Manic Moscow Motorways

[Mark:]
Here's a prep course for those of you who are getting ready to experience driving or at least being driven in Moscow for the first time. The streets are set up as a spoke and ring system, and each segment of the ring is new street. There are no regular street signs on poles at intersections, but you can catch the street name written on the corners of some buildings.

Despite the presence of 6-lane motorways and a metro used by millions each day, millions of cars and a wacky street layout made for not-so-direct routing to our destination.

As the crow flies does not apply here.

For example, here is how we started each day in Moscow. Our apartment is the red star, and we at least wanted to go east (towards the red box). The scarcity of left turns led to the following path:

1. Turn right (west) [green arrow].
2. Cross over Moscow River bridge to Ukrainia Hotel [green arrow].
3. Make a right-hand 180 at the U [green arrow].
4. Make a second right-hand 180 under the bridge [purple arrow].
5. Make a third right-hand 180 back onto the bridge (and see the U again) [orange arrow].
6. Cross back over bridge and past intersection that's a two-minute walk from the red star [orange arrow].
7. Proceed east [long orange arrow].

I think even a GPS nav system would be dizzy and the automated voice command would get muted right away. CLICK on image below to open i a new window and the see the animated GIF.