New Year in Moscow

The story · 3 days

Foreword: This is a trip that came about thanks to a previous trip made in summer by 3 of my friends to Sharm El Sheikh where they met some Russian girls. I was unable to go to Egypt because I was engaged... So at the end of November one evening we made up our minds: Let's go to Moscow!! Going to Russia is not at all simple. There's a lot of bureaucracy with visas, permits, insurance and invitations but in the end we managed everything also thanks to our Moscow friends. There were 4 of us going – me, Bello, Puddu and the uncle – and we left on 3 different planes: Puddu booked a flight with Austrian Air departing on the 28th and returning on the 2nd, the uncle flew with the Russian airline Aeroflot departing on 1 January and returning on the 31st (he was away for a month) while Bello and I booked and bought the flight with Swiss Air directly at Malpensa.

Departure on the 29th and return on 5 January. Having left Milan with a stopover in Zurich we landed at MOSCOW DOMODEDOVO airport where the taxi driver Maria had sent for us was waiting. Coming out of the airport I almost fell to the ground straight away!! Everything was frozen (-15 degrees). The taxi driver took us to the huge and luxurious Izmailovo Gamma-Delta Hotel. Here the quality-price ratio was excellent. 15 euros a night!! In this complex there was everything: saunas, restaurants, pool, gym, casino, bowling and everything that can make a holiday comfortable!! Entering this complex was a bit like a final siege... checks at every entrance, metal detector and police everywhere. It was probably hosting some important figure..

Day 131 Dec 2004

New Year's Eve

After 2 days of settling into the Russian capital, the long-awaited last day of the year arrives. I, Puddu and Bello are invited to dinner at the Shunkova house. A wonderful Russian-Italian end-of-year dinner; we ate and drank both Italian foods and drinks (brought by us) and Russian ones… around 2 in the morning, after saying goodbye to Maria and Anuta’s parents, we left the Shunkova house (me, Puddu, Bello, Maria, Anuta and Olga). We met some other friends of theirs, danced in squares and clubs and ended a wonderful evening at the Hard Rock Café.

Day 21 Jan 2005

After waking up we wandered around the city a bit with another attempt, which turned out to be futile, to enter the Kremlin. The evening/night was wonderful, and for me it ended the following morning.

Day 35 Jan 2005

On this date I’ll briefly recap a bit of everything that happened between the 2nd and the day of departure. On January 1st the uncle also arrived and from the 2nd we went out almost always with our goddesses.. we had a lot of fun. The photos say a lot!!!

We went to many clubs; I can recommend “che” (which derives from Che Guevara), “le parisien” (where, strangely, they didn’t let in the beautiful girls who were with us) and also other clubs I visited where, however, you have to be a bit careful about who is inside. In Moscow there’s the mafia!!

Visiting the Kremlin in the days leading up to Russian Christmas (they celebrate it on January 7th) is almost impossible. The 2 of us (me and Bello) paid for a personal guide on the last day to get in, which let us avoid an endless line. Fortunately, the guide spoke to us in Spanish. The Kremlin is, to say the least, stunning!!!

Last note: the uncle and Maria later got married and live happily in Pavia.