Moscow

We spent two weeks in St Petersburg in the summer of 2017.

This is the Square looking from the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. If you go there, the art collections are in the building just to the left of the archway, not in the Winter Palace itself. You can read about it and more by clicking the link above.

We talked about also going to Moscow, but in the end we decided not to.

I like to get a sense of where I am going, which I why I research this stuff before setting off. I like to wander once I get there, but there are a few things I like to know – like whether the trains for city X leave from station A or station B. It’s easier to do that kind of thing from the comfort of home.

And I often draw a map of a city – or write on a tourist map – and mark where the things are that interest me (Tamara and me) so that we don’t end up going miles one way and then back again because we didn’t realise that an attraction is near another we have just visited.

Not letting things go to waste, here is what I drafted at the time about Moscow. We may visit in the future and then I can find the info here.

Moscow

Moscow is 55.7558° N, 37.6173° E. That makes it about the same latitude as Edinburgh and the same longitude as Damascus at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

Population of 12 million with another 17 million in the Moscow Region around the city. Moscow urban area is 46,000 square kilometres, which makes it bigger than Switzerland or Belgium.

There are four airports in Moscow Region: Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Bykovo.

The Moscow Region is within the Central Federal District – the westernmost of the eight Districts of the Russian Federation and it covers an area of  650, 000 square kilometres. That makes Central Federal District about three times the size of the UK.

A third of the Moscow Region is forest.