How to go to St. Petersburg from Moscow

This weekend i had a three day trip for sightseeing to St. Petersburg with my friend. To go to St. Petersburg you have three options: train, plane or car. The most convenient way is going with a train, where you will get to train station easily in Moscow and would be able to sleep all night in train so will be rested when you reach to St. Petersburg.

You can buy train tickets from agencies at different parts of the city with some commision or directly from the train station. St. Petersburg trains gets off from Leningradski Vakzal which is located at Metro Komsomolskaya.There are different trains which gets off nearly every 30 minutes from Moscow at night. Two options for vagons are having a coupe with four people in a closed room or in a open vagon. Both of them are sleeping, but coupes are a little more comfortable, where less people and quite to sleep. Price of coupes are nearly twice as plascards. If money is not some concern for you i would advice you to go with coupe, but plascard is also comfortable, no worry. St

When you reach there the taxi drivers would understand that you are a tourist and would say high prices. dont directly accept and say some less price. The city is not so large and distances are not much.

There are different hotels where you can find on internet, but i can advice you Azimut Hotel which is not very far from center, big one and comparely cheap to other hotels.

In general travel to St. Peterburg from Moscow and returning back is very easy and you can do it without any afraids in mind. Also St. Peterburg is a quite and secure city as i observed. So have a nice trip...

Club Famous Moscow

Last week i had a change to go to Club Famous in Moscow. Before i didnt heard or read about this club, but by the party my fitness club enjoy, i find the opportunity to see it.

Classifying moscow clubs as low, middle, high level in quality, prices, people, face control etc.. i can definitely say that the club is at high category. At the enrty of the club there is a strict face and dress control. There big man in blacks waiting you friendly at the door...

Th interior design is a large hall, where tables and lounges are located aroud the main are. it is kind of two floor place where there are balconies and coaches located at the sides. It the middle as a second floor, like a podium which shows done, singers make live performance, dj cabinet.

The music is club music and atmosphere is energetic, nice girls and boys in fashion, with people dancing on different sides freely. The shows in the club are really well prepared. At the night i was there' 5-6 blonde russian girls made a dance and singing show (all may be claasifed as model catergory:)). After them two different singers made a live performance. The prices are a little expensive. For example calian was 4000 rub (150 dollars), which is quite expensive..

The most interesting cene i met at the exit of club at night. 4 taxis were wainting for clients. 3 porche cayenne and one maybach. This should be the 'Russian Luxury', i felt.

If you like high quality clubbing, you can try this place sometimes.

Some web sites about Moscow

Daily i follow some sites about Moscow and Russia in Turkish mostly for news, events, new places. And sometimes sites in English i look as well. These are the best and would rather good sites to follow up. Take these to your favorites...

http://www.turkrus.com/

http://www.moskovalife.com/

http://www.moskova.ru/

http://www.gazetem.ru/

http://www.waytorussia.net/

http://www.expat.ru/

Learn Russian

The most hardest part starting life in Moscow would be the language. Most of the people, specially if they are over 30 would not know English. So in any case you would need to learn Russian. Upto learning basic Russian at least, you would not feel yourself comfortable. So i advice you to focus on this and try to learn the first parts as fast as you can. Otherwise you would regret not learning Russian in time. Be sure you would need it.

The first hardness of learning Russian is the Cryillic alphabet. I would firstly advice to repeat and memorize the mapping of letters with latin alphabet. In one week you would be able to memorize it.

Firstly try to memorize the basic phrases and words such as good morning, hello, my name is.. with 100-200 basic daily words such as water, street etc.

There are plenty of different Russian books for Foreginers which may be in English, in Turkish or purely in Russian. You can find them in the big book stores in Moscow. I would advice to buy 4-5 good books. First book should be the serial lessons books 1,2,3 like payehali. Other one should be a short story book with some vocabulary at back or on everypage. Other one can be some other basic book, a mixed one. And also you should have a dictionary.

The main point is making as much as repats as you can. Everyday, maybe before sleep you can read and repeat 30 minutes. Also it would be beneficial to follow some cources, which provides you to follow a schedule. otherwise you could just on daily hurry, leave the language learning to to later, where later never comes.

In six months you will get the basic Russian, but dont forget that when you dont repeat your Russian will get worser. Also try to talk with people, just dont be afraid. But it doesnt matter how good you speak, the old seller lady at the magazine would not understand you and get angry when you want 'bez gaza vada' (water) even after two years had passed. But just try to make practice as much as you can, as well as basing on it good gramatically book studies...

Moscow Blog from a Turks Perspective

Living nearly two years in Moscow, i have decided to change the format and information in my blog. From now on, i will try to share my observations, experiences, ideas and the things i like / i do not like about Moscow, Russia and Russian life.

One of the most diffuculties in starting a new life in Moscow was not having a guide front of me, limited informations. Where to go, where to live better, how to solve your daily problems, which restaurant, parks, cafes, cinemas i can go etc. Although web is full of information sometimes its better to have a small rodamap, advicer with you..

Hope this blog will be a small roadmap for new comer foreigners, specially to Turkish people coming to Moscow. Even though every experience is a persons own treasury, sharing such information is usefull i believe.

Any comments about it are welcome...

Golden Ring Tour : Vladimir & Suzdal

By the advice and search of my friend Erdinc, we have done a small trip to the two cities of the Golden Ring cities of Russia : Vladimir and Suzdal. Two cities are nearly 250 km northeast of Moscow and takes 3 hours by car.

Vladimir is an old and not much crowdy, not developed Russian city. Buildings old, not to much peaople. Rather it was not very interesting. Some parks, some churches. So we stayed a few hours there.

Suzdal 25 km far from Vladimir was a really exiting and different town. I felt myself in a sceen from the 1400s, within the history. Town is full of churches, cathedrals and has a holy atmosphere. Houses are usually small dacha houses and there is too little number of people. No cars, single street, some small roads between. Its a such a holy historical, it should be seen once. Specially when the sun going down, with red sky over the churhes, which are the tallest building in the town gives you a cardpostal feeling.

Hoping to find a hotel in these small cities, we went there without having hotel reservation. Unfortunately all the hotels were full, beacuse of the weekend. Having asked nearly 7 hotels we understood that we have no other than choice than returning back to Moscow. So we returned late at night and have finished our tour early.

Having these trip i have seen the classical Russian town life, peoples style and general Russia view. Hoping to visit all other cities on the golden ring..

Moscow Nights

Night Life in Moscow is much more enjoyfull, attractive and lively then Istanbul and Turkey. The clubs usually get crowdy about 12 oclock at midnight and night continues upto 6 oclock in the morning. In some clubs Turkish people can have problems to go in, beacuse in these clubs Turkish people have a bad image for the Securit. How much you try to tell the security about yourself there is no return from his first decision. In 2-3 minutes he decides to take you in or not and thats the decision.

In moscow night, does not matter which club you go you can see any Turkish men. At every club we meet at least 10 Turkish guys. What to say, seeing that much Turkish is not very nice:) Also the quality of some of these people is low and that makes Turkish image bad.

The clubs I prefer in Moscow: Club Fabrique, Karma, Hard Rock Cafe, B2, Club Che... The comments about these clubs will be in the next post..