Truly a day of planes, trains and automobiles. Up at 05:00 in London, and in a minicab to Heathrow T5 at 06:00. For T5 the cab drivers like to take the motorway route all the way round the M25 to the west side of Heathrow instead of going through the suburbs as they've done forever to T1-4. I don't know if that's an intended consequence or the law of unintended consequences. But we're there in a record-breaking, for me, 30min. I've taken just shy of 2hr to get to Heathrow in the past.T5 is marvellous as ever. I decide to sit down and watch the screens for my Moscow flight and it pops up as gate A13. I wonder where that is? Oh, I'm actually sitting at it. All of a sudden I feel that today's itinerary, with its substantial potential for catastrophe, is going to be OK.
BA to Moscow Domodedovo. 767. I'm two rows behind business class and
able to observe at first hand that business class is very definitely
not worth the money. I flew BA business class to Moscow in a 767
myself one time before, when Flight wasn't paying obviously, and
discovered just how not worth it the extortionate fare actually was.
Willie Walsh is right I think, the premium travel model is not to be
relied on in the future.
At Domodedovo there is still, I'm, surprised to see, the bizarre aircraft graveyard where Il-62s and Tu-154s go to die. At one point I count 28 aircraft through the 767 window of which about 20 are dead or dying. There is also the most incredibly crowded ramp of operational aircraft I've ever seen.
But Domodedovo is great, the immigration queue is no worse than Dulles or Heathrow, and after the usual 45 or so stomach churning minutes (I worry about this stuff) the nice lady passes my visa and I'm back in the warm embrace of the Russian bear.
For the first time I take the AeroExpress to downtown Moscow instead of being quietly mugged by Moscow's loveable rogues of taxi-drivers. Bit of a 'train ordinaire' to mix my linguistic metaphors, but it's quick, moderately comfortable and connects to the Metro at Paveletsky. At which point Domodedovo owner East-Line Corp's influence apparently ends and Russian becomes the only language of the day. With incredible cunning I work out how to use the Cyrillic Metro map to get to Komsomolskaya station and with even more cunning find my way, totally unexpectedly to Kazanskiy station.
To cut a long story short I'm on the Kazan express at just gone ten at night. It's brilliant. Tanya introduces herself as the service crew member who speaks English, which pretty much exhausts her English.Thank you, I say in Russian. Repeatedly and pathetically, as it's one of my four words and I need to milk it.
Tanya and her colleagues provide dinner with the linguistic assistance of Roman from Kazan. Roman is beyond parody as the guy in the Lonely Planet Russia-guide who invites himself to drink vodka with you and does so with surreally movie-like gusto. Stereotypes, they say, are there for a reason, and on this occasion Roman is it. I match him up to the fourth and then ask the waitress for tea at which point he quite literally glares at me and marches off to demand the bill and have it sent to me. I'd happily carry on but we share my four words of Russian as our common language and are only adding new ones at the rate of about one per 30 min. I can't face much more of it.
So he's very unhappy. But I'm pretty chipper, not even minding that the fish soup I asked for with his help is fairly obviously vegetable soup with a bit of salmon thrown in at the last moment.
I call it a long day and retire to my rather wonderful compartment,
which is for two but I've got it to myself as it turns out, and write
this blog and watch the Moscow hinterland slip by in the dark.
At this point I still don't understand how it takes 11.5 hours to go from Moscow to Kazan. I suspect the answer is passing me in the blackness outside. Tomorrow I'll try to find out the answer from my contact at Kazan Helicopters, Vlada, who I'm assured by someone who has met her is "very beautiful".
At Domodedovo there is still, I'm, surprised to see, the bizarre aircraft graveyard where Il-62s and Tu-154s go to die. At one point I count 28 aircraft through the 767 window of which about 20 are dead or dying. There is also the most incredibly crowded ramp of operational aircraft I've ever seen.
But Domodedovo is great, the immigration queue is no worse than Dulles or Heathrow, and after the usual 45 or so stomach churning minutes (I worry about this stuff) the nice lady passes my visa and I'm back in the warm embrace of the Russian bear.
For the first time I take the AeroExpress to downtown Moscow instead of being quietly mugged by Moscow's loveable rogues of taxi-drivers. Bit of a 'train ordinaire' to mix my linguistic metaphors, but it's quick, moderately comfortable and connects to the Metro at Paveletsky. At which point Domodedovo owner East-Line Corp's influence apparently ends and Russian becomes the only language of the day. With incredible cunning I work out how to use the Cyrillic Metro map to get to Komsomolskaya station and with even more cunning find my way, totally unexpectedly to Kazanskiy station.
To cut a long story short I'm on the Kazan express at just gone ten at night. It's brilliant. Tanya introduces herself as the service crew member who speaks English, which pretty much exhausts her English.Thank you, I say in Russian. Repeatedly and pathetically, as it's one of my four words and I need to milk it.
Tanya and her colleagues provide dinner with the linguistic assistance of Roman from Kazan. Roman is beyond parody as the guy in the Lonely Planet Russia-guide who invites himself to drink vodka with you and does so with surreally movie-like gusto. Stereotypes, they say, are there for a reason, and on this occasion Roman is it. I match him up to the fourth and then ask the waitress for tea at which point he quite literally glares at me and marches off to demand the bill and have it sent to me. I'd happily carry on but we share my four words of Russian as our common language and are only adding new ones at the rate of about one per 30 min. I can't face much more of it.
So he's very unhappy. But I'm pretty chipper, not even minding that the fish soup I asked for with his help is fairly obviously vegetable soup with a bit of salmon thrown in at the last moment.
I call it a long day and retire to my rather wonderful compartment,
which is for two but I've got it to myself as it turns out, and write
this blog and watch the Moscow hinterland slip by in the dark.At this point I still don't understand how it takes 11.5 hours to go from Moscow to Kazan. I suspect the answer is passing me in the blackness outside. Tomorrow I'll try to find out the answer from my contact at Kazan Helicopters, Vlada, who I'm assured by someone who has met her is "very beautiful".
on July 23, 2009 4:29 AM | Reply
Will you have pictures, please?
(have a nice trip, by the way)