Our Last Full Day In Russia

Friday, April 24, 2009 – 4pm (Moscow time)


Crusing Around Red Square


The last 24 hours have been real interesting for us. It started when we went to dinner last night. We went to a chain restaurant a few blocks from our hotel. As we were walking, the traffic was amazing…I took a picture of the street. There were cars parked everywhere, on both sides of the road, double parked, triple parked and then there was just enough room for one car to squeeze in between. However, there were so many cars that no one was moving at all and the entire street looked like a parking lot.




Okay, this is Britt. After that, we went to a chain restaurant a few blocks from our hotel that one of our translators recommended to us. It sounds silly, but the name (as close as we can approximate) is “Yalky-Polky.” We were about half way through our meal. Suddenly I felt something brush past the heels of my shoes and the stroller folded up behind me fell over as if bumped. Then came a scraping and loud rustling in the corner. I looked down just in time to see a large rat disappear under the bench where Keri was sitting. She looked at me with wide eyes and said, “What was that???” I replied a split second too soon. I know her reaction to rats, but blurted out before I could stop myself, “That was a RAT.” At which she yelped, drew both her legs up onto the bench, and tried to lift Maddox as high as she could to protect him. Then came another loud rustle, and she yelped again, louder. At this, all eyes in the room drew directly to us. I held up my palms and nodded my head reassuringly to the mob, and they all went back to eating. Then Keri and I had a rapid-fire discussion on what to do. We decided to stay in place to finish our mediocre meal, but not have dessert. As soon as we asked for the check, Keri was dressed and out the door with Maddox before I could even get my money out to pay. Thus ends the tale of the rat. Back to Keri.

One of the differences we’ve noticed about Moscow since we were here 10 years ago has been the change in commerce. 10 years ago we went into Gum Department Store (like a big mall) and there were local shops and we ate lunch for $1. Today when we went in there it is filled with very high-end stores. The wealth that has come to Moscow has really changed the city. From the fancy shops to all the very nice cars and expensive places to eat, the evidence of people having $$ to spend is everywhere. Here is a picture of the inside of “Gum” mall and an example of what you can buy there…a suitcase covered in Swarovsky crystals. I didn’t look at the price tag, but it is probably quite a bit more than your average Samsonite considering I looked at the price of a baseball hat that said “Russia” and it was $45 (just your average baseball hat…no crystals).




inside Gum Department Store

This morning we all slept in. Maddox went to sleep at about 9:30pm last night and until 10am, so we didn’t get up either. Then we had some breakfast and headed to Red Square.

We wanted to go to Gum Department store and inside St Basils Cathedral, as well as get some pictures in Red Square with Maddox before our Embassy appointment. The concierge at the hotel told us that the inside of St Basil’s was nothing special and we should just look at the outside…well you know us. We really wanted to go inside and we are really glad we did. It was relatively cheap at 100roubles ($3) a person and it was very different than the church in St Petersburg. It was very chopped up inside with many different small chapels and they had restored some of them to different periods in the church’s history. The church was built in the late 1500s and has 2 floors. As we were walking up the stairs from one floor to another, we heard the most beautiful singing. I thought it was a big choir singing, but when we reached the small 8-sided chapel that rose over 100 feet to the top of the biggest onion dome it was only 5 guys. The shape of the chapel and the high ceilings magnified their sound. It was awesome and Maddox was transfixed, se bought their CD with traditional worship and Russian folk music.


Then we raced back to the hotel, stopping at Sbarro for Britt and I and feeding Maddox when we got to the hotel. Then we were off to the American Embassy for the last of the paperwork here in Moscow. We were there for about 2 hours and left with a big sealed envelope of papers, a bunch of original documents including Maddox’s original birth certificate and his new one, and his Russian passport with US immigrant visa.

Now all that is left is one night here in Moscow and 3 plane rides to Minnesota. We leave here at noon then stop in Washington-Dulles where Maddox becomes a US citizen, a stop in Chicago and then we arrive in Minneapolis around 9:30pm Saturday night.