Bolshoi Joy!
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2008
1
6
36
Trip End
Feb 29, 2008
Moscow,
Russia
Friday, February 1, 2008
Today we decided we should try and explore old Moscow itself. We headed for the metro and got of at a stop, Kittay Gaud that should have brought us out right near the Kremlin. We didn't know what direction we should be heading in so we just got in the flow f the crowd and drifted along. This turned out to be a poor option. We ended up heading in the wrong direction, worked out we were gong in the wrong direction so tried to correct and ended up going even further away in the wrong direction. We finally arrived in Red Square three hours after leaving the hotel. Our detour was not entirely worthless as there is incredible architecture everywhere and it gave us more of a chance to see what goes on in the ordinary, day to day lives of Moscow's inhabitants.
The Kremlin and Red Square precinct is absolutely amazing. The first of the major sites we came across was St Basil's Cathedral. It looks like something you would expect to see in a Disney cartoon with it's bright colours and fairy tale shape. We came across an older gentleman who was painting pictures of the cathedral. We now have our very own genuine painting of St Basil's by a local Moscow artist. Passing St Basil's we entered Red Square which is lined on one side by the Kremlin precinct. The Kremlin itself is closed on Thursdays so we plan on heading back on Saturday to take a tour. Also in Red Square is Lenin's mausoleum, and again we plan to have a look inside on Saturday. At the opposite end of Red Square from St Basil's is the Russian National Museum which is yet another stunning building. Depending on how we are going on Saturday we may also try and squeeze in a visit to this Museum. Our main objective after gawping at Red Square and the Kremlin for a while was to find the Bolshoi theatre and try and get tickets for the Ballet. Having got our bearings in the city now, we were able to locate the theatre without any further detours. We found a ticket booth near the Bolshoi and were able to get two tickets from a scalper for tonight's Ballet which just happened to be Swan Lake - more on that latter.
We spent the next little while wandering around the shopping precinct adjacent to Red Square. G.U.M. is Moscow's most exclusive shopping centre and can be found lining the opposite side of Red Squar to the Kremlin. This shopping centre has all the usual exclusive Westren Brand Names. One thing that was a little sad was that I am interested in trying to track down a POLYOT watch. This is the brand of watch that has been made in Moscow for the last 50 years at least and is famous for being the first watch in space on the wrist of Yuri Gagarin. It was also the first watch to go on a space walk on the wrist of another Russian Cosmonaut. Despite this amazing history and the still quite excellent quality of these watches - they continue to go in to space on the wrists of Russian and Ukrainian Cosmonauts, nobody in any of the shops in the Red Square shopping precinct had any idea where I might be able to find one. Any other European watch brand you might care to name was readily available but the Russian brand - Nyet!
Before the Ballet we wanted to have dinner at a Georgian Restaurant recommended by the guide books as being authentic, inexpensive and very tasty. We jumped onto the Metro, got off at the appropriate stop and then headed off in the direction of the restaurant - we are now making more of an effort to decipher the cyrillic signs in the stations telling you what direction to head in for what streets. We had to walk down a main street and the restaurant was on a side street off that main street. Don't rely on the tourists maps if you are ever in Moscow and need to find a specific address that is not on one of the truly main streets. We did find the right street without to much trouble, the streets signs in this particular areas were in Cyrillic and English, but the map was woefully inadequate as there were several other side streets that didn't even rate a line on the map let alone a street name. Anyway, right street located and we managed to find a neon sign with the name of our restaurant - Mama Zoya. The restaurant turned out to not be on the street but behind the street in a basement. The inside was lined with logs giving the restaurant a log cabin feel. They are obviously used to the occasional Western tourist as the menu had English translations that were at least phonetically correct for the most part. We ordered some dishes and, with the help of the waitress, managed to select some traditional Georgian fare. All of it was lovely - we had a Georgian cheese bread which turned out to be something like a cheese pizza but much more tasty. For main course we shared a mutton dish and a chicken dish, both very traditional and both recommended with a thumbs up by our waitress. These too tuned out to be excellent - a wonderful mix of flavours and very hearty fare for the cold winter evening. Unfortunately we couldn't really linger over dinner as we need to be back to the Bolshoi for a 7pm start.
The main Bolshoi theatre is currently under restoration so the Ballet was playing in what must by the main theatre's little brother. The Bolshoi theatre must truly be something to behold because the little theatre we were in was incredibly sumptuous. Turns out the scalper we bought our tickets from had lied to us - she had said she was giving us seats towards the middle of the theatre with an unobstructed view - not being able to decipher the tickets at the time we had been required to take her word for it. Turns out we were as far around one side as it is possible to be and had a very restricted view of only one half (maybe 5/8ths) of the stage. Despite this disappointment we still thoroughly enjoyed our evening - we were at the Bolshoi! We happened to have turned up on the night that was dedicated to celebrating the 75th birthday of Nikolay Fadeechev. Not sure who he is or what he has done but he received a rousing reception when introduced before the start of the performance. The performance was outstanding - Tchaikovsky played by Russian musicians in a Russian theatre was divine. The dance too was superb. The dancer playing the Fool had an incredible leap and performed some gravity defying turns in mid air. The strength of performance of the dancer playing the Evil Genius was also something to behold. On the male side, these two dancers stole the show, overshadowing the performance of the dancer in the lead role of the Prince Siegfried. The Prima Ballerina spent probably 90% of the evening 'en point', her spins were amazingly quick and she had an incredible statuesque beaty, perfect for filling the role of the Odette/Odile. Fantastic evening that made up for the initial disappointment of finding out that our seats were not exactly what we had thought we had paid for.
After a long day of tramping the streets of Moscow we dragged our feet back to the Cosmos for a good nights rest.
