First day thoughts on Russia

Today was our first full day in Moscow, we visited Red Square, the Kremlin and because it is a tradition McDonald's.

Now I know it can seem a little common or unadventurous to visit McDonald's however we always visit in each country as it is the one constant and shows better than anything else the difference between countries - the food is (nearly) always the same and yet there are always differences. Anyway this McDonald's was very much a Russian version, in place of the queue there was a scrum! That is the way with Russia, if you queue behind someone within a few seconds you are standing at the front of one of three queues, and if you're not forceful it will be the slowest moving one too.

Red square was a good day out and after the fight for tickets and The fight to get in the Cathedral of St Basil was very interesting, the other end of the square was the museum of history which gave a strange symmetry of a church followed by an exhibit on evolution.

Overall my view of Moscow after one day is that it is functional, there is the old joke about the US spending millions on developing a space pen to use in zero gravity and the Russians took a pencil, although I know both are false - a ball point will work in zero gravity - I do now see what they mean, as we arrived in Moscow there was heavy snow fall and several of the passengers remarked that in the UK the airport would be closed, the fact it wasn't in Moscow was due to a fleet of snow clearer's in ancient tractors and men walking along with large bundles of sticks knocking the snow off the tarmac. Clearly a low cost solution but one that works, in the UK however it would be a matter of hours before the unions were in the management offices screaming about health and safety - the result we can't afford the solution so we don't get one - this practical attitude is probably most clearly felt in the Metro system which is quite remarkable, the stations are like palaces and the trains are like trains, they are not new, not comfortable and very crowded. However they are rarely out of commission - no upgrades means limited closures - they run every two minutes and they are very cheap (55p per journey no matter how far) the Russians do not seem to ask for new carriages, and they don't get any, the staff are paid an average wage (tube drivers get nearly double the national average) and as a result prices stay low. In short the Metro like Russia is functional.

Tomorrow we are going to Gorky Park, the Zoo and on a tour of the most palatial metro stations.