Moscow aerobatics flight

Today was meant to be the highlight of the holiday, instead it was bitterly disappointing.
We were woken by the lady conductor at 4.45 and arrived at Moscow half an hour later. We looked for the metro, but turns out it only opens at 6 (we think). The first taxi driver quoted us 1000 rubles, but walking a few meters on we found one who charged 400. Arriving at our hotel at 6 in the morning, not having any contact details to do confirmations, we were very relieved when the door unlocked. The stairs up to the 5th floor looked a bit groty, but I was really pleased with the hotel. Modern, spacious,  just lovely, and so early in the morning it was already available. We had a quick shower and confirmed our transport and translator was on her way.
When we were in St Petersburg at the Vegan restaurant, Nicolas who worked there offered to give us any advice. Roy phoned him to see if he could advise on how to get to the airfield outside of Moscow, and he put us in touch with Nadia. She arrived soon after 7 and sms'd us that she was outside.

Nadia dropping us back at our hotel

We headed off for our big adventure! After an hour or two driving we stopped for petrol and Roy withdrew the last of the cash we needed. In St Petersburg we had literally emptied out the ATM, but where we were going had insisted on cash. We drove on through the snow covered countryside,  until we were about half an hour from the airfield, where Nadia and Roy bought some coffee.

As Roy got back in the car, his cell rang and even assumed it was the Russian acrobatics team calling to confirm we were almost there. Roy had struggled and organized this beyond all obstacles. Anyone doing flights was closed for the holidays, and after much perseverance the team had agreed to let 2 pilots take us out if we could be there on the 29th. Everything was coming together. 

Except the weather. She was phoning to say there was ice on the runway and the flights were cancelled. We were gutted.

Nadia phoned her back to find out if we could wait a few hours, but it was a no go.

This photo should have been us - off website of our plane we couldn't go up in

Miserable, we headed back to Moscow.

Nadia was so nice and tried to cheer us up with a drive around the city and walk next to Gorky park, but nothing was going to match flying around in a jet plane, and we were flat, sad company.

Real shuttle next to Gorky park

She dropped us back at our hotel where we moped a little, then decided to go have some lunch. As our hotel is so central (thanks Roy) we decided to find a place overlooking red Square. Silly.

Even Red Square won't cheer me up. St Basils cathedral. Legand has it that Ivan  the terrible had the architect blinded so he could never create something to rival this. Hectic!

Red Square

We got warm wine at the market, and stumbled into a shopping centre. Was glad to see it was as modern as other countries,  so it was just the one in St Petersburg that was time warped. We gave up on finding somewhere we could afford and starving, we finally had breakfast, lunch and supper at a Ukranian restaurant next to our hotel.