russia: moscow with a visitor

I like having visitors, particularly those who are already independent travelers in their own right. This is important because visitors need to be able to entertain themselves during the day while I'm at work.

Sometime in early summer my friend Rachel messaged me asking about potentially coming to Russia. She'd found dates with cheap flights, and was keen to come. I was thrilled, as Rachel has lived in numerous countries as well, as well as having done lots of other international traveler.

It wasn't hard to get the paperwork she needed for her visa, and we got the dates set, and life was good. Rachel's flight arrived Monday evening, it was easy for me to meet her at the airport after school finished for the day.

The next morning Rachel slept in a bit while I worked, then met met at lunch. We had lunch with a couple other teachers, everyone got along well. After lunch we walked to Red Square. I've been there plenty of times, but I'm always willing to go back.

Every visitor to Moscow should see Red Square, it's one of the iconic spots in the city. It seems to me that many international media broadcasts about Russia are done from in or near Red Square. The photos of St Basil's cathedral at one end are well known, everyone takes one.

We also checked out GUM, the state department store on one side of the square. The mall is always decorated for the season or holiday, I like seeing what the current decorations look like.

After GUM we walked to Zaryadye Park, one of the newest parks in the city. Fun to wander around, partly to people watch and partly just to walk. Much of the park is carefully landscaped, and there are regular decorations put in, so it's always interesting to see.

After leaving the park we walked toward Christ the Saviour Cathedral, which is big and has gold domes on top. It's a fairly new church, though there is a long religious history in the actual location. I don't know why, but the doors were locked when we got there, argh. Oh well.

The next day Rachel did a bike tour around the city while I worked all day. Thursday night we had drinks at a bar near work, then went to a diner for dinner. Yum.

That weekend we took the train up to St Petersburg, arriving back in Moscow Monday morning. Dinner Monday night was at Cafe Soup. This place does have 'real' food on the menu, but the focus is the 44 different types of soup. They even have the option of a 'soup flight' like you can get a beer flight at a brewery.

I'm happy to admit I liked my dessert soup even more than my main course soup, which was already pretty good.Tuesday I did my normal teaching in the morning, then met Rachel again for lunch. We went to an Asian restaurant I like, enjoying huge bowls of pho.

From there we hopped back on the metro, going out to Izmailovo. I've been there enough times that I'm not a huge fan anymore, but I do think it's a neat place for visitors to explore. Izmailovo has a great market for souvenirs, though since the weather wasn't great while we were there, and it was low season, there weren't as many vendors as usual.

Far better than the market area is the park, which is basically across the road. (Thought you have to go a long way around to get into the property.) It was still raining, but I Rachel was okay with walking in the rain if I was, and I didn't want to hold her back on her last day in Russia.

We walked around the island in the middle of Izmailovo park, and ended up with a decent sunset looking back over Izmailovo market.

From there we went to another great dinner at a place called Lepim i Varim. Rachel loves researching places to eat when she travels, while I don't give it as much thought. Since the soup place had been so awesome I had no trouble following her to what she'd picked out for this last dinner.

Lepim i Varim specializes in pelmeni, basically Russian dumplings. I'm not a huge fan, because most of those I've had in Russia have been from a place where the smell is always slightly off. Going to this restaurant totally changed my mind.

Both of us ordered two main course bowls of pelmeni, and a dessert bowl of pelmeni. YUM. (And Instagram worthy, hee hee.)

The next morning I was sad to put Rachel in a taxi to the airport. Since her visa is good for three years, I hope to see her again in Russia before I move out of the country.

russia: moscow wanderings

We started the weekend with a day trip, then on Sunday decided to stick around the city and knock a few things off the list. We'd been traveling most weekends during the year, but there is always something going on in Moscow.

First up was an ice cream festival in Sokolniki Park. I'd seen it mentioned on a couple Moscow related Instagram accounts I follow, who am I to ignore ice cream?

It was easy to meet up with the girls at the metro stop right outside the park, then figure out what was happening. Our expectations were not met, to say the least. I was hoping for lots of places to buy scoops of ice cream, but that's not what we found. Instead it was nearly all vendors with freezers selling ice cream bars.

There were two or three vendors with scoops available, all of them quite expensive. Sigh. We each had an ice cream bar, as well as a couple scoops, but it wasn't as fantastic an experience as we wanted. Darnit.

After ice cream we went out to Izmailovo, as Angela had a few more souvenirs to pick up before leaving the country. Claire and I didn't need anything, but it is a photogenic place to go, so we went. It was a long-ish metro trip between the two places, fortunately we like the metro :)

During that week I used my Wednesday afternoon to go out to a university campus. Russian State Social University was mentioned on one of the Moscow Instagram accounts, I'd never heard of it before. (I reckon the city of Moscow must have a ridiculous number of universities I've never heard about.)

This university was mentioned because of something they had on their campus: large scale models of the so-called Seven Sisters buildings around the city.

I had to walk through part of a botanical park to get to the university campus, but it wasn't hard. All the building models were right in front of the main building of the university, I didn't have to go exploring.

The models were super cool. Bigger than I'd expected, and just nifty.

I love seeing random stuff around Moscow.

russia: moscow in February

As January ended with a lot of snow, the beginning of February continued with a lot of snow. I loved every minute, even if it meant I had to wear a hat all the time. (I hate wearing hats.) There were numerous days that I took photos in the park by my flat, on my way to the metro. It was definitely a winter wonderland.

Near the beginning of the month I spent a Saturday afternoon out at Izmailovo. The wind was blowing the snow every which way, and it was cold, but it was still fun for me. 

I took a heap of photos, and eventually went home with super red cheeks. There weren't many people out that day, probably due to the weather, I explored some areas I hadn't seen before.

Near the end of the first week in February is the birthday of the state museum system in Moscow, a day (or weekend,) on which entry is free for quite a few museums in the city. Claire and I planned a Friday evening meetup to go to the state history museum. We got there and discovered a huge queue of people, which was not exciting to see. (We have seen a number of these queues, each time there is a free museum Sunday.)

We ended up skipping the museum, and just going to dinner instead. We'd rather pay the entry fee, and not have to visit while the entire city was there with us.

My spring break was at the end of February, so it seems I did next to nothing in Moscow during the month.

March should provide more adventure :)

russia: moscow october 2017

October is a beautiful month in Moscow. By the end of September I already had a hint that fall would be very colourful, October proved that right. Unfortunately, October also taught me how very short the colourful part of fall is in Moscow.

The first day of the month was a Sunday, so my flattie and I decided to find a place to have breakfast. After asking around, we settled on a place called I Love Breakfast. The food was okay, though the service was only mediocre.

After eating we walked to Red Square and the areas around, finding a display of squash. Yes, squash. Many of the vegetables were used to create shapes like that of a dragon. Pretty nifty to see, I imagine it took a while to create.

The first Wednesday afternoon I went for a walk after my morning classes were finished. I intended to visit Gorky Park, as it is quite big, and well known. Every now and again I see an article online that says 'this is the most visited place in each country.' It lists Gorky Park for Ukraine, which is wrong, since the park isn't in Ukraine. Also, I doubt Gorky Park is the most visited place in Moscow, but it is visited quite often.

Unfortunately, as I got close to the park the weather turned somewhat rainy. In other words, not weather in which I wanted to be outside. Yuck. I took a couple photos of the HUGE front gates of the park, then kept going.

Just in front of the metro station I wanted was a statue of Lenin. Even though it was cold and drizzling, I took a photo. After growing up in the States, where the Cold War with Russia is still how the country is presented in media, I wanted a photo of Lenin.

At the end of that week I attended a birthday party for one of my coworkers. It was fun, right until a neighbor complained we were being too loud. Sigh.

The first Saturday of the month I made arrangements to meet up with one of my bosses, the guy who is mostly responsible for bringing me to Moscow. He brought his girlfriend, and she brought someone she worked with.

Shawn is originally from the States, Tania is originally from France, and Claire is originally from Wales. We all met up on a metro platform, then kept going.

Kremlin is a Russian word meaning fortress. Most of the time, when people think of the word, they think of The kremlin, the one with red brick walls in Moscow. This is far from the only kremlin in Russia, it isn't even the only one in Moscow. Our destination for the day was a place called Izmailovo, another kremlin in Moscow.

Izmailovo looks like a fortress meets Disney. The outer walls are white, but everything else is a whole lot of colours. There is a small church inside, but everything else is a cafe or shop.

Most people come to Izmailovo because there is a big market just outside the walls. You can find all kinds of souvenirs and trinkets, some of which you'll want, some you'll wonder why they even exist.

We wandered through the area, then had lunch, then went home. We probably would've done more as a group, but it was raining, and it was cold. Since I was still missing some of my stuff, I didn't have any appropriate shoes. My feet were cold and wet, argh.

The next day I walked back to Park Pobedy, approaching from the back side of the park. I got to see all the trees in a variety of shades of yellow. Though the city is beautiful in fall, I didn't get to see the red leaves I love best. 

Walking in fall is always a good thing to do.

The following Wednesday I headed out on a walk from school, walking toward a well known church. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is big, and the gold domes are visible from quite a few places in Moscow. The top of the domes measure 103 meters high, the tallest Orthodox Christian Church in the world.

The modern church is actually pretty new, having been built in the last five years of the 20^th centtury. The first church on the sight was demolished during Stalin's rule, in 1931. (What is the number of religious sights demolished on the orders of this man? The number must be huge!)

It is free to enter the church, but you're not allowed to take photos inside. I took plenty of photos outside, but followed the rules inside. The church wasn't lit inside, so photos wouldn't have turned out well anywho.

From there I kept walking, along the river. I saw what I imagine was once a factory, a giant statue of Peter 1, and the Russian version of the Pentagon: the ministry of defense. Not surprisingly, the building is really big. Really really big.

Close to the ministry building was a pedestrian bridge with what I thought of as a geometric entry. 

I loved the way it looked and I wasn't the only one who felt that way, I had to wait a few minutes for another photographer to leave.

On the other side of the bridge was a small park. I found a rose garden a bit past its prime, and a pond. When I checked a map a bit later, I found out this was all still part of Gorky Park.

I hopped on the metro to go to a big supermarket, stopping on the way to take a photo of a giant sculpture of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. (The Russian word for astronaut is cosmonaut.)

During the rest of the month the last of my goods from Ukraine finally arrived, yippee!! I never figured out why I had to pay customs taxes on some of the boxes, and not on others. If customs officers had actually seen what was in the boxes, they would've understood that nothing I own is worth very much. (Except my passport, which is the most important thing I own.)

The following weekend I met up with Claire, we decided to explore the Kremlin. The ticket office is not quite at the entrance, it was a bit confusing to figure out what we needed to do. (I'm sure it was obvious to Russian speakers, but not to us.)

There were lists of the options, we didn't really know which to choose. We found ticket machines which made it a lot easier, thank goodness.

You enter the Kremlin grounds through one of the towers, then cross a small bridge. There is a guard standing at one end of the bridge, I'm sure the men who stand in that position are in millions of photos around the world.

I'm one of the crazy people who didn't love my kremlin visit. As far as I could tell, there were a bunch of churches inside, you're not supposed to take photos inside the churches. 

Each interior was different, my favourite part of each church was the way its ceiling was painted. Always look up, especially in a building of faith.

There were a couple of museums as well. Since Moscow is the capital city, some of the other buildings are active government buildings, you can't just wander around and explore.

Maybe my apathy was due to the weather. It was a bit chilly, and rainy again. I'm soooo over the slightly rainy type of weather. Argh. Either way, I'm glad we saw the Kremlin, given that I live in Moscow.

The last full week in the month was my fall holiday from school, read a different post for those stories. When I came back, my train arrived at a station that led me to Komsomolskaya metro station. Hands down, the brown line platform of Komsomolskaya is one of the most impressive platforms in the world. The ceiling is painted yellow, with huge mosaic decorations. I've now seen the station quite a few times, I still find it impressive.