Victory day is a big deal in Moscow. The 65th anniversary was a HUGE deal. For the first time, American and British soldiers marched in the parade in Red Square. Everywhere we went we saw veterans wearing their medals, and people handing them flowers and taking their pictures. In the evening, we headed down toward Red Square to see a huge fireworks display over the Kremlin. Here we got our first glimpse of Russian security theater. In the US, I feel like a lot of our post-September-11th preoccupation with security is more about the appearance of security than actual security (the TSA's fetish about seeing people's socks and bare feet and ongoing mission to protect other travelers from water I brought from home and big shampoo bottles in my carry-on come to mind). In Russia, I learned to appreciate the art of US security theater - at least in the US we get Avatar-caliber special effects with our security theater. In Russia, the security theater special effects are like a cheesy 1930s horror movie. (What the hell is she talking about? I know, I'm getting to it, here it is:) Lots of streets around Red Square were closed to traffic. To get into these closed areas to walk around, we were directed to walk through metal detectors with the power plugs laying visibly on the ground next to them, unplugged. As we were scoping out our fireworks viewing spot, Yehudit and the other Rachel walked around the "metal detector" into the "secure" area without realizing it. Two police officers barked some commands at them, which Yehudit and Rachel couldn't hear or ignored because they were in Russian, so the cops gave up and went back to standing there and smoking. Our favorite example of cheesy security theater was the following day at the Hotel Metropol, where we walked in to the hotel through an unattended door to the restaurant, looked at the famous glass ceiling there, had a drink in the bar, walked all through the hotel, then were scolded for walking around the metal detector when we LEFT the hotel through another entrance. In any case, here are the fireworks over the Kremlin, and Yehudit, the patriotic Russian, waving a flag given to her by some druggies in a bus shelter where we waited out the rain.
Monday morning we went to see Iolanta, an opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, at the Bolshoi theater's small stage. Here is the real Bolshoi, closed for renovation:
The Bolshoi, even the small Bolshoi, was absolutely gigantic. Those columns are enormous. You walk for what seems like miles across a huge plaza to reach the theater, as the theater gets bigger and bigger. Rachel described it best - Moscow is an overpowering city. Every building seems to be constructed for giants. Every street seems to have eight lanes going in each direction at about 50 miles an hour. If you accidentally ended up on the wrong side of a street, it felt like you had to walk for an hour to cross it. The city seems intent on reminding you at every moment that you are a puny little cog, an ant in the grand scheme of things.After Iolanta, we crossed the street to the Hotel Metropol for a drink. A bike race past the Bolshoi and the Metropol:
The famous glass ceiling in the Hotel Metropol. The restaurant beneath this thing was too dreary, so we had a drink at the bar instead, where I paid $20 for the world's crappiest coffee.
Refreshed, we headed out to Red Square. On one side of Red Square is GUM, one of the few department stores in Soviet times that actually had consumer goods, for which people stood in famously long queues stretching across Red Square. Now it is the fanciest mall I have ever set foot in. I'm sure some Communists are rolling in their graves:
St. Basil's Cathedral, a giant piece of candy sitting on the edge of Red Square. Legend says that Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect so he could never again create such a masterpiece, but Wikipedia is skeptical:
The dinner hour was approacing, so we headed to Arbatskaya, a neighborhood outside the Kremlin where historically the tsar's artisans lived. I so loved being there with the other Rachel. Vacationing Shendar-style is a hard core, 7 AM to 10 PM occupation. The Shendars do not stop for frivolities like food or rest. Rachel is, thankfully, a mere mortal like me, so we did get to eat a few times during the trip. The Turkish food we found was cheap and pretty good, and that is all I have to say about Arbatskaya.
The famous glass ceiling in the Hotel Metropol. The restaurant beneath this thing was too dreary, so we had a drink at the bar instead, where I paid $20 for the world's crappiest coffee.
Refreshed, we headed out to Red Square. On one side of Red Square is GUM, one of the few department stores in Soviet times that actually had consumer goods, for which people stood in famously long queues stretching across Red Square. Now it is the fanciest mall I have ever set foot in. I'm sure some Communists are rolling in their graves:
St. Basil's Cathedral, a giant piece of candy sitting on the edge of Red Square. Legend says that Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect so he could never again create such a masterpiece, but Wikipedia is skeptical:
The dinner hour was approacing, so we headed to Arbatskaya, a neighborhood outside the Kremlin where historically the tsar's artisans lived. I so loved being there with the other Rachel. Vacationing Shendar-style is a hard core, 7 AM to 10 PM occupation. The Shendars do not stop for frivolities like food or rest. Rachel is, thankfully, a mere mortal like me, so we did get to eat a few times during the trip. The Turkish food we found was cheap and pretty good, and that is all I have to say about Arbatskaya.The metro in Moscow really is amazing. Trains run constantly - even late at night, we never waited more than two minutes for a train. In one of those famous, chandeliered stations:
A mosaic of grandpa Lenin in one of the stations:
Tuesday we went to the Kremlin. Rachel and I standing on the square where a bunch of Kremlin churches congregate.
Lord, the gold domes. Apparently, in Russia, over-the-top = elegant. If a little gold is good, then a crapload is a crapload better. I particularly enjoyed this effect in restaurants. Yehudit rejected one restaurant because it was so cheesy-sounding that we figured it would be a total tourist trap. I read later that actors and oligarchs often frequent the place. One restaurant recommended by the hotel for authentic Russian food had a down-on-the-farm motif, complete with a stream with fish in it running through the dining room, and some pheasants in a cage a few tables over. I love it! Meanwhile, back at the Kremlin. Moscow's public green spaces were fantastic. The tulips in this park at the Kremlin were gorgeous. Not a lot of tulips in California, it made me nostalgic for summer in Wisconsin:
The Armory at the Kremlin, with the museum of lots of historical crap, and the Diamond Fund, a collection of precious stones that was totally amazing. Absolutely HUGE rocks, there must have been a billion dollars worth of stones in there. Or maybe this isn't the Armory, in which case it is Some Yellow Building in the Kremlin:
After the Kremlin, we headed to Red Square to search for a hipster cafe where we could refuel.
Noam with my Kir Royale at the hipster cafe, which came complete with a hipster oligarch-in-training in a shiny grey suit and a shirt with huge purple flowers:
Refueling was necessary to face our next challenge, finding our way to a Jewish Community Center where Yehudit had one of her exhibits. Two Metros, then thank you google for showing us this lovely street car that took us right there. How did we live before google maps? Excellent work navigating Noam!
A mosaic of grandpa Lenin in one of the stations:
Tuesday we went to the Kremlin. Rachel and I standing on the square where a bunch of Kremlin churches congregate.
Lord, the gold domes. Apparently, in Russia, over-the-top = elegant. If a little gold is good, then a crapload is a crapload better. I particularly enjoyed this effect in restaurants. Yehudit rejected one restaurant because it was so cheesy-sounding that we figured it would be a total tourist trap. I read later that actors and oligarchs often frequent the place. One restaurant recommended by the hotel for authentic Russian food had a down-on-the-farm motif, complete with a stream with fish in it running through the dining room, and some pheasants in a cage a few tables over. I love it! Meanwhile, back at the Kremlin. Moscow's public green spaces were fantastic. The tulips in this park at the Kremlin were gorgeous. Not a lot of tulips in California, it made me nostalgic for summer in Wisconsin:
The Armory at the Kremlin, with the museum of lots of historical crap, and the Diamond Fund, a collection of precious stones that was totally amazing. Absolutely HUGE rocks, there must have been a billion dollars worth of stones in there. Or maybe this isn't the Armory, in which case it is Some Yellow Building in the Kremlin:
After the Kremlin, we headed to Red Square to search for a hipster cafe where we could refuel.
Noam with my Kir Royale at the hipster cafe, which came complete with a hipster oligarch-in-training in a shiny grey suit and a shirt with huge purple flowers:
Refueling was necessary to face our next challenge, finding our way to a Jewish Community Center where Yehudit had one of her exhibits. Two Metros, then thank you google for showing us this lovely street car that took us right there. How did we live before google maps? Excellent work navigating Noam!
Wednesday morning we headed to the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer, and this awesome statute of Peter the Great. It was originally a statue of Christopher Columbus (most overrated figure in history) intended as a gift for the US. When the US government refused it, the sculptor ripped off the head, replaced it with Peter the Great's head, and sold it to the Russian government. It is HUGE, and extremely hideous.
The Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer was blown up at the request of Stalin in 1931 and reconstructed at great cost and controversy between 1994 and 1997. Noam and I are WAY on the other side of the river looking back at it, they sure do not do anything small in this country:
Nice view of the Kremlin, too bad it was on a highway bridge with traffic whizzing by:
Wednesday afternoon there was a press conference for Yehudit's other exhibit, at the Museum of Modern History (referred to as the "stuff people gave Stalin" museum by one of the people working with Yehudit on the exhibit). Yehudit's exhibit featured works by the artist Tolkatchev, an artist who enlisted in the Red Army during World War II to create official art for the regime. He arrived in both Majdanek and Auschwitz shortly after liberation. At Auschwitz he was compelled to sketch what he saw but had no paper, so he rifled through an office to find some paper. Many of the images in the exhibit, powerful images of hatred and suffering, were sketched on the letterhead of the commander of the Auschwitz camp. How awesome that the who, what, and where are forever so intimately associated with the images. Noam and Rachel outside the exhibit.
After the press conference, Yehudit was finished with work for a few days and joined us for the afternoon. We took the Metro to Moscow State University to see another Stalinist Gothic skyscraper, the main university building:
Gorgeous! We walked in but couldn't get too far, lacking a student ID. The area inside the main door was amazingly drab and claustrophobic for such a gigantic and creepily elegant building.
We walked to a ridge for what the book described as an "unsurpassed view across the city" (skip it), then rode this chairlift down the hill next to what is apparently the training area for the Russian ski-jumping team:
Noam and I rode a chairlift in China, so we are obviously brave when it comes to conveyances with sketchy manufacturing or maintenance histories, but this sucker was pretty bare, no sides to the thing, just a flat square moving through the sky with ample opportunities to fall off. I marveled, but Noam pointed out, does this strike you as a society that feels much fear or shows any weakness? Good point.
After the chairlift, we rode a boat down the river and headed to an Armenian restaurant in the Kitay Gorod neighborhood for some excellent food. I couldn't resist ordering the "Existence Ethereality" for dessert. That is a dessert with a lot of promise, and it was pretty good! On to St. Petersburg.
The Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer was blown up at the request of Stalin in 1931 and reconstructed at great cost and controversy between 1994 and 1997. Noam and I are WAY on the other side of the river looking back at it, they sure do not do anything small in this country:
Nice view of the Kremlin, too bad it was on a highway bridge with traffic whizzing by:
Wednesday afternoon there was a press conference for Yehudit's other exhibit, at the Museum of Modern History (referred to as the "stuff people gave Stalin" museum by one of the people working with Yehudit on the exhibit). Yehudit's exhibit featured works by the artist Tolkatchev, an artist who enlisted in the Red Army during World War II to create official art for the regime. He arrived in both Majdanek and Auschwitz shortly after liberation. At Auschwitz he was compelled to sketch what he saw but had no paper, so he rifled through an office to find some paper. Many of the images in the exhibit, powerful images of hatred and suffering, were sketched on the letterhead of the commander of the Auschwitz camp. How awesome that the who, what, and where are forever so intimately associated with the images. Noam and Rachel outside the exhibit.
After the press conference, Yehudit was finished with work for a few days and joined us for the afternoon. We took the Metro to Moscow State University to see another Stalinist Gothic skyscraper, the main university building:
Gorgeous! We walked in but couldn't get too far, lacking a student ID. The area inside the main door was amazingly drab and claustrophobic for such a gigantic and creepily elegant building.
We walked to a ridge for what the book described as an "unsurpassed view across the city" (skip it), then rode this chairlift down the hill next to what is apparently the training area for the Russian ski-jumping team:
Noam and I rode a chairlift in China, so we are obviously brave when it comes to conveyances with sketchy manufacturing or maintenance histories, but this sucker was pretty bare, no sides to the thing, just a flat square moving through the sky with ample opportunities to fall off. I marveled, but Noam pointed out, does this strike you as a society that feels much fear or shows any weakness? Good point.After the chairlift, we rode a boat down the river and headed to an Armenian restaurant in the Kitay Gorod neighborhood for some excellent food. I couldn't resist ordering the "Existence Ethereality" for dessert. That is a dessert with a lot of promise, and it was pretty good! On to St. Petersburg.
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