a state of slow decay, especially the back passages that we had to take, e.g. to get to the rest rooms or to our sitting area. I suppose they’ll either have to renovate soon or build a new venue.
Pic of the toilet guard (he fell asleep later on and was loudly snoring when I walked by ;D):
The only other non-tennis activity I did was going out for dinner with Annie and Jesse on Monday night. He had Georgian food in a cute restaurant – cute, that is, if you sit in the back room like we did. They had a live band in the main dining area and they played so loud that one got the impression of being on a New Year’s Eve party, not in a restaurant on a quiet Monday night! ;D ;D ;D
Our flight back today started fairly uneventful until we reached the runway – just to return due to engine problems! It was impressive how fast they found a new plane for us, though. “Just” 2 hours late this time! And on top of it I flew back home with Misha Zverev (he nearly beat Marat in Bangkok, maybe a few of you remember that) so I prolonged my tennis experience a bit by talking to him. He is a young Russian who lives in Germany and also plays for Germany. Quite talented young man.
Okay that’s it. The real interesting stuff will be in the fan thread, write to you later.
......maybe i should be more adventorous and tell some!!!! 
Sixpack guard 
Apart from shattered kneecaps due to severe lack of space, they also don’t seem to be too reliable as you will read.