My journey across Moscow was mental. I was going to call this post ‘Mental Russian Trains’, but decided against it. I did not get a good impression of Moscow as I passed through it and this may have had something to do with it.

My train from Kiev arrived on time and on the correct platform, where me and my fellow passenger departed (another old lady). The compartment could have slept 4 people, but luckily this time it only had the two of us in it and the third passenger was only there temporarily. Having left the platform, I decided to get some cash out, not having any Roubles to buy a metro ticket with. After looking around for a few minutes, I found a sort of Bureau de Change in some sort of medical shop, so I got some of my Euros swapped for Roubles. Then I found the metro station, deciphered the ticket-buying system and found a Moscow metro map. Given that the station for my departing train (to St. Petersburg) was Moskva Oktiabrskaia, I looked at the map and decided that Oktyabrskaya must be it, so got on a train for there. After exiting the metro at that station, it became obvious that they did not have any high-speed Sapsan services to St. Petersburg. I found the ticket office, held up my train ticket against the office window and attempted to communicate with the woman behind the glass that I wanted to get to this particular station. After much shouting, pointing and under-lining, she wrote down the station name in Cyrillic and made a gesture that suggested that I needed to run once I’d got there. I descended back into the metro, got to the station in question and asked a vaguely train-related bloke where this station was. He made hand movements that suggested that it was outside and to the right. I left the station and across the road was the station that the woman had written down earlier. I crossed the road and got into what I thought was the ticket hall, but without any ticket office. There was a train on the departure board that left at the same time as the one that I was booked on, but I wanted to make sure it was the right one before committing to anything. After walking around for 40 minutes, exploring every section of this station and asking numerous people where they thought the ticket office was or whether I’d got the right train, I went next door into the metro station. Another non-English speaking rail-network worker couldn’t really explain what I needed to do, but her and her supervisor came out of the office and her supervisor, who was due on a cigarette break, walked me outside and pointed to another station WITH EXACTLY THE SAME NAME on the other side of the road. At that point I had 20 minutes before the train left and wasn’t sure whether I wanted to risk following another set of instructions with so little time to spare. I think she could see me from where she was having her cigarette, because after about 5 minutes she came over and made it obvious that I needed to cross the road, so I thought I’d give it a go. Once I was there, instead of part of the departure board being in Cyrillic (like the last place), the entire departure board was in Cyrillic (unlike the last place). The only thing not in Cyrillic were the numbers, but I could see there was a train leaving at the right time from the same station. After pacing around for a few minutes, still trying to get someone to tell me whether I was in the right place, I decided to walk though the metal detectors to the area closer to the platforms. There, in all their glory, were the Sapsan trains. I put my stuff though an X-Ray machine and asked the nice woman at the other side if I’d got the right train. She walked me round the corner and pointed to the right one, which I promptly walked to and got on. About 10 minutes later, the train left. Wow.