Remain Seated on Take Off and Enjoy Your Lollies!

Day 75

On our final day in Moscow, we decided to have another crack at finding the Sparrow Hills observation point. After a little more research we located where we needed to go and it turned out that we were only about two blocks from it the previous day!

As we were flying out in the evening, we checked our bags in at a storage location (with some difficulty finding it) and then jumped back on the subway to head to Sparrow Hills.

All Cyrillic in Moscow made navigating the subway a little bit harder. We ended up making our own names for stations - i.e. the second from the right is obviously Knebcar.

It turns out that all we needed to do the day before was get off one station beforehand and then walk up the hill. The station itself was the one used during the 1980 Moscow games to get to the Lenin Stadium. 

We started hiking through the park and up the hill and with it being a fairly hot and humid day, were quite sweaty by the time we got to the top. It was quite a good view back over Moscow (although a little smoggy) and you could really get a perspective on just how massive the city is from up there. Alongside the viewpoint there was a ski lift and an Olympic sized ski jump and small downhill area – which was quite strange to see being so close to the city.

On top of Sparrow Hill looking over Lenin Stadium - home of the 1980 Olympics.
That's the one where no one turned up.

The Olympic sized ski jump a short distance from the centre of town.

On our way back into town we stopped at one of Moscow’s oldest and one of a few pedestrianized streets – Arbat Street. With many of Moscow’s streets turned into race tracks it was nice to actually be able to wander down a street without the noise of cars moving at 130km/h and fear of one going to career through a crowd. 

The street itself was home to many artists and academics lived and it was clear by the number of people doing portraits and selling artworks that this still seemed to be a major part of the thoroughfare. During soviet times the street and area was quite prestigious and many high-ranking government officials lived in the area.

No need for scaffolding in Russia, just a couple of ropes and a harness to finish off the rendering.

Another classic Russian car parking attempt.

 As it got later in the day, we started to make our way back to our luggage and hop on the train to the airport. Despite being touted as the Airport Express, the train out to the airport was basically an old train converted on the inside to look new. Again the train didn’t have any air conditioning and with the temperature in Moscow that day being a humid 32 degrees, it was a hot old ride out to the airport. I think at one stage Claire and I both passed out in the heat, and looking around after we woke, much of the train had too. 

The Airport Express - new on the inside, same old Soviet clunker on the outside.

One thing we had not realised before heading to Russia was the number of recent terror attacks on the capital. In fact, only in January 2011 there had been a suicide bomb attack at the arrivals hall of Domodedovo airport (where we were flying out of) killing 31 people. As expected after such an event, the security at the airport was high and we had to have our bags and selves screened before entering the terminal. 

Our flight itself back to Helsinki was fairly straightforward, however, there was one incident that was quite amusing and worth highlighting here. As we were taking off from Moscow, the stewardess was handing out lollies for people to suck on as they ascended into the air. Now the captain must of failed to tell his crew they were taking off, as there was a made rush to get the sweets handed out and as she approached our row (about 6 rows from the back of the plane), she just threw the treats into the air, expecting the majority of people would get one, and crashed into her seat.