Tim and Gem's Honeymoon Adventure: Babushkas, Scarves, Cameras and tattoos, Moscow October 23

Considering that is was pretty easy to get to Suzdal, we thought that retracing our steps back to Moscow would be a walk in the park. Unfortunately not... We arrived at the main bus-station in Vladimir nice and early and went to buy our tickets. We approached the lady behind the counter and asked for two tickets to Moscow and she rambled something in Russian, so I told her that I didn’t understand (in Russian) only to be verbally assaulted in return. We decided to cut our losses and wait for our bus to arrive before we bought our tickets. I think we jinxed ourselves, as we had said to each other just mere hours before how amazing and friendly everyone in Russia had been, until the meeting of the evil ticket lady.

It turns out (for some stupid reason) they can’t sell tickets for buses until 20-30 minutes before the departure time. So, rather hesitantly, I approached the ticketing desk again, making sure I went to a different lady this time, and tried again, and in less then two minutes we had two tickets to Moscow.

After the ticket ordeal, we made it to Moscow and easily found our hostel (it was located next door to the Moscow Torture Museum so it wasn’t difficult to find) and we settled into our cute little room that overlooked Arbat Street, a bustling pedestrian street filled with painters, tourists, restaurants and street performers.

Our time in Moscow seemed to just disappear! The first day we took a wander in the afternoon down to Red Square and even though I had seen it all before, it was great to go back there with Gem and feel that same sense of awe, as it truly is an amazing place.

Day two in Moscow Gem spent exploring Arbat Street and wandered down to one of Moscow’s extremely soviet looking buildings. Me on the other hand, I spent it elsewhere, in a tattoo parlor in the north of Moscow.

Prior to our trip I had spent months researching Russian tattoo artists in Moscow that I liked, and stumbled across the guys at XK Tattoo. Luckily, the studio manager Zoey spoke perfect English and was an awesome help with getting it all sorted as Artemy, the artist who did the tattoos, didn’t speak much English. Long story short, I spent the whole day under the needle, (sorry mum) and hanging out in the studio with a wicked group of people. Was a long day, and by the end my thighs were very tender and I was glad they were done, but was worth it!

Day three, we walked, and walked, and we walked a little more. Moscow is a pretty big city and there is a lot to see. We were told about this café called Clockface, a café where you drink all the tea and eat all the biscuits and treats you want and you are charged by the amount of time you spend there, rather then what you consume. This excursion was unsuccessful, and we accidently stumbled into a smokey, tacky sushi restaurant, which we were quick to smoke-bomb out of.

I went for a twilight stroll later that evening in the rain to take some photos, as I had been neglecting my camera since arriving in Moscow.

On our final day in Moscow we visited Izmailovsky Market, a huge market not far from the city center. This market is the best place to buy souvenirs, whether it be matroshka/babushka dolls, painted eggs, fur hats or soviet clothing – you name it, you can find it here.

The whole area upstairs is a huge flea market with most of the stores consisting of people’s possessions they no longer need sprawled out on rugs. You could find anything from old Lenin statues, USSR war medals, handicrafts, paintings, old books, pots and pans etc. If it’s Russian and pre 2000 you could get it here. We got lost admiring the random objects and finally peeled ourselves from the flea market back downstairs to the regular market.

Our goals were simple; a big babushka doll for us, a Russian scarf for Gem, a tacky magnet for our collection and a camera from one of the many camera vendors.

We were very strategic and scoped out the entire market before we bought anything. We found the perfect Babushka Doll, a beautiful 15 piece hand painted set that we later found out was four times the price back in the city center.

Next – the magnet! With copious amounts of magnetic tackiness available, it wasn’t long before we ticked that one off the list.

We found Gem’s scarf at little store with a great selection, and Gem quickly found the one she had been eyeballing earlier. After a lovely conversation with the cute old seller (a 5-10 minute conversation in complete Russian which we did not understand a word of) we had Gem’s scarf.

On our way to the camera stand, we saw some perfect gifts for some loved ones at home (which we wont reveal names and/or present here) and quickly snapped up those pieces, as well as a quick Russian lesson from the sweet old lady seller, who helped us with our Russian pronunciation.

And then it came down to my task of the day - camera shopping. Now for a camera nerd like myself this place is ecstasy. With hundreds of old soviet cameras from the last 100 years on display and for sale this was never going to be an easy decision. There were two boxes the camera had to tick, it had to work, and it had to be 35mm. I was caressing a couple of gold Leica’s at one store (too afraid to ask for a price), and then stumbled across a lovely little thing that I thought - this has to be mine. So doing my best, I asked the seller how much, 13000rubles ($450AUD). After a quick calculation, I put the camera down and decided to look at some others. It turns out the one I had picked up and fell in love with was an extremely rare, compact range finder that now on ebay goes for close to $1000. So at $450 it actually would’ve been a steal!

Feeling a little dishearted I began playing and testing some other cameras and I grew to like a Zenit TTL 1977 camera that was in absolute mint condition. Everything worked and there wasn’t a mark on it and the glass was clean. Expecting a substantial price tag when I asked the man how much, he looked at me and replied, 1500 (around $40), which caught me by surprise. I think he saw my passion, or possibly just wanted me to stop man-handling his cameras. Regardless, I was grateful for the good price, and after a brief run-down on how to use it I walked away with my trophy! We left the markets feeling very pleased with ourselves!

After check out, we hung around the hostel before our train. We got to the station, lined up, then got a call from the hostel that we had left a bag in the taxi, we ran back outside to get the bag containing everything we had brought at the markets earlier and lined up again before eventually boarding the train to one of our favorite cities in the world. St Petersburg.