Au Revoir Moscow
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2008
1
9
36
Trip End
Feb 29, 2008
Moscow,
Russia
Monday, February 4, 2008
After enjoying our last breakfast in the Hotel, we went back up to our room and tried to cram our magically multiplying belongings into our sinisterly shrinking suitcases. After completing this near impossible task, we checked out of our room and deposited our luggage with the Porters downstairs, before heading out for Gorky Park. We jumped on the Metro again for a trip to Oktyabrskaya Station
Snow at the Cosmos
. Returning to street level we came across yet another exquisite church - there are churches everywhere. We also came across a statue of Lenin which provided a photo opportunity before we wandered down ulista (street) Bolshaya Polyanka to Gorky Park. We arrived opposite the Park's entrance, a magnificent archway, and descended the underpass to traverse the street. In this underpass we found what was essentially an amazing art gallery where many Moscow artist sell their work. While in this underpass, Belle was inconvenienced by a blood nose that just would not stop and she was forced to endure the next half an hour with a tissue shoved up her nose to stem the bleeding - naturally she got a few odd looks!After exiting the underpass on the appropriate side of the street, we purchase our tickets for entrance into Gorky park and set about exploring. It did not fit into Belles expectations from her hazy memories of the movie Gorky Park, but it was quite spectacular. The Park contains many amusement park rides - this seems to be a common theme of many Moscow parks - and, during winter, they flood the pathways of the park which promptly freeze to form an outdoor skating rink. It was amazing to see the toddlers, young children, teenagers and adults all out on their ice skates enjoying a day on the ice. We did a circuit of the park an then headed for the area beside the Moscow river.
Lenin
Here we came across some great vistas which were promptly photographed as well as a Buran space shuttle. The space shutle is the real thing, I don't know that it was ever actually launched into space but it was converted into an amusement park ride when the shuttle programme ran out of money and was discontinued, a rather sad end for such a sophisticated vehicle.We stopped for coffee and a snack in Gorky Park before heading back out and having another look at the paintings for sale in the underpass, the vendors were only just beginning to set up when we had passed through earlier. The quality of paintings on offer, many for only a few hundred Australian dollars, was amazing. Oils, watercolours, ceramics, stained glass; still lives (?), portraits, landscapes, reproductions; cubism, classicism, surrealism, impressionism. Endless choice of materials, subjects and styles. Oh for an unlimited luggage allowance and a bigger bank account. We dragged ourselves away from the underpass and went to the Sculpture Park that is opposite Gorky Park. The Tretyakov Gallery of twentieth century art sits in this sculpture park. Here we noticed a series of covered walkways and guess what, another art market. We had been impressed by the quality of much of the work for sale in the underpass stalls, it seems the underpass is where the artists not good enough for the above ground art market sell their wares. The quality of the works was absolutely outstanding and again the prices were so very reasonable. Moscow and its surrounds provides so many magnificent subjects and the artists of Moscow capture them onto canvas so very well.
After finally extracting ourselves from the art market, we had considered purchasing a magnificent still life of grapes and gooseberries but someone else beat us to it, we hopped back onto the Metro and headed for Red Square - we had some final souvenirs to purchase
Entrance to Gorky Park
. After making our purchases we decided it was time to try and finally send off the postcards we had written earlier. One thing that is absent from Moscow streets is post boxes, we just never came across any. Checking the guide book it we discovered that we would need to find the main Moscow post office which is thankfully open seven days a week. This required another Metro ride to Chistye Prudy. We emerged from the Metro station and cast about for the Post Office. We located the correct street and low and behold there was the Post Office, right next to the Metro Station. We bought our stamps from a kindly cashier, our broken Russian and her broken English were sufficient to get us by, and got the post cards into the Post. I have no idea how long they will take to reach Australia but hopefully they will arrive in Australia before we do! I wanted to send an e-mail ahead of us to our hostel in St Petersburg so we headed to the other side of the Metro station were there was a McDonald's restaurant with a free WiFi Hot Spot. We were also a bit peckish so we did something we had said we would not do on this trip and we bought something from McDonalds. We got a cheeseburger and a chickenburger each for the equivalent of one dollar per burger. Amusingly this was the easiest place in Russia to order food, as the McDonalds menu items have been transliterated from English to Russian, so if you sound out the cyrillic alphabet, which we are becoming expert at, you come up with 'cheesburger' and 'chickenburger'.
Soviet era Remebered
Chistye Purdy is the Metro Station that keeps on giving, not only did we find the Post Office and free WiFi, we also finally located the Boulevard Ring tram line. We hoped onto a tram for what was to be our last sightseeing in Moscow. The tram travels along a lovely boulevard and then crosses the Moscow River giving you a fleeting but spectacular view of the Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral. We rode the tram until it was time to start heading back to collect our luggage. We got off the tram at a stop adjacent to a Metro Station. We headed for the Metro, assisting a local to find the Metro Station as we went along - that's right we are now Moscow Metro experts, even the locals recognise our expertise and take advantage of it. We got back to out hotel to collect our luggage and then got back on the Metro for our final ride as we made our way to the Leningradsky Railway Station (not Metro Station) to catch our train to St Petersburg.
I am writing this as the train heads North away from Moscow. We are in a second class carriage which is composed of four berth sleeper cabins. We have one other traveling companion in out cabin with us. The train is moving smoothly along, taking us away from Moscow which both Belle and I will miss very much. We feel like we made hardly a dent in all the things there are to do in Moscow. We found the people friendly, some of the women in the hotel after 10:00pm wanted to be a bit too friendly, felt safe wherever we went and whatever we were doing and would come back in a heartbeat. Au revoir Moscow, on to St Petersburg.
