This was the way out. I was so disappointed..I was sure I called ahead to say we were coming. From Vladivostok to Moscow by train and this was it? aaww
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Moscow train station. End of the line for
the Trans Siberian Railway. |
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Say..., isn't THAT a train station?
This one goes north, I think. |
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| No, wait! This one goes to Kazan. |
Our taxi takes us right through the middle of town, past the Kremlin and Red Square and canals and monuments and everything. It's like a free tour! Our apartment is located on Leninsky Prospekt just a block from Gorky Park, but you have to walk about a kilometre to get in because it has a wall around it. The apartment is hard to find, it's in a building that's about a kilometre long facing Leninsky Prospekt, and it has an address along Leninsky Prospekt, but you can't get in on that side. The taxi driver eventually figured out how to sneak up on it from about 3 blocks behind, and then he confidently waved us and our bags through a kid's park and into a courtyard where our very nice hostess was waiting for us. The apartment is tiny but very clean and comfortable and everything works.
This is
the worlds smallest bathroom. It was explained to us that this was the
typical toilet in the Soviet Union apartments. Apparently, 'they' used a
'typical average' sized person and measured how wide they were at the
shoulders when seated on the toilet..and that's how wide the room is. I
never thought of Steve and I as 'big' people, but even we would stand
outside of the door, drop our pants, take one step back and sit. There
was no room to spread the elbows out. Not your most comfortable
bathroom..even the ones on the train were bigger.
So, what is Moscow like? I always thought of Moscow as grey and dreary, full of glum Russians putting up with crappy weather. Too many movies, I guess. In fact it's a beautiful city- at least the parts that we saw- full of old and new buildings and busy and clean and friendly and everything worked. The bad news; we have two stinking days to try to fit as much in as possible. Our feet may never forgive us.
By the time we got settled in it was pretty much time to find someplace to eat dinner and maybe pick up a few breakfast things. Our hostess recommended a couple of places close to a jumped-up corner grocery about a kilometre away, and the small restaurant turned out to be our go-to favourite. Great food, lovely ambience, they even had a large patio for al fresco in the afternoon (but not the evening). Restaurant food in Russia was cheap wherever we went, and we were surprised to find that Moscow is no different if you aren't in the touristy section, maybe half the cost of a Canadian meal, it's good food, and the beer is terrific.
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Trolley people. Moscow has subways,
trains, buses, and trollies. |
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I wonder what HE does
for a living? |
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| Male and female washrooms. |
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| Debbi has a Russian soulmate! |
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| The restaurant had sheeps for the kids. |
Our
apartment is roughly 2 kilometres from the Kremlin and Red Square, and 3
kilometres from the Arbat, where we are going to meet our guide this
morning for a 3-hour walking tour of the downtown. We meet our guide
Elena at Pushkin's Monument
(the father of Russian Literature) on Tverskoy Boulevard, which is a beautiful broad promenade with treed
areas on both sides, with streets on the outside edges. It's common for
public art to be displayed on the boulevard, and right now that is
300-400 meters of Russian landscapes
and historical paintings. It is noteworthy that, in a civilized
country, you can leave things like this out in public without worrying
about them being defaced or stolen. I'm looking at you, Canada.
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| This exhibit stretched for 200 meters along the boulevard. No vandalism. |
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| Amazing use of digital technology to create art. |
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| Hard to believe it's not real... |
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| Our guide Elena (right) and intrepid touristas. |
And then- the original Russian McDonald's! It's fairly small and sort of a museum but it's still open for business. Elena told us stories about what a big deal it was, a visible manifestation of perestroika (restructuring). The lineups were enormous. We have little idea today of the impact that a burger and fries, or a pair of 501 Blues, had on Russian society.
Then it was time for a walk back along Tverskaya Street, with many lovely examples of both Soviet and pre-Revolutionary architecture.
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Now THIS is a grocery store.
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Our guide Elena. A lovely girl.
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They were just sorting out chandeliers
with electric lights. |
We then stopped for coffee and snacks at a home that's been turned into a coffee shop. It was on three floors, the biggest room was probably 12x12, and it was a maze of stairwells and corridors and tiny rooms. And it all worked; the walls were lined with funky art and everyone served themselves and no one was in a hurry. We would never have known it existed if it wasn't for our guide!
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| Steve the trusty historian. |
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One of the many pretty little rooms
in the coffee shop. |
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| Coffee! Moscow! Sunshine! |
After a kilometre or so our walk took us to the entrance to Red Square. There are actually a couple of streets that go there, but for tourists the only way in is via Resurrection Gate, which is mostly a big arch that goes through a building complex including a couple museums, a cathedral, and the old mint. Once through the arch you find yourself standing in Red Square, which is actually Red Rectangle, with the Kremlin Wall to the right, Saint Basil's Cathedral straight ahead, and Gum Department Store to the left. All of these are noteworthy, but today we're going to do walkabout as we're going to do the Kremlin and Saint Basil's tomorrow.
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| Kazan Cathedral on left, GUM on right |
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| Weird hangy things, no idea but they're nice. |
Gum Department Store was the visible manifestation of the superiority of the Soviet Union in providing quality goods to the masses. Of course the masses were busy squabbling over wilted cabbages in the real grocery stores if anything showed up at all, and only tourists, diplomats, Party officials, and the nomenclature could shop in Gum, but still.
When the USSR went down, so did Gum as of course there wasn't even a pretense of it being financially sustainable. But it got reinvented, which is a very good thing, as it is truly an amazing edifice. It is composed of four parallel arcades, each one 3 stories high and 350-400 meters long, and the arcades have glass arches between them. My best estimate was 4-5 kilometres of shops, all in a bright, airy, open building. It feels like you're outside, but you're always warm and dry and cozy. It's very modern and interesting, and if you wanted to seriously explore it you could spend a full day and not see everything. Not to be missed.
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| A maze of arcades, with fountains, statues, etc. |
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| This is inside the building. |
So that's it for the walking tour and our feet are very grateful. Time to catch the bus back to almost our apartment and then see Gorky Park as this is pretty much our only chance. But. On the way downtown, Debbi spotted this humongous statue of a guy and a ship on the Moscow River, and it appears to be only a short walk away from Gorky Park, so we decide to take that in first. It's the same bus stop and the same street to walk, we just turn right at the Moscow River instead of turning left into Gorky Park. And once we get down to the river we can see the statue. Way way down there. But hey, it's a walk through another park and there's a beautiful broad walkway along the river and there's public art, and people are selling ice cream, and there are nervous little birds to take pictures of. What's not to like?
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| Happy bulldozer in the park. |
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| "Our forefathers" |
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| A seriously big statue of dubious taste. |
Eventually we get to the statue, and it's REALLY big. 322 feet big. It's a sailing ship and Peter the Great and it commemorates the 300th anniversary of his creation of the Russian Navy. But the statue has garnered a number of honours in its own right; it has been identified as one of the world's ugliest statues by a number of organizations, and apparently the City of Moscow has tried to flog it off on other cities but no one will take it. We like it, what can I tell you?
So, finally finally it's time to wend our way back to Gorky Park and then home. Gorky Park is a combination of nature and places for young people to hang out in privacy and a lake with a fountain and ducks and places to eat and drink and it's just generally a nice place to hang out. Surprisingly, there is a network of parks along the Moscow River that's at least 5-10 kilometres long! But we won't get to see them, as our feet are demanding to be carried home. Big day tomorrow.
Entrance for Gorky Park. Huge park, what we got to see was beautiful..but alas our throbbing feet said, 'enough already..go home'.
Lucky tourists, bet their feet weren't sore.
