h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Moscow.. winter.. Imagine about 10 000 years ago you travel with a group through this part of the world and.. you decide to stay there.. stay in a place where temperatures fall to zero degrees... Fahrenheit!

This group probably did like the place so much they decided to stay.
And now I meet the offspring of these people. And I see the city they built.
And it's COLD!

And how do you find the offspring - and why are *you* there?

A few questions for starters

Ah, you find the "offspring" everywhere.. They are all over the place! ..
I'll start again.. Russians can be very friendly, nice.. sometimes they appear a bit unkind... is not the right term.. shy? probably not.. afraid? probably afraid to make mistakes, to appear silly.. Very few actively speak English although many of them can.

Why am I here.. Well.. that's simple.. I work here for (about) one year (project basis). After that year I'll probably go elsewhere. (preferably to a place with soft winters.. someting like minimum temperatures of minus 5)

I live in Finland and the same thoughts have crossed my mind. This winter was also EXTREMELY COLD here. - 25 C and so for weeks. Why did people ever stay here. On the other hands, summers are lovely but short here. Expect hot summers also in Moscow...

I know.. Ive been here since August.. worst things are the Metro and the traffic by then..
(half March and outside a small scale snowstorm) Oh well..

its gay

No it's not..

To summarize: Moscow is possibly gay - sometimes

I never noticed but then .. I'm not an expert

Cold you say =) I wish it was cold here! The other thing about Moscow is that you don't have to wake up at 6 in the morning...

well.. since I walked metro-office in minus 20C (or worse?) I stopped complaining about plus 30C (or better) minus 20 hurts

Sounds like a puzzle . Why don't you have to wake up at six in the morning?

ah.. I can explain that.. that's too early , especially in Moscow when it's minus 20 or so
Get up at 6am (or earlier) only in case of severe emergency like kids having to travel for 2 hours by train, like airplanes leaving at 7, ...
In general none of these emergencies occur in Moscow well.. to me that is ..

I'm from America (right now), and 6 here is not the earliest time for people to wake up, unfortunately... They usually go to work at this time. Even schools start at around 7 o'clock... Moscow, on the other hand, "wakes up" at around 8 (or later). What is the closest Metro station to you?

Puzzle solved

Kitai Gorod .. and I travelled south, against the mainstream.. usually a seat between 8:15 and 10:15

Not bad! I used to live between Profsouznaya and Nakhimovsky Prospekt... that was a 40 min. trip to centre....

Cannot find these.. I manage Cyrillic=>Western alfabet but the other way around is a bit too much (after one whole year)

Ah right.. Found it.. down at Oktyabrskaya
Interesting thing with the metro maps is that they don't give a clue of distances.. the further away from the centre the more distance is between stations.. Most interesting is the way the names of stations are posted on the platforms: always so that you can almost see them, but never completely read them

So true, I think it's because it's easy to make a mess out of names if you put them too close together, the other part is a mystery!