Moscow Layover tour<\/a>, and the tourists had only 7 hours in the city. The way from the metro to Sparrow-hills is long, and we were completely wet, but still adventurous and excited. It was part of the experience, blissful spring rain in Moscow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nAnya<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- When giving a tour to my tourists I always ask them if they feel good and whether they need anything like a break, some coffee or anything else. And they actually always do. One of my tourists had a sore throat and needed some syrup and pills, so we dropped into the pharmacy. When we came to\u00a0Zifeblat, a\u00a0girl who works there presented\u00a0a jar of raspberry jam to my tourist because of her sore throat. In Russia people always take raspberry jam when having flu. Traditional yummy medicine.<\/li>\n
- The best moment was in the museum of Childhood, where me and my tourist\u00a0compared the toys we had when we were children and found out we had many similar ones.<\/li>\n
- And speaking about the worst experience, the first thing which comes to my mind is the story about Zhukov and Coke, which I told to Russian tourists. WARNING: Russians don\u2019t think it\u2019s funny, they are more likely to be offended! So I will never again tell this story to Russians.<\/li>\n
- Once\u00a0the Red Square was closed till 12 for no special reason and the Mausoleum wasn\u2019t open that day at all, the lines to the Kremlin ticket offices were endless, so I had to focus on\u00a0reorganizing\u00a0the\u00a0initial plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Inna<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- The best are usually the informal chat about cultural differences over a coffee or lunch.<\/li>\n
- I remember how we were discussing with my tourists \u00a0the differences in cultures and the way of life in Russia and New Zealand, it was mutually enriching.<\/li>\n
- Well, when I was going to meet my tourists in the airport for our layover tour, we texted each other all the way while she was passing the passport control, I told her how I looked and how the sign with her name looked (it was yellow) so when we met we almost felt like old friends. At the end of the tour she invited me to see one of the productions of this theater company when I happen to come to San Francisco.<\/li>\n
- Taking photos at the view point of the World of Children.<\/li>\n
- When I tell my tourists about Revolution Square metro and the statues students rub to have luck at the exam, they all rub the statues too\u00a0and look\u00a0so happy!<\/li>\n
- It was a bit challenging\u00a0when one of my tourists didn’t smile at all and looked very serious and kind of detached throughout the whole tour.<\/li>\n
- Another common challenge is when I would come up to the Alexander Garden with tourists and it was closed and we had to bypass it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Dasha<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- I`ll never take a taxi with tourists on Friday. It was a stupid idea, really.<\/li>\n
- One day turnstile in metro hit a tourist. It was awful. Now I deal with their ticket myself to make sure they`ll be saved from this.<\/li>\n
- I`ll never go with them to Mu-mu, so popular among locals. It`s not convenient place to take a rest at all. Loud, crowded and too cheap.<\/li>\n
- Once on a foodie tour, we were walking from the metro to Dorogomilovsky market, and its really dirty area. Everybody was\u00a0asking us to buy flowers, souvenirs or some other crap.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"fun](\"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Dasha-Moscow-guide.jpg\")
Dasha, Friendly Local Guide in Moscow<\/p><\/div>\n
Your TOP 5 fun facts from your tours?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nDasha<\/strong>:\u00a0I can say that my favorite facts are:<\/p>\n\n- The story about first McDonalds in Moscow.<\/li>\n
- The story about Zhukov.<\/li>\n
- The story about Bolshoi Theatre and the birthday of USSR.<\/li>\n
- The legend about Ivan the Terrible and blinded architect.<\/li>\n
- The story about the monument of Peter the Great in Moscow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Anya<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- The statue of Pushkin on Pushkinskaya square used to stand on Tverskoy boulevard, facing the demolished Strastnoy monastery. This could explain\u00a0his pose: his hat off, bowing a bit in respect.<\/li>\n
- Mansion of the Apraksins on Pokrovka street, also known as dom-komod, was the place, where\u00a0 Alexander Pushkin had his dance classes as a child. And the mansion itself was built by the architect Rastreli – the one who built Winter palace and Petergoff in St Petersburg.<\/li>\n
- The urban legend, that the statue of Peter the Great originally was the monument of Christopher Columbus, but the US didn\u2019t want to take it, so the architects had to chop his head off and put the head of Peter the Great.<\/li>\n
- Merchant Perlov ordered the facade of his house on Myasnitskaya street to be made in Chinese style because he hoped that the Chinese diplomat who was invited to the coronation of Nicholas II would stay in his house. Unfortunately, he didn\u2019t. But the tea house has been extremely popular since then.<\/li>\n
- Moscow metro can be considered to be a Nature History Museum: the marble used for the construction of some stations has fossils in it, which could be seen quite clearly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Inna<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- Polytechnic Museum has in its collection the only remaining prerevolutionary Russian car manufactured at the Russo-Balt factory<\/li>\n
- Neglinnaya Street was once a river<\/li>\n
- There were several fire-fighting teams in the 19th<\/sup>-century Moscow and each had horses of a specific color delivered from this or that region of Russia<\/li>\n
- Millionaire Grigory Eliseev, who opened the famous grocery store on Tverskaya Street in 1901, was awarded with the French Legion of Honor order for an important charity donation.<\/li>\n
- In the 19th<\/sup> century, there was a big market on Sukharevskaya Square where, among other things, you could buy antiquities and paintings and other pieces of art. Most of them were fake so a buyer needed to be a real expert to find something authentic. Once a lady saw a painting signed \u201cIlya Repin\u201d, who was a famous artist of the time. She paid ten roubles for it saying that she was going to meet Repin that evening and that if the painting turned out a fake she would bring it back. So she showed the piece to the artist, who laughed a lot. Then he took a pen and wrote, \u201cIt\u2019s not a Repin. I. Repin\u201d. The lady returned the painting to the seller. A few days later it was purchased for 100 roubles because of the artist\u2019s authentic autoghraph.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"private](\"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Inna-and-Dasha-our-Friendly-Local-Guides-in-Moscow.jpg\")
Inna and Dasha, our Friendly Local Guides in Moscow<\/p><\/div>\n
What surprises your tourists most of all? What do they particularly enjoy on the tour?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnya:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Off the beaten track places which are hidden away from tourists are always a success: for example,\u00a0 private birdhouse with swans and peacocks and doves near Chistye Prudy, where we fed birds.<\/li>\n
- My tourists are impressed when I tell them\u00a0that during the WW2 metro stations were used as shelters and that more than 200 babies were born in the underground during the war.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Dasha<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- My American tourists love when I show them\u00a0the\u00a0statues from USSR, tell them the history of modern art, and when we go to see\u00a0wooden church in Izmaylovo Kremlin. Those ones really look fabulous. I’d say they compete with St. Basil’s Cathedral.<\/li>\n
- They also are interested in various cuisines of Russia. Once I was telling my tourists about Georgian food and this country in general. We had khachapuri, khinkali, shashlyk, different kinds of bread. They were really enjoying their food and cultural experience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Inna:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- There are\u00a0lots of things and facts\u00a0that surprise my tourists: Colonization of Siberia, Russian Revolutionary leaders, Soviet way of life.<\/li>\n
- My tourists love listening to some facts from the current Russian life and my explications concerning Russians\u2019 mentality.<\/li>\n
- Tourists are particularly impressed by the fact that during Soviet Times many people lived in Communal Flats.<\/li>\n
- The fate of St Basil’s architects, the fact that every single book published in Russia goes to the archives of the State Library, that Russians and Ukrainians are very close, with almost every family has relatives in Ukraine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Katya<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- My hand-made postcards.<\/li>\n
- That Moscow is so beautiful!<\/li>\n
- Local hidden gems: Pyatnitskaya street and its churches, Flacon design center and Sunday market<\/li>\n
- I took my tourists to Kamchatka bar a couple of vodka shots at the beginning of the tour, and that was a nice surprise and fun for them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Spanish-speaking](\"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Katya-Friendly-Local-Guides-in-Moscow.jpg\")
Katya, Friendly Local Guides in Moscow<\/p><\/div>\n
What made your tourists happy and smile on the tour?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnya<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- The music from the 90s on New Arbat, which reminded her of her own childhood.<\/li>\n
- This one\u00a0was not the fact, but the place – she was impressed with anticafe Ziferblat, because they don\u2019t have anything similar to it in Germany.<\/li>\n
- Central Children\u2019s Department Store. Many tourists feel so happy there\u00a0and we can easily spend there for about 35-40 minutes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Dasha<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- My toursts\u00a0\u00a0love Moscow metro system, views from the Patriachiy bridge,\u00a0Strelka bar with the best views on the river\u00a0and Cathedral of Christ the Savior.<\/li>\n
- Trying Russian vareniki, borsch, pelmeni and, of course, Russian vodka.<\/li>\n
- Cutlets a la Kiev in Korchma, Ukranian restaurant, is always a hit among my tourists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Inna<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n- Just the fact of being in Moscow, something they have been wanting for a long time.<\/li>\n
- When we \u00a0(Anya and me) came to GUM\u00a0to the fountain which is now still decorated as a cherry tree of peace and presented our Australian tourists non-trivial artistic postcards of Moscow with warm wishes and Friendly Local Guides\u00a0contacts (me) and two packs of buiscuits (Anya).<\/li>\n
- It was fun to pass Armenian side-street during the tour with my\u00a0ethnic Armenian tourist whose great-grandparents flew to the US in 1915.<\/li>\n
- I managed to show one of my tourists\u00a0not-so-conventional Moscow off the traditional tourist itineraries, which she was quite pleased with: Maroseika, Myasnitskaya, side-streets of Kitai-Gorod.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Best](\"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Our-Friendly-Local-Guides-in-Moscow.jpg\")
Our Friendly Local Guides in Moscow<\/p><\/div>\n
What would you like them to remember you for?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnya<\/strong>: being sociable, open-minded, funny, Moscow-loving, responsible, knowledgeable, trying to make the tour fun.<\/p>\nDasha<\/strong>: as a very friendly local and fun to hang out with.<\/p>\nInna<\/strong>: for being friendly, knowledgeable, for trying to show them Russia and Russians beyond stereotypes, for a\u00a0lovely walk and talk about a bit of everything which my tourists enjoy so much.<\/p>\nKatya<\/strong>: as an\u00a0energetic, smiling, positive, responsible, attentive guide.<\/p>\n![\"Spanish](\"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Katya-Moscow-guide.jpg\")
Katya, Moscow guide<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Local Insight into Moscow tours \u201cWe travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.\u201d \u2013 Anais Nin While most tourists are looking for tours, it \u2026<\/p>\n
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