I admit, I didn’t always love Moscow. While some aspects eventually grew on me, for the most part it just felt like any other big city. But I did love getting a night-time walking tour around the center of the city with my friend Karina. I felt like that gave me a chance to see the city in a different light – literally, as everything was all lit up! This was one of my favorite views.
What was it you didn’t like about Moscow? Where in Russia would you recommend seeing?
Part of the issue with Moscow is that I visited after spending 5 weeks in St. Petersburg and I LOVED St. Petersburg. Moscow just didn’t have the same charm and pleasant atmosphere as St. Pete – it felt like any other huge city full of pollution and crowds and fairly rude people. I had 2 horrible hostel experiences, both that left me in tears, people were just mean. I also felt like I didn’t fit in at all – the women seemed to all look and dress like supermodels and I felt like a total slob in my backpacker clothes. I just felt out of place everywhere I went.
I did enjoy the smaller cities outside of Moscow – Suzdal and Sergiev Posad were both cute and further out, I really liked Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Ulan Ude. People were friendlier and the cities were more interesting and welcoming.
Night time photos are my problem-I can never get them right.
I struggle with night photos too. I think I just got lucky with this one!