Moscow in the clouds. And I don’t mean the good kind. I mean the nasty wildfire smoke clouds. We arrived early afternoon, but the smoke made it look very dark, like very very late afternoon. The streets were mostly empty, as the people were told to stay inside and all the foreign personnel of companies/embassies had already been evacuated. Our taxi driver use the opportunity to race around town to our hotel, as there were no other cars on the streets. Definitely fun. Looked all like some 80s version of a depressing future.
We got some mask the next day which made breathing in the smoke filled streets a bit easier. But even this way, Amy didn’t deal with the smoke very well, she felt pretty bad at the end of the stay. At least in the hotel the A/C cleared out the smoke, so sleeping was ok. It was good we didn’t stayed more than 3 days.
Moscow reminded me most of Paris, with it’s big alleys and the 19th century buildings. I liked the architecture a lot. We went to the Kremlin, Lenin museum (Lenin looked like a wax figure to me) and St. Basil’s Cathedral. Looked all very surreal in the smoky sunshine and the grey background. Like a bad version of communism from an old American movie. Nevertheless, pretty impressive overall, I definitely want to go back, when there is more life in the city … and more sunshine.