Russian museums have rather unpredictable opening times. On one hand this is a good thing as they are nearly all open on the weekends when most people can see them. However it then means you turn up at one to find it is the 3rd Monday after a new moon with the wind coming from an Easterly direction that has resulted in it closing. This meant we couldn’t see the Old English Court, the English Embassy in Moscow when there was still such a thing as English embassies, but we did go to the House of the Boyar Romanovs next door. This was where the Romanovs lived before they hit the big time. It was actually fairly modest and consisted of several small rooms in a two storey house. I rather liked the décor, 17th century red and black, as well as the maze-like layout.
I wished we were staying at the Romanov house as out hostel gets thumbs down. Our room was tiny, and barely fit in the 6 beds, and people outside talked all night. Sleep was not forthcoming. Then the most unattractive specimens of the male form insisted on walking around only in towels. We were glad to leave…
We visited the Convent which was mostly lost on me. It was basically a collection of churches and at best I have a marked disinterest in these, and at worst an active dislike and thus end up in a bad mood.
We went to the Cemetery next door which cheered me up. We had gone with the intent on finding the graves of Shostakovich, Chekhov and Krushchev but as there were a great deal many graves, were only successful in finding Chekhov, although I believe we were mere metres away from Shostakovich…
We left Moscow that evening on the Grand Express. Mum and I had a VIP cabin which was very swish. The beds were huge and soft, which was nice, nice, nice after the hostel. We were served breakfast in our cabin early the next day and finally at 8:35 arrived in our last stop: St Petersburg.
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