20th Anniversary Dream Trip Contest

Great Travel Moment

After a weekend trip to Nizhniy Novgorod, our group returned to Moscow at 5 am on Sunday by train. Instead of returning immediately back my host family, I decided to walk around. I walked down the main street, Tverskaya, and it was completely abandoned. At any other hour of the day, this street is crowded with people, vendors, and traffic jams. I felt like I was the only person in a city of 12 million. I came upon the Red Square and all of Moscow’s main sites (St. Basil’s Cathedral, Kremlin , and Lenin's tomb). There were no tourists, no guards, and no vendors, just me. I continued to walk around as the city began to wake up. First awoke the bells of the churches, and then Babushkas filtered into the streets to church. I found a coffee shop and sat watching in awe as the city transformed.