April 25 | Moscow

We left Newark yesterday on a 9pm flight. The good news was that we were flying Upper Class on Virgin Airlines. The bad news was that it was going to take us about 14 hours to get to Moscow, and it would be an eight hour time change.

Sergey, our new client, was there to meet us at the airport, along with his driver. This surprised us. The drive from the airport to the hotel took about an hour and we got to see some major tourist points such as Gorky Park, The Kremlin, and Victory Park.

Our hotel, The Park Hyatt, is situated about a block from Red Square, which means it’s in the middle of everything. There is a point in Red Square, which is known as the zero point, because all roads in Russia lead to this point.


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The staff at the hotel was great. Better service than I would have expected, though we came to learn that Russians are known for their hospitality. At least at high-end establishments.


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Unfortunately, we arrived just days before Victory Day, a major Russian holiday to celebrate the end of World War II. Red Square was closed to the public as they prepared for a major parade. There were something like 15,000 soldiers in town, mostly national guard reservists, and they were practicing with tanks, missile trucks, and troop carriers; the whole shooting match, just like the old footage we used to see of the old Soviet leaders standing on the bleachers as the military rode by.