Arrival in Moscow

Jet-lagged after a long flight, there’s no better treatment than to be coddled and pampered until you recover. The best place for such treatment in Moscow is at the bed and breakfast run by Ludmila Rodina.

Ludmila is a long-time friend as well as a generous hostess. Slava and I were bad guests. I hope we didn’t strain Ludmila’s friendship.

I had told Ludmila that our flight arrived at 10:10 am, and we expected to be at her place around noon. At 12:00 we called to say that we’d not be there until 1:00 or 2:00. Our behavior so far was not unreasonable, and as I expected, she had lunch waiting for us. But we were not hungry. Our stomachs were still operating on Eastern Daylight Time. Ludmila delayed her own lunch until we were ready to eat at about 4:00 pm. Naturally, we weren’t ready for supper at 6:00 or 7:00. It was well after 9:00 pm that Ludmila had her evening meal with us.

Ludmila is rightly proud of being a gourmet cook, featuring many recipes from the Caucasus, and using ingredients from the gardens at her dacha. We had a cold beet soup, zucchini fritters, a Caucasian variant of ratatouille, turkey cutlets (rare in Russia), a platter of cold meats (Ludmila is largely vegetarian), traditional Russian brown bread, and caviar. This was served with champagne and cognac. With tea we had rhubarb-apple pie with a choice of homemade strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry fruit preserves.

Ludmila was gracious hostess to a pair of zombies. Slava functions better than I when jet lagged, but both of us needed naps. When we can stay for a few days Ludmila usually arranges for us to go to a concert somewhere, and we have plenty of time to talk. This visit was short, however, because we had to fly the next day to Ekaterinburg.

While hosting us Ludmila also had two Spanish women as guests. Ludmila operates her business largely by word of mouth, and so she’s not as busy as she could be. She likes to have guests she can enjoy. I recommend her services to any traveler who fits that description.