Greetings.

In article , Paul Corfield
wrote:
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:37:44 +0100, Ian Jelf
wrote:

In message , Tristan Miller
writes
Greetings.

I just got back from a trip to Moscow. I made extensive use of the
Metro there and thought I'd post my observations on how it compares with
the London Underground.

Thanks **very** much for posting this.

We're off to Moscow (and Saint Petersburg) later in the summer and I'd
been wondering about some of the "transport" elements, for Metro,
trolleybus and indeed tram.

I'm mildly jealous but then I think I'd be a bit too nervous about
trogging off to Moscow on my own. I'd be concerned about the level of
crime and corruption and being badly ripped off.

FWIW, I didn't notice or experience any corruption from the Russian
authorities. I've been there three times now (to Kaliningrad, St.
Petersburg, and Moscow) and all the journeys have been uneventful. My
Russian friends also say they haven't experienced any corruption, such as
being issued with frivolous fines from ticket inspectors, customs officers,
police, etc., and one of them was even insulted by the notion that I
thought that sort of thing actually happened there. Unfortunately I can't
say the same about some other Eastern European countries. My Hungarian
friends and relatives are always complaining about how they have to bribe
the doctors there to get decent treatment, and when I visited Sofia last
September a ticket inspector intercepted my payment to a bus driver and
then fined me for fare dodging. When I refused to pay him, he called the
police, who accepted his word against mine and three Bulgarian witnesses
who gracefully spoke up in my defence.

As for crime, your greatest risk is probably pickpockets, which are no
doubt just as much a pest in London. Keep hold of your valuables when
travelling and you probably won't have any problems.

There are also zillions of private midibuses (there is a name for them
but I can't recall it) scuttling all over the City which has helped
remove patronage from the tramway system.

They're called marshrutkas; I've discussed them in other posts in this
thread. They're not at all tourist-friendly, but not difficult to use if
it's explained to you in advance how to use them and which one you need to
take.

Regards,
Tristan

--
_
_V.-o Tristan Miller Space is limited
/ |`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- In a haiku, so it's hard
(7_\\ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ To finish what you

Greetings.

In article , Paul Corfield
wrote:
How did you cope with the language? How readily is English recognised /
spoken?

Apart from my girlfriend and her friends, the locals I interacted with
spoke little or no English. Even the ones working in tourist spots (ticket
sellers at museums, food vendors near the Kremlin and Red Square, sales
clerks at GUM, waitresses at touristy restaurants, etc.) spoke no English
whatsoever, or at best only a few canned phrases. When ordering tickets,
I'd have to hold up the necessary number of fingers, and when ordering food
and drinks, I'd have to point to the item I wanted in the display case or
on the bilingual menu. Of course, I didn't really have that much
interaction with the locals as I was with my girlfriend most of the time;
it could be that my experiences are a statistical anomaly. In most other
Eastern European cities I've been to (St. Petersburg, Riga, Sofia, Varna,
Budapest, Prague) I found English (and German) more widely understood.

Regards,
Tristan

--
_
_V.-o Tristan Miller Space is limited
/ |`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- In a haiku, so it's hard
(7_\\ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ To finish what you