Day 66: Kiev Via Moscow

Woke up at 3.30am for my 6.30am flight. Like I said before, my initial plan was to travel overland from central asia into europe but because of the small portion of russia in between and because I do not have a transit visa which was required in order to take the train that cut across russia to reach europe, I had to fly. Sigh. If I have the choice i would rather choose to go by land as there are so much more to see. Moreover, its cheaper.

Then there are no direct flights from central asia to kiev in ukarine. No matter what, I had to do a transit in russia. Strangely, a transit of less than 24hours in russia does not requires a transit visa. So, lucky for me, this is the only way out.

Airline: Aeroflot, a russian airline.
Place of transit: Moscow.

As my filght was an early one, I was greeted by a beautiful sun rise high up in the sky.



Here is a picture taken in the plane. I never knew that recaro manufactures seats for planes. I always thought that it is a sportscar accessories thing.



That kind of change my impression of the airline. I had heard terrible stories of aeroflot but so far everything was acceptable. Erm... not until the serving of food begins... The food was ok. But the service was bad. The air stwedress did not even apologise to me when she spilled orange juices over me. She did not even give me a tissue to wipe it away. Then when the flight was about to land, I wasnt expecting it to be so shakey. That was the most terrible landing that I had ever experienced. The plane swayed left and right just like a see-saw. I saw the wings of the plane going up and down and up and down. It swayed so badly that I heard glasses breaking in the gali of the plane. It went on like this till the wheels of the plane was just inches away from the ground. Then when it finally touched down, the pilot jam the brakes real hard as if it was performing an emergency brake. :( I still prefer Singapore Airlines, the best airline that I had ever flew with.

I had also heard many negative stories about Moscow airport but I just cant imagine how bad it can be. Russia being the largest country in the world and Moscow its capitial and a really big city, how bad can it be? But I was so so wrong. The airport looks really old from the outside. From the inside, it is still ok but it is really small. So small that it is not even half the size of Changi Airport T1. I was told that there are no signs in english and noone spoke english here but I am glad to say that they do exist but to the very mininium.

Once I got to the transit counter, I begin to see why so many people complain about this airport. This is my first time doing a transit flight and it turned out to be a not very pleasent one. It is still very soivet here, I would say. I was there when they were about to change shift. The thing is that the staffs here do not care if there is a long queue and they do not wait for those on the next shift to come and take over their counter before they leave. When its time to go, they just left. Leaving the counters empty and a whole bunch of transitters like us staring blank in the air, speechless.

Then at the Xray machines, I was being targeted. Everyone went through the Xray machines without any trouble but I was stopped. They searched my bags inside out. Then whats the point of the Xray machines if they want to look at my bag again after going through the Xray? Waste of time. Oh well. I had asked myself that question before but I cant even answer it. So maybe this is my retripution. Then all thanks to some idiot who used liquid explosive to bomb a airplane in 2006, no liquids are allowed to be brought in. I had carried those 2liters of water especially for this transit time in moscow cause things in moscow are so expensive. After carrying it all the way here, now they tell me that I had to throw them away, Oh well... what can I do? But I am so thristy that I asked if i could at least drink some water before they throw them away. The guy said OK but as he siad that he threw it into the bin. ...... WTF?? Did he even understand what I said? sigh...

Then I seriously believed that the guy who was performing the check on me was either not sure of what to check, or was just playing with me. Instead of checking me for bombs or any other prohibited items, he was rubbing my stamps to see if the colour comes off, smelling my apple juice, trying to open up my multiplug like as though he had never see one in his life before and playing with my tailismen. He never even check all my electronic items which was the high risk stuffs. ........

Then I finally went through... Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you, Moscow airport..





This airport is really very small and soviet way. There is nothing much to do for transit. I was really very thristy and so I decided to get myself a drink but realised that I cant. Why? Cause they only accept the local currency. Most airport even accept USD or Euros but here they dont. Only Russian currency. So soviet. To make things worse, there are NO money changer in the airport. I say again, NO FREAKING MONEY CHANGER in the airport of the world's largest country's capitial. I cant believe it. I am beginning to be angry with the guy who threw my water away without letting me take a single slip. Then I got hungry but I drop the idea too. This is really "got money but cannot spend" and "got money also no use". I also wanted to buy a postcard and mail it home. I also drop the idea. Besides, they do not even have a postoffice or mailbox here in the airport. OMG!! I always thought that russia is a very advance country.

Luckily, I still got an apple which I bought from china a month ago. I ate it to surpress my hunger and thrist.



After the long wait, my next flight finally came.





Board the aircraft and I was kind of surprise to see that it is quite a old aircraft. I had never seen an aircraft with wooden design before. Isnt that old? Shit. And the light in the plane were those type of light bulb yellow colour. Is this a soviet plane?

Then comes my food. For you information, I paid over SGD$700 for these flights and this is what I got for food. Cannot make it.





Despite all these not so good thing about the flight, the clouds outside the plane still look wonderful.



and most importantly I still reached my destination in one piece.



Well, this is the first time I wrote such a negative cum complain entry. Hahaha.. But I was glad to be in Ukraine. After being in central asia for more than 1 month, I felt so good to be back in a proper city. With metro and everything here, I guess my trip from now on will be so much easier.

Crossing my fingers!!


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