Russia 1981 (24)

More photos from around Chimkent. After the kindergarten and lunch at the hotel we were taken to the zoo. This was quite a sad affair. Big heavy bars on small cages - something like what our zoos are thankfully moving away from.

Chimkent Zoo

After the zoo we went to a workers sanitarium. The place had a vast man-made lake, swimming in it was wonderful.

Neil enjoying the water, Chimkent

After the sanitarium it's back to the hotel for dinner. Then a plane flight to Moscow which we got to around 9:40pm. From there it was to the Hotel Rossiya for the night, we got there around 11pm. In 1981, this was the largest hotel in the world with 3,200 rooms, 93 lifts, 5,350 guests and 3,000 employees. It was built in 1967 and demolished in 2006. I had taken a photo of it earlier in the holiday when we were going around the Kremlin.

Hotel Rossiya

Russian hotel rooms are much smaller than in western hotels

The room Andy and I shared at the Hotel Rossiya

We had to get visas to visit Russia, here's the one I had...

My Russian visa

Thursday, 6th August 1981

Apparently I had a restless night. I knocked a glass of water over round 4am. Andy got up around 5am and I finally woke up at 6am. Did a little walking around the hotel...

St. Basil's Cathedral from just outside the Hotel Rossiya

This page created 29th September 2011, last modified 29th September 2011