After a leisurely breakfast of cream cakes and slices of grapefruit (more on Russian breakfasts later) we got a taxi to Moskovskiy station and stowed our luggage (this was not without incident, as you'll see). Then, as we were in the right part of town, we visited the Dostoyevsky House museum, based in the house where he spent the last few years of his life. It was detailed and informative, even to details of the blood that rushed into his mouth as he died, and quite poignant to see his hat sitting in a glass case as you go into the museum (he had the most enormous head). He seemed to be a modest and compassionate type as well as having a huge intellect.

We then went to the Hermitage, which is enormous. It's overwhelming, the amount of Russian and foreign treasures you can find there. It took us about fifteen minutes to get our bearings before we could make our way to the state rooms in the Winter Palace, which are awe-inspiring, tasteless, magnificent and grotesque (see pic left). The Malachite Room is, as its name would suggest, covered with pillars and decorations made with green malachite stone. There's another drawing room totally covered in gilt, another of white marble pillars and balconies... it's impossible to describe. Not to mention all the paintings and sculptures... by Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, Monet and Michelangelo, just to name a few. You couldn't begin to see all it has to offer in half a doaen visits - the wealth the Romanovs must have possessed is stupendous. I loved the tables covered in beautiful lapis lazuli... you have to concentrate on details or you wouldn't see anything.

After a well-earned beer timed to escape the sudden rain shower that decided to start as we left the Hermitage, we had a quick stroll around one or two of the canals and bridges that criss-cross St Petersburg, then went to Bogart's again for some food and more beer. Very nice place with a resident cat that darts in and out.

We then made our way to Moskovskiy station, collected our luggage (we had to get the supervisor to open the lockers up for us, as we'd stupidly programmed the combination on the outside door rather than the inside!) and got on the little red train that was to be our lodgings for the night (see pic right). It was great - everything you could need in the most compact space possible. Breakfast thrown in, in the form of a cardboard box full of goodies; tea in glasses in decorated iron holders. Neither of us is sure how much we slept - the night was a blur of the sound of the wheels, far off voices, drifting in and out of sleep. It was weird arriving into Moscow at 8am, but that's another story...

So... we arrived in Moscow slightly bleary-eyed and left our luggage in the Left Luggage Office... that's right. No more confusing lockers for us. That done, we got the Metro towards the centre, aiming to do some general sightseeing until we could check into our hotel.

After admiring the Bolshoi theatre (home of the ballet, natch) we then went for a wander in the shopping area around Petrovsky Street. It felt quite strange to be out doing the tourist thing before 9am, but the shops soon started to open, and a restorative Coke in the nearest McDonalds (hey, it was open and had free, clean toilets) helped us wake up.

On that subject...

But anyway, having jogged through a sudden torrential downpour, we arrived at the GUM shopping centre (see pic right). Once the epitome of Soviet food queues, this is now a smart and chic celebration of capitalism. Every major designer label is represented, along with several other well-known western high street standards... GUM is absolutely enormous. Here, we learned something very important about Moscow... it's very expensive. Ordering cappuccinos in one of the GUM cafes, we were initially impressed by the high quality of the coffee, but imagine our laughing surprise when the waitress brought us a bill for over six quid! We're well beyond that student time of life where an unexpectedly overpriced meal or snack can mess up your day, so we just giggled a lot and kept the receipt as a souvenir.

Noticing that the rain had now stopped, we went out into Red Square. It looks every bit as impressive and expansive in real life as it does on TV or in glossy guide books. What we hadn't realised is that the name *Red* Square has nothing to do with communism... the Russian word originally meant "beautiful" before it came to refer to the colour red as well. We only had a quick and superficial wander around the square at this point, but the differences between Moscow and St Petersburg were immediately apparent. Moscow is a lot less polluted... there's plenty of traffic, probably much more than in St Petersburg, but the majority of it is allowed to flow efficiently round a system of wide boulevards and orbital routes, meaning that you can usually walk several blocks in any direction before encountering heavy traffic. Moscow is also conspicuously far richer than the northern city. A decent proportion of the old buildings are in good condition and there are plenty of glistening, bold new constructions all over the city.

After picking up our luggage, we navigated our way across the Metro system to Izmailovsky Park, where our hotel was situated. By the time we got there, it was raining again. Real, serious downpourage. Peering round from the station exit, we could see "Hotel Izmailovo" on a sign, so we made a dash for it, not realising how far we'd have to go. The Izmailovo (see pic left) was built for the 1980 Olympics and is made up of five huge tower blocks - Alpha, Beta, Vega, Gamma and Delta (following the letters of the Russian alphabet). We were in Delta, which is combined with Gamma to create one superhotel with a number of restaurants, shops, bars and various other facilities. By the time we got there, we were pretty well soaked through, and things weren't helped by Miss Personality-Free on the front desk, who told us that we'd have to wait five minutes before we could check in, as they were on their break. On their break? The entire front desk staff? In a 24-hour, 8000-bed hotel? Right.

Speaking of which, Russians seem to have the same approach to the concept of public service as we do in Britain... it's a reluctantly provided extra, and the quality depends very much on the individual who serves you. There's no US-style "have a nice day" culture here, and we've come across the full range, from friendly, helpful cafe waitresses to humourless hotel receptionists.

Hotel Izmailovo provided us with another interesting insight into Russian hotel life. The breakfasts...

Anyway, after a quiet night in, avoiding the torrential rain, we set off for our first full day exploring Moscow...

We had quite a slow start as usual, as we seem to be sleeping later and later, and it was 9:20 before I woke up, and got up straight away. Adrian was a bit tense that morning and had been the night before [Adrian notes... the after-effect of some pretty crazy work schedules the week before we went away] but he got up not much after me. We made our way into town after one of those breakfasts... to be fair to the hotel, they have to provide food on a massive scale, given the number of guests, but that doesn't explain why rice, cooked veg and other things not normally associated with breakfast are provided, or why people are eating it in enormous quantities! We got to town and found Red Square and the Kremlin all blocked off; the reasons weren't entirely clear, but seemed partly down to the visit of some dignitary and partly because the siege in the school in South Ossetia had ended the day before, not without a fair amount of bloodshed, unfortunately. The Russians always seem to take the line of most resistance, giving up on negotiation and ending things with gunfire. I suppose the kids had been caught in the school for several days, so there would have been casualties from thirst and malnutrition if it hadn't ended reasonably soon.

Instead, we wandered round the area north of the Kremlin, known as Kitay Gorod. This is an old part of town linked to the fortress and protected by it from the Mongols etc. Very picturesque, with lots of little old houses and monasteries, all overshadowed by the enormous (Soviet-built) Hotel Rossiya, looming overhead incongruously (see pic left). Returning to see if we could get into the Kremlin, we found that access was only possible with guided tours, so we decided to try again the next day. We spent the afternoon following a route which covered sites relating to Russian art, architecture and literature. This included a pleasant stroll down the Tverskoy Boulevard, where two of Tolstoy's characters walk in 'War and Peace', past the church where poor old Pushkin got married and past the house where Gorky lived for a while.

It was here that Sergey, a Russian soldier came and spoke to us. All Russian lads do two years military service, and Sergey certainly wasn't too keen on it. We had a long chat with him... he seemed lonely and keen to practise his English, and had some interesting observations about life in Moscow and Russia. Apparently, there's a secret Metro station in the White House (the Moscow one... more about that later) where all the top brass would escape from if something bad happened. Sergey also told us that normal Russians know very little about what the government does and what happens in the rest of the vastness that is the Russian Federation.

Finishing our walk round the literary sights, we found a cafe, had a beer and then went off in search of Pizza Express, being in need of something not potato-based. Not finding it it the location given by our guidebook, we wandered around for what seemed like hours and ended up in the same little Ikea-laden bar we started in. Once again, we didn't stay out late... retraced our steps back to the Soviet monstrosity and read until bedtime, regretting that we didn't try the Russian champagne available very cheaply (about £4 a bottle!) on room service.