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We arrived at Moscow's Domodedovo airport at two a.m, just about twenty-four hours after we left Darlington. It was a trip that involved an overnight bus ride to London, a lucky escape from the July 7th London terrorist bombings, a flight from London to Zurich with a long layover, and finally a rather easy approach and landing into Moscow, with us at each step trying to catch up on sleep but getting wearier and wearier.

Taxis fares from Domodedovo Airport to Moscow locations

As we exited from the customs area we obviously had in mind quickly getting to our new apartment in Moscow. Nonetheless when the taxi-drivers spotted us we didn't jump right into one. We knew better than to take a taxi into an unknown city especially in the middle of the night. Our experience in Kiev of being taken for a joyride three times as long as necessary would have been enough to act with prudence. But we had also been forewarned by Frederick, from whom we were subletting; he advised taking a train. Thus when Gerry was offered (in English, of course) a ride for $100 he knew it was ridiculous. Equally ridiculously, he offered $10, hoping a desperate Russian would accept. Later we learned two things: there are no Russians desperate enough to lower the price. And the official price is $40 (1200 roubles).

So we turned to getting our bearings. Domodedovo airport is new and modern and even at three o'clock in the morning was a reasonably pleasant place to be. We washed up and found a cash machine, getting our first look at real Russian rubles and no longer feeling penniless (roubless?).

We then started to look around for transportation. We saw a board that alternated between English and Russian; in English it was easy to read the taxi prices and confirm our suspicion: we'd saved ourselves the certainty of paying of 2.5 times the price and unknown hassles at the end, at the mercy of an unknown driver in a city whose layout was completely strange to us.

Next, we found what we were really looking for. At the far end of the single, rather long arrivals/departure hall there were several booths and signs that indicated to us train service. Unfortunately the booths were closed but in a while someone came and Jan in halting Russian was able to work out the details. There was a local train service starting at 6 a.m. arriving at 7:30 and a luxury express train service starting at 8 a.m. arriving at 9:00. Since the slow train was one-fifth the cost of the express and would get us there earlier it was an easy decision. After our long journey, two and a half hours didn't seem too long to wait for the ticket office to open. So we found two chairs and took turns nodding off to be sure that no-one would try to steal our bags.

Commuter train, Domodedovo to Moscow

The ticket office opened right on schedule and the purchasing process wasn't too complicated. Half an hour later, the doors to the platforms opened and the train to Moscow was sitting there waiting, proving that our fears of late departure were wrong. The train was extra-wide to our U.S./European eyes, but standard-width for Russia. It's one of the few things left over from Soviet days that we appreciated. It wasn't a very fancy train, but it was clean and comfortable enough for our tired old bones that we had a really hard time staying awake as the train gently chugged us toward Moscow.

Gerry especially tried to keep awake, excited about first impressions of Moscow. Before we departed the sky had already lightened. We got to see a the flat landscape, with many birch trees, and very low density compared to other captial cities we know. The train stopped in almost every station, picking up commuters. By the time we arrived the train was full of Muscovites travelling to the city center for a day's work.

We arrived at Paveletskaya Station; later we would pass through the station and surrounds many times but this first time was a complete mystery. We knew that we had to take the circular metro line three stations to get to Kievskaya Stansiya (Kiev Station) but we didn't know how. Jan, as she would regret more and more, got the job of trying to ask questions. (Here we began to learn an important lesson about the metro: Russians here are not quick to take your hand and help you. There are exceptions, but in the crowded metro we didn't encounter them.) With her limited Russian Jan managed to mumble her way through a question and answer session and came away with a card good for ten rides that she thought she understood could be used by two people. Gerry wasn't too happy with the lack of certainty.

The next challenge was to get from the ticket booth to the platform. We hauled our bags over to the ticket gates and found that we didn't know how to insert the ticket. With the help of one of the attendants we managed to get us and our baggage through the gate — on the one card. Now all that was missing was finding the signs to the particular line/platform that we needed. With patience we deciphered them and then fairly easily negotiated the commuting crowds to get our bags onto an escalator and down toward the platform, which is very, very deep in the ground. Unhappily for us, the escalator was followed by two flights of stairs to get to the platform; there was no alternative. Since we carry our bags on wheeled carts, we could either disassemble each cart or leave one while we manhandled the other up/down the stairs. We opted for the latter and managed it not without some knocks and bumps from other passengers. There are always, always crowds in the Metro and they are always in a hurry. We were very happy that our first journey didn't require us to change lines.

Kiev Train Station We had just come from the Kiev Metro station, deep under the train station

All we had left to do was get off at the correct stop: Kievskaya.

We did that correctly, but quickly met a new difficulty: When arriving somewhere by metro, there is little to orient the novice on the platform. We had no idea therefore, which end of the station we should exit from. In the end our decision was dictated by the fact that only one of the two possible exits had an escalator. We were happy when it brought us directly up to ground level.

But here we hit an unexpected problem. Moscow is a city under construction and unbeknownst to us there was a giant building site right outside the station that gave Gerry some problems navigating our way the 500 yards or so to the apartment. We had a very sketchy map, with few names and not necessarily to scale. Later it would all seem very easy, but our first attempt although pretty direct seemed anything but.

Jan was forced to again try out her Russian on three or four people by asking for directions to the street where the building was. Asking the question wasn't too difficult, but understanding the answer certainly was. Nonetheless, we have to say that everyone tried to help, even if Jan wasn't always able to comprehend their help fully. Dragging our heavy carts, we worked our way around the building site, through some heavily commercial area then across a big main street, and then into a labyrinth of small streets, punctuated by pleasant grassy areas, and past rows of corrugated iron garages. By this time it was ten o'clock in the morning, the sun was shining, and the air was cool and fresh but we were both a bit too tired to appreciate any of that.

Jan about to enter our Moscow Apartment Building

Finally, a very kind lady left her shopping trolley sitting in the middle of the path to walk us out to the street where she thought we wanted to be. At that moment we didn't know she was right but we suspected the building was so close that it was better to not drag all of the bags in the wrong direction. We switched tactics and Jan set off leaving the bags with Gerry.

Armed with the address she found the building less than a couple of hundred feet further on. It was down an alleyway that led into a rather large courtyard in back of an eight-storey J-shaped building. There she found two men who when asked where Dom 3 was, pointed to the building, and when asked where Podyezd 5 was, looked around and pointed to a door close to one corner of the J. Very happy and relieved Jan walked back to Gerry and within another five minutes we were in the building. Jan was tucked alone into the tiny elevator with all of the bags and rode up to the 6th floor while Gerry walked.

Naturally we were surprised that the key to the flat itself worked first time. How pleasant it was to see the apartment we had taken on trust. We threw open the windows to let in some fresh air as the apartment was stiflingly hot, stripped off our coats and shoes and most of our clothes and with no further ceremony collapsed on the bed and slept soundly for four solid hours.

Hurrah! We were in Moscow! Adventure would start as soon as bodies rested.