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Moscow Metro vs. London Underground
Greetings.
In article , 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 do realise that the Metro is (relatively) accessible to visitors. The trolleybuses also seem fairly easy to sample but I'm less sure about the trams. The guide books I've read only refer to them "not being in the centre" and largely gloss over them. I didn't use or see any trams, though I did see signage for them in the suburban Metro stations. The only transport I took was the Metro, the buses, the marshrutkas, a riverboat cruise, a taxi from the airport, and a the train back to the airport. Did you take any photographs/have any problems taking them/not feel like taking them/get threatened for taking them? I took several photographs on the Metro and didn't have any problems whatsoever doing so. With stations so ornate, the police and staff are used to it. Just be considerate of commuters and don't get in anyone's way. You can see the photos I took he http://www.nothingisreal.com/photos/...2010-07/Metro/ Things I like better about the Moscow Metro: * The trains seem to run a lot more frequently. I used the system on both weekends and weekdays, at various times of the day (morning and evening rush hours, mid-afternoon, and late at night), and never had to wait more than three minutes for a train, even if I arrived just as one was leaving the platform. I seldom find I have to wait that long in Central London! Really? I often have to wait five to seven minutes for the Central and Northern Lines in Central London, and for the Jubilee Line at Stratford. * The pricing is simple: it's 26 RUB for each journey, regardless of distance or number of interchanges. How do you buy tickets? Just individually at the ticket office? Is there anything like Oyster or - more usefully for us - a Paris-style Carnet? I don't have any experience buying tickets, as my girlfriend gave me a card good for ten trips. It was an ordinary-looking paper card that must have had some embedded magnetic strip or chip in it; just like in London you swiped it at the entrance to the station, and a display on the pillar told you how many trips you had remaining. This card was not valid on the buses, which used separate single-use tickets (again, purchased for me in advance by my girlfriend, whence I know not) which were validated upon boarding. The marshrutkas are cash-only; you pay the driver 25 RUB. When several people board at once, rather than pay the driver individually, you just give your fare to the passenger sitting next to you, who passes it on. Whoever sits closest to the driver ends up with a big wad of cash which they give the driver, telling him how many passengers it's for. * There seems to be a mobile phone signal in many stations I passed through (maybe all of them -- I didn't check). Oh good....... ;-( Don't worry; the trains stop briefly enough at the stations that nobody has time to yak on the trains. However, people do send and receive texts at the stations. I've been warned about that. We're urgently trying to learn to decipher Cyrillic letters. (SWMBO is very good at that sort of thing, as I discovered in Greece.......) If you know the Greek and Latin alphabets, then Cyrillic will be easy to pick up. I've never had any training in Russian but within a couple days of my first trip there I had no problem reading the signs. There are 33 letters, of which about two thirds closely match the sound of the Greek or Latin letter they resemble. That leaves only Ж, И, Й, Н, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Ю, and Я. И (I) and Н (N) you will decipher immediately because they're so ubiquitous and found in international words and famous names; the first time you see a statue or picture of Lenin with the sign "Ленин" you will figure out those two letters right away. 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 |
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