09 September 2019

russia: moscow: city birthday celebration



The city of Moscow, Russia celebrates its birthday in one of the first weekends of September each year. 


Many of the decorations are put up a few weeks ahead of time, and don't come down immediately, but the main celebrations are over this weekend.


I can't seem to find the exact day of Moscow's birthday, but the celebration is always over a weekend in early September. This year was the celebration of the 872nd brithday.


I wanted to see some of what was happening, so I met up with my friend Svetlana in one of the nearby metro stations. 


We chose to walk down Tverskaya street, which had been completely closed off to vehicular traffic.


Tverskaya is a busy street on normal days, so closing it off is a big deal.
As we walked down the street we saw heaps of people out enjoying time with their friends and families. 


The good weather was a great bonus.


It seemed the theme of this street was to have large models built of many of the buildings in VDNK, a massive parklike area of Moscow. 


There were also stages, and groups performing choreographed dances in a few places on the street.
As we got to the bottom of the street, where it meets up with Manezhnaya Ploshchad, we walked through that platz, and over to Red Square. 


Both of these squares had decorations too, but not quite as intense.
On the other side of Red Square we walked along the edge of Zaryadye Park, before entering a church I've wanted to see the entire time I've lived here. 


The church was pretty small, both inside and outside, but I'm glad I saw it.
After that was an early dinner at a nearby cafe. I love Moscow!



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