Saturday August 20
Some of the Russian staff- Julie, Marina, and Natalie- invited Liz and I to go to an airshow outside the city. It rained all night Friday night so I wasn't sure, but by morning it had stopped so I decided to be part of the adventure. The trip required us to be at our Metro by 7:20 a.m. There we met Marina and Julie and took the Metro 20 min. with one change to Komsomolskaya train station where we waited 20 min. for Natalie and then took an electric train to Zhulovsky outside the city. There we got a free shuttle bus to the airfield ,Bikovo,I think, where the planes were on display.
This doesn't sound too bad except that there were thousands and thousands of people doing the same thing so everything was literally 'standing room only' and while we were on the train it began to rain again. The journey itself took about 3 hours and then we had to stand in the pouring rain in a field of umbrella (mine not being one of them) to be channeled through the security-just like at the airport- and then into line again for our tickets. The rain got progressively harder as we waited, and speaking from experience, in a sea of umbrellas you do get wet where water rolls off another's umbrella and down your back. For the first half hour we were just a mass of people with no discernible lines and then we got to pipe fences to herd us into some order. One girl likened it to cattle going to the slaughter, but it WAS more fun than that.
We finally got inside and the whole airport had planes parked so you could walk up and down and see them and take pictures, and they sure love to pose for pictures. WE saw many fighter planes, helicopters, and even several planes from U.S., including a huge cargo plane that opened at both ends. While we were strolling or being jostled around there were demonstrations going on in the sky. We saw acrobatic formations and even a slow gliding graceful demonstation by the Airbus. This plane is HUGE and it's hard to imagine that it could go this slow and glide around like it did.
The rain did stop after we were inside and it was warm enough that my clothes dried. It was a pleasant, though very exhausting day. We took food to snack on as we walked around, because now it was too wet to sit anywhere. The Russians take excellent care of us , no one got lost, and being their senior, they always made sure I had the first available seat on the train, bus, etc. before trying to find one for themselves. Otherwise, you are on your feet the whole day from the time you wake up till you get home again which for us was about 7 p.m.
If you are a Facebook friend you can see the album on my profile but here is a sample...
For some reason the pictures end up chronologically backwards when I upload to my blog so I'll have to figure that out another day.
Oh, I forgot to talk about when we decided to leave and got on the wrong shuttle. We ended up going to another part of town where they had parking lots. Then we had to get another shuttle all the way back to the airfield and try again for a shuttle to the train. That used up all our bright idea of leaving early to avoid the rush. So once again we were in the masses when we returned, but Russian know all the angles so when it was time to get on the train, we rode one stop back so we could get seats before the crowd got on at the airshow stop. Thankfully, it worked...we all sat for the ride back to Moscow.
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