- Thousands of Russians make
this journey every single day. I head across to Leningradsky Station to take the Krasnaya
Strela, the Red Arrow, up to St Petersburg. I'm pretty impressed with this. Hello, and zdravstvutye from
Moscow and from Red Square, with the Kremlin right behind me, home, of course, to Russian
leaders and oligarchs throughout the centuries. And when it comes to
traveling around Russia, for these people, of
course, the railway is king, and it has always been that way. And when the leaders were
heading up to St Petersburg or Leningrad, as it was in the day, they would take the Krasnaya
Strela, the Red Arrow, which is a overnight
train from here in Moscow up to St Petersburg. And that's exactly what we're
going to be doing today. We're going to be
following in the footsteps of the great leaders and the
tsars and the dignitaries, and taking a ride up to St Petersburg on the Krasnaya Strela, the Red Arrow. Now, before we go and jump on the train up to St Petersburg, I need to show you the hotel
I've been staying in here. This is the Sovietsky
Hotel built in the 1950s by the son of Joseph Stalin. And it was used to house all
of the visiting diplomats and foreign leaders from around the world when they came to visit the Soviet Union. Two reasons, really,
not only because it was a really lavish and probably
the most lavish hotel in Moscow, but also all the rooms were bugged so that anything that was said by various leaders could be picked up by the Soviet regime. Inside, it really is something to behold, so let me just quickly take you inside and show you this hotel, before we had to the
station and get on the train up to St Petersburg. Isn't this place just
absolutely phenomenal? The halls, the marble everywhere. Just an absolutely beautiful hotel. Just outside the center of Moscow. Look at this. Now, back in Soviet times, of course, this hotel would have been bugged by the Communist leaders
here in the Soviet Union, and there's lots of stories
of little secret cupboards, and little secret doors and
stuff everywhere in this hotel, where they used to have monitoring rooms to monitor all of the rooms from the visiting dignitaries. I'm not going to talk too much about the history of the hotel, because there's already a
fantastic video on YouTube by Bald and Bankrupt,
who's done a really nice, far better job of talking about this place than I could ever do, so I'll pop a link to that video up there. But before we go off to the station, I need to show you my room here. Now of course, like any great leader, we're not just staying in any
room at the Sovietsky Hotel. We're staying in this one. This is Stalin's apartment.
Yes, that's right. This guy up here. Mr Stalin himself, well, he used to stay in this apartment here, as well as all the great leaders when they used to come to Moscow, visiting dignitaries. And just look at this room here. I mean, crazy. This is just
the living room bit, look. Chandeliers on the ceiling. This is the first hotel
I've ever stayed in where my room has got its
own private conference room with this dude on the wall, of course. Would you just look at
this? It's incredible. I mean, to think that leaders
like Stalin and Thatcher have sat at this very
table, this very desk, signing decrees and things. I feel like Michael
Scott out of The Office. Let me go through to the
bedroom. Look at this. Chuck Norris has slept in this very bed, or hopefully not this exact same bed, but in this location. And I mean ... Of course, with the same bathroom as well. Which in itself is a work of art. I mean, good lord, look at that bathroom. Margaret Thatcher has sat on this toilet. Actually, that's not really
a thought I want to have going through my head anyway. Can I have a bit of privacy, please? The list of people who have
stayed in this actual room is just something else. And now, well, I'm staying here. Right then, it's time to say goodbye
to Stalin's apartment at the Sovietsky Hotel, and head across to Leningradsky Station to take the Krasnaya
Strela, the Red Arrow, up to St Petersburg. Let's go. So, today is Russia Day in Russia, which means everybody's going
out to celebrate tonight. So the roads are pretty busy. Everyone's heading out to
town into have a few drinks and celebrate Russia. And welcome to Leningradsky
Station in Moscow, right next door to this one
here, Yaroslavlsky Station, which goes off towards Yaroslavl. And we're heading to
St Petersburg tonight. So we go on the Leningrad line, which goes from Leningradsky. It's a bit like St Pancras
and King's Cross in London, really, just a whole lot busier. It's crazy. There's 21 trains a day between
Moscow and St Petersburg, and about half of those leave
around this time of night to get in early in the
morning into St Petersburg. It is crazy busy route, and
obviously thousands of Russians make this journey every single day, so we're going to join them today, except we're doing it in style, of course, on the train used by diplomats and leaders from around the world, and the Communist Party elite, and I'm going to be one of them tonight, taking the Red Arrow. I was telling you about
how many trains there are to St Petersburg. Look at that board: almost
every single train tonight is going to St Petersburg. Mine's the very top one,
the 23:55 Krasnaya Strela. And we're going from ... Where are we going from? I don't know, I think number ... It's train number two. Train number two on
Russian Railway Network. The train number one is
the train the other way from St Petersburg to Moscow. We're on train number two,
which goes that way, so ... . I don't know what that means. I will try and find out, figure out where we need to head to, to get the train up to St Petersburg. So it seems we are a little
bit early for the train, but they are boarding about an
hour out by the looks of it. The trains are listed
on here, quite handily, with the numbers of the carriages and where they are on the train and stuff. So you can find your way to your carriage. There's about five trains
leaving before 10 o'clock to St Petersburg. Premium means it's the sleeper service, as does high, and then they've
got the express service as well. They've got these Sapsan
trains that take four hours to do the route from
Moscow to St Petersburg. But then, obviously they've
got all the night trains as well that take about eight
hours to do the same journey, obviously going a lot slower, so you get a good night's
sleep before you arrive into St Petersburg. So I'm going to just hang
around here for a bit, and see what there is to
do at Leningradsky Station. Might get a bite to
eat before we head down to board the train. I mean, if you're
traveling like an oligarch, you might as well eat like one as well. So they seem to be starting
boarding here on the trains about half an hour before
they actually leave. And we've got about an hour and a half until our train leaves, but I am going to sort of hang around here in the platform area
just for a little bit, and hopefully be boarding soon, and getting on our way. It's just such a fun experience, just hanging around here
and watching everybody just sort of running for
their trains and stuff. I love hanging around stations.
That's weird, isn't it? I do like hanging around train stations, and just watching people flap and leg it for their trains
that they're about to miss. We'll be on our way soon. Most Russian trains have three
classes of service on them. You get third class sleeper trains, which is the old sort of
open plan dormitory style that you see on a lot of trains here. Then you've got your second class, you have kupe, which is
where you have four beds in the room, and you can either buy
just one bed and share with either other men or other women. Or you can just buy all
four beds for yourself, which is something I've done
before, down in Ukraine. Then you have your first class,
which is generally two beds. And again, you've got the
choice of buying both of them, if you want a room to yourself. But the Krasnaya Strela,
there is a step further. They've got a deluxe class,
which is above first class, and guess what we're doing today, as we're recreating the
route of the old oligarchs and tsars and party leaders. We're taking deluxe
class tonight, of course. When the train eventually starts boarding. Right, we're ready to go. Platform number three, here we go. Off to St Petersburg. All right, so this train is really long. That was carriage number 16. We're in carriage number one. So we've got about another
15 carriages left to go, until we get to our carriage
at the head of the train. Isn't it a beautiful train,
though? Look at this. Krasnaya Strela. The Red Arrow. One of the great Russian trains. One of the classic
Russian trains, actually. A lot of history behind it. So, looking forward to getting on board. I think, at this rate,
we're walking half way to St Petersburg. Thank you. Here we are, then, on board. Deluxe class. Let's look. Here we are, then. Deluxe
class on the Krasnaya Strela. This is quite nice. Shut my door in a minute, and we'll have a look around this room. This looks gorgeous, doesn't it? Right, so let's have a
quick look around this. This is the deluxe room
on the Krasnaya Strela. I mean, good lord, look at this. We have a TV, playing Russian
soap operas, no doubt. We have some bedding up there. Nice gorgeous mirror. And then what have we got here?
Bit of storage along here. Note pad. Look, you get a
Krasnaya Strela note pad. Wicked. You get your room key. Few lighting controls
and stuff. Look at that. It's like Emirates
first class, on a plane. And then down here, what do we have? We've got chocolate. Awesome. Any train company that
gives you free chocolate, well, I'm happy with. And we've got fruit, and we've got dining stuff. Menu here. Menu Podushek. Podushek. Podushek. Is that for breakfast
or is that for dinner? I can't remember. I don't know. It's not for either. I don't know what it
means. Menu or something. Russian speakers will know better. Yeah, glass of water and stuff on there. That's pretty decent. Air conditioning, Individually controlled, which is nice on these Russian trains, because they like to crank
the heating right up. There it is. Coming alive up there. Stick that on. And then we've got power. Look, we've got ... What have we got here? Ah, it's called the Provodnika. And you've got power supply here, and a LAN port as well. Look at that, look. Very cool. And then these gorgeous curtains here. Then we have another room.
Is this the bathroom? Let me check. We have a
bathroom with a shower. It's tiled. Good lord. A tiled bathroom, with a nice,
full sized shower cubicle. Oh my goodness. Just look at this. I mean, I thought the Caledonian
Sleeper was good and cool, on the fact that they
had individual bathrooms. This has a full size bathroom. It's not a caravan toilet like
you get on the Cali sleeper. No, this is a full hotel room bathroom. Bathroom with a window. So you can watch the world
go by as you have your shower in the morning. Wow. And then, what's here? Full wardrobe. Radio up there. More storage, for things
like the sheets and stuff up there. What are they? They're towels, so you've
got towels up there, pillows, for the beds. This is proper sweet,
this is. I like this. So here we go. This is what you get
on the Krasnaya Strela. Little book all about the
history of it as well, which is nice. It's all in Russian. Nice little touches like
this though. It's incredible. The history of the Krasnaya Strela. And then wine ... Ooh, wine list. We have a wine list. Order on the app and they'll
deliver it to your room. I like the sound of that. We shall take full
advantage of that very soon. And then we have food menu, summer menu, appetizers. This is proper cool, so you
actually get full room service, by the looks of it. We have to try that in a bit. I'm pretty impressed with this. It's pretty decent, isn't it,
for a night train, anyway? So let's try and sit back
and chillax a little bit, as we wait to depart
from Leningradsky Station and head towards St Petersburg. So it looks like we get
breakfast on board, actually. There is a menu here, menu for ... "Of the guaranteed feeding rations for passengers of luxury car." So my feeding rations are listed in here. What should we get for our
feeding rations in the morning? Let's have a look. We have a choice of cold starter, we have choice of main
course, rice porridge, a berry topping on that
with cheese pancakes, with red caviar. You can get caviar on this train. Wow. We have to do that, surely. As a man of great power
and statute in the party, we need to have caviar
for breakfast, surely. What else do we get? Dessert. Fruit and berries platter. Chocolate, choice of two soft drinks, and a cup of coffee, wow. They do vegetarian breakfast if you are that way inclined, as well. They do a children's breakfast. I might have one of them
as well. No, not really. "Enjoy your meal." Wow, fantastic. So I don't know when they'll
come in, or bring that round, when they'll bring around my
guaranteed feeding ration, but we'll find out in the morning. I do like the fact that
they give you not one, but six coat hangers. Like, this is an eight
hour train from Moscow to St Petersburg. Who needs six coat hangers
to hang up their stuff out of their suitcase? Wouldn't you just do what I'm going to do, and just grab it out of
the case in the morning when you're ready to get dressed? I don't know. Seriously, six coat hangers, wow. Right, we're five minutes
before we are due to depart, and the engines just fired up next door. Bearing in mind, we are in the
very front car of the train, so we're right next to the engine. On the loco, I should say,
getting into my train speak. The loco has just fired up, and I've just felt the
train clanging and banging about a bit, so clearly they just connected summat up. So in a minute, we'll be on our way. Right, so we're on the move,
right on time departure there. The Provenita has just come
around, the car attendant, and gone through the breakfast options. Basically you can choose your breakfast to come at any time between half six and when we arrive at eight, so I've ordered it for half seven, so I can get a bit extra
sleep and time for a shower. Also they've got a full
wine list and everything, and treats you can have in the evening. So I just ordered some
drinks from there as well. They're going to bring it to my room. And he's also brought around some slippers and an amenity kit, which we'll go through in a little bit. This is pretty cool, this is. Service is fantastic, actually, so far. He was very helpful. He's
shown me all around the room. And yeah, we'll get on our way. When he came around, as well, he also told me that
we've included in my fare, because it's a deluxe room, included in the fare,
you get a free transfer anywhere in St Petersburg
here at the other end. So yeah, I've got a free
transfer to my hotel when I get there, which
is pretty nice, isn't it? Saves me having to battle
around trying to find a Yandex to pick me when they're
just going to have a taxi waiting for me at the other end. So, decent. So, I'm just looking at my rail map app, to see where we are. In a minute, we're going to be passing a place called Khimki, which is the place that,
when I came to Russia as an 11-year-old, that is the place I stayed at the school that we did the exchange
with, was in Khimki. The family that I stayed
with while I was over here, lived right across the road
from Khimki railway station. So in a couple of minutes, we're going to go sailing through Khimki, and I'm going to see the exact
place that I came to stay when I was 11 years old. This is pretty cool. The
first time in 30 years. There's the river. Ooh. I remember the river. That's the apartment blocks. My friend's friend stayed
in those apartment blocks. There is downtown Khimki. There we go, there it is.
Wow, that's the building. Just beyond the station. There it is. There we go, going back through Khimki for the first time in 30 years. That is just incredible. Amazing. Perfect, thank you. - Goodnight.
- Goodnight. The entertainment has
arrived for the evening. Of course you can't come
on the Krasnaya Strela, the most Soviet of Soviet trains, without having some vodka, and a glass of wine as well, just in case the vodka isn't enough. So yeah, hey. Nasdrovya. That's good vodka. Half a bottle down. Three more halves of bottles to go. So I asked the guy about the TV and how it works, and effectively, it's
not really a live TV. You basically get a pack of DVDs to go through, and you can pop them in
the little DVD player that's up there on the wall. Let's have a look in the box. See what we have. Disc four, disc five, disc three, disc five, disc nine. No, it's just a load of DVDs, basically. I'm presuming they're all in Russian, but essentially, if you speak Russian, you're probably going
to be all right here. So you basically, you load the DVD up and it
plays on the TV up on the wall. It's not really live TV as such. I imagine that live TV on a train must be pretty difficult actually, when you're traveling as
far as we are on this train, it's like 400 miles up to
St Petersburg from Moscow. So yeah, we'll not bother
with any telly tonight. I'm going to finish drinking my vodka. Possibly my wine, but I might save that until I get to the hotel. Don't know. I'll then try and get some sleep, because in the morning we
arrive into St Petersburg at 8:00 AM, which is
pretty flipping early, considering we didn't leave till midnight. So yeah, let's get some more vodka drunk, and then I can show you the amenity kit, and we'll put the bed down. Right. Amenity kit time. RZD. It's the Russian railway company. It's the name of them. So let's have a look what we
get in the RZD amenity kit. We'll open it up. See what we get. Come on, you. Get open. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. There we go. Oh. The zip's a bit crap. Right. Ooh, that's pretty. That's pretty. That is a nice scene of a Russian city. We get ... What do we get? Siberica mouthwash. There
we go, we get mouthwash. Do you think they're telling me something? I need mouthwash? We get shampoo. We get
shower gel. We get ... What is that? It's like a
douche for in the shower. Like I'm not big enough
of a douche, anyway. Some sort of shoe shine
kit. Shoe shine, shine. Ear plugs, presumably so that
we can block out the train going toot toot next door. We get a razor. Who bothers shaving on here? On a train? If you want to shave
on a train, you can do, on a Krasnaya Strela. You get a toothbrush, in
case you've forgotten yours. And you get ... What is this? Toothpaste? Russki toothpaste. That, I think ... Wait, what's this? One more, one more, one more. Aquatik shaving cream. So yeah, if you want to
shave on the train ... That sounds really risky,
shaving on a train, going over bumps like ... Slicing your face open. Doesn't sound good, does it? Ooh, there's not a bit
as well, at the top. Nearly missed this bit. What's this, what's this, what's this? Ah, we get a comb. An RZD comb. We get a little leaflet thing, and we get a refresher
emblazoned with a picture of a train on the front, and it comes in this little
bag that hangs as well. I love it when they do this.
That's pretty cool, isn't it? Trying to think what airline
I was on that did that. Ethiopia. Ethiopians, the amenity
kit's got the same thing. They've got a little
hanger on them. Very cool. Anyway, there you go, you get a train, if you get the Krasnaya Strela
and travel in deluxe class, maybe in first class
as well, I don't know. But anyway, whatever, you get this, the cool RZD amenity kit. Prekrasnaya rosnya, da. Prekrasnaya rosnya. Right, we're going to try
putting this bed together, which after 200 ml of vodka or
two little bottles of vodka, is going to be an interesting experience. Let's see how we do. From what he was saying, we
have to move this table first, and move this out of the way. And there's a little
lever, I think, under here. Where is it, where is it, where is it? We're falling at the first
hurdle here. Hang on. I'm going to have to look under here. Where is this bloody lever? He made it look really easy. Just pull? No, it doesn't pull. Ah. Well, we've fallen at the first hurdle. Apparently we have to move this table. Still I can't find how you do it. Oh dear. This isn't good, is it? Ooh, ooh, there we go. Oh,
it just moves. It just moves. There we go. Look at that. Hey, we did a thing. Right, now we have to pull this down. You've got a little lever, little sort of grab and hold here. Look at that, look. It folds. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. That's
tight, that's tight. Can it do it? Is it moving? Oh yes. Look at that. And that's it. Wow. Look
at the size of that bed. That's bloody huge. Right, and then, I don't know. Clearly, that's the mattress. No, that's not the
mattress. That's the duvet. We've got a little thing here. Can I just unhook that, maybe? There we go. Bye bye. And then we've got a duvet. And pillows. One, two. There we go, look. Perfectly made bed. Would you look at that? Hey, Hey, I did a thing. I made a bed. Rach, Rach, Rach, I made a bed. Look, eh? Be proud of me. Right, okay. I don't think I need
those pillows up there, because there's some down there. So I'm going to get undressed, and I'm not going to record this bit, because I don't want to put
you all off your dinner, but let me climb into bed. Right, so bedtime and the bed is not ... Well, actually, it's not bad, actually, if you lay straight. I can sort of fit in the bed quite easily, which is quite nice. About as good as a lot
of airline flat beds, but it's a lot wider. It's like more than a single bed. It's sort of ... Well, I don't know. A big
single bed, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's pretty comfortable. So I'm going to try and get some sleep. I mean, I need to set my
alarm for in the morning, because we arrive into St Petersburg at just before eight o'clock, and it's a nonstop train. So hopefully, I'll get
a decent night's sleep, and I will speak to you
in the morning. Goodnight. Well, good morning from on
board the Krasnaya Strela. And it's now just coming
up to 6:30 in the morning. So we've got a roundabout
an hour and a half until we arrive into St Petersburg, and it's really bright and sunny out. St Petersburg has these
white nights at the minute, at this time of year, which means it basically
never gets fully dark, because it's so far north. So of course, six o'clock in the morning, it's like the middle of the day. So that's kind of what's woken me up. But nevermind, because
it means we get to enjoy some of this scenery before we arrive into St Petersburg on this
beautiful sunny morning. So yeah, I slept all right. I got about six hours'
sleep or so, I'd say, which wasn't too bad. The bed is really comfy. Just takes some getting used
to the rocking and rolling of the train, as usual, when
you travel on a sleeper train. But yeah, I didn't sleep
too bad at all, really. Probably helped in part
by the vodka last night. But nevermind, I'm going
to get up in a minute. I'm going to go and have
a shower, get sorted, and yeah, we'll soon be
arriving into St Petersburg. I have to say, this is the
best train I've ever been on where they give you a dressing gown. How cool is that? The height of sophistication and luxury. Quite a nice shower, actually,
very powerful and spacious for a train shower, at least. I mean, certainly, it's the best shower I've ever had on a train before. Trying to think words I
never thought I'd be saying. But yeah, that was pretty decent actually. So I'm going to sort of get ready now. My breakfast should be arriving
in the next half an hour, and there's more and
more buildings appearing on the horizon, so I think we're getting closer and closer to St Petersburg now. So just reading through
this book that they gave me, the Krasnaya Strela has been
going for 90 years this year. That's incredible, isn't it? 90 years this train's been running nonstop between Moscow and St Petersburg. And it started in ... Let's have a look. There's pictures in this
book from over the years. Look, in 1944, during
World War Two, this was ... Used to operate as a
steam train back then, and then back in the 1950s, that's what it used to look like, wow. And here we go, 2021. Here's the modern face
of the Krasnaya Strela. That's what you get. Here's the ... That's the room that we're in. Nice. There's a nice lady
bringing you your breakfast. The beautiful cups that
you get your tea in. Lots of pictures of ... There's a bar on board as well. Should have checked out the
bar last night, actually. There we go. There's all the staff
of the Krasnaya Strela. Aren't they a pretty bunch of people? There we go, 90 years. That's incredible, isn't it? And I think from what I remember, it's only actually stopped running for like a very short period in that time, during the siege of
Leningrad or something, in World War Two. Apart from that, this train
has run nonstop every night for 90 years. Just amazing, isn't it, really? So, opening my rail map here, we are literally on the outskirts of St Petersburg now. And we've got still about
an hour before we're due to be arriving into St Petersburg. And we're only like a few miles away, and we seem to have just
slowed down to a crawl for this last bit to make
sure that we get in on time into St Petersburg. Russian railways are just brilliant. You can set your watch by them, literally. They're very, very good in my experience. Yeah, about an hour to go. I'm just waiting for my breakfast. Thank you very much. Thank you. Breakfast. Breakfast has arrived. We have pancakes. We have salmon with lemon. We have a bit of bread. I'm going to have caviar. I'm sort of starting slightly to regret ordering caviar for breakfast. Doesn't seem the most
appetizing thing to eat at 7:30 in the morning,
but we'll give it a go. Hey, we've got to live like
these oligarchs did, haven't we? So yeah, let's do this. Let's have the salmon first. Salmon's all right for breakfast. It's my Christmas Day breakfast, usually. Albeit missing the pork
pie that I usually have for Christmas Day breakfast
as well, but nevermind. A bit of salmon. Mhmm. It's very good. It is time to see what caviar tastes like at 7:30 in the morning, with coffee. Oh. Yeah. It's okay. In the evening, maybe. Not for breakfast. It's a bit strong. Some juice. I could use some of that
vodka to wash my mouth out. And my pancakes of course. Pancakes are nice. We appear to be entering
St Petersburg now, because there's lots of buildings. And the stations that we're going past are full of commuters heading to work. My ride on the Krasnaya
Strela tonight then cost me 148 pounds 34, or $200 USD, working out at a cost
of 33 pence per mile. Now of course, you could
fly this route in an hour, many times a day, for a lot less money, but personally, why go through the stress of flying through Russian airports, and then having to find
a hotel at the other end, when you could just spend
the night in absolute luxury on board this train? Well, here we are, then, St Petersburg. Bang on time. 8:55. 7:55 in the morning, rather. We are bang on time for our arrival. That's incredible, literally
to the minute, we pulled in. So let's go and get off the train. Spasiba. Dasvidaniya. Thank you, you too. Spasiba. Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Arriving to St Petersburg with
the national anthem playing to welcome me as the oligarch
from Mansfield arrives into St Petersburg. Thank you, Rossya. Spasiba Rossya. As always, I'd like to say
a big thanks to my Patreons. You can join them at the
link on the screen now for access to my WhatsApp group, live weekly Zoom calls
with me, and much more. This is how oligarchs should be treated. Spasiba. Thank you. Bye bye. Schindler's lifts. That's a nice hotel, isn't it? Room 320, after the Airbus, of course. They must have known I was coming. Well, here we are, then. Got a view over the restaurant
and everything here. Very nice. So welcome to St Petersburg. What a lovely ride that
was on the Krasnaya Strela. I really enjoyed that. Up from Moscow, traveling like the oligarch I aspire to be. And now we are here at the Hotel Indigo, which is also quite a nice place. So yeah, welcome to St Petersburg. I've got a few bits I'm going to be doing up this neck of the woods as well. So make sure you hit
that subscribe button, so you don't miss any of them. In the meantime, as always,
thanks for watching. Take care, and I'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.
