russia: mosow holiday decorations

I think I've mentioned in previous Moscow related posts that GUM, the huge state mall on one side of Red Square changes decorations for various holidays and seasons.

I love visiting the mall to see what the decorations look like, and to figure out what the theme is.

This year the New Year's theme seemed to be space, somehow combined with Christmas.

I saw multiple giant Christmas trees decorated with space ornaments. I saw multiple satellites hanging from the ceiling. I saw multiple stars hanging from the ceilings and balconies.

All the employees in the mall were wearing traditional Russian costumes, I'm not sure how happy they were to be doing so.

The next day was Tuesday, so I decided to make use of my afternoon off.

My first stop was the Museum of Moscow. I'd never heard of it before, so I'm not sure how important it is in the grand scheme of all the Moscow museums.

I walked all the way to the museum, just because I could. There were three buildings making up this museum, it wasn't immediately obvious where I should enter.

When I found an entrance I was presented with the conundrum I hate: multiple ticket options, none of which covers everything. I ended up choosing the option that let me see the history of Moscow exhibit.

Considering Moscow is nearly 1000 years old, I was less than impressed because there was only one floor's worth of items displayed. There was a path to follow through the museum, which made it slightly more convenient.

There were some religious stone carvings. There were some displays of jewelry from I don't know who. There was an old map showing Moscow as a fortified city. There were a few old books, with gold on the edges of the pages.

There was also an extra exhibit, talking about the waters of Moscow.

It started with the 20^th century, and continued through the 22^nd century. Neat to see how someone things the waters of Moscow might be in another 100 years.

After leaving the museum I walked to the House of Photography, free entrance on the day I visited. I didn't know why and hadn't known about that ahead of time, but it was a nice surprise.

Probably because of the free entry, this photography/art gallery was pretty crowded. The architecture of the interior is very modern, and easy to walk through.

As always happens with art, I liked some of the pieces, didn't like others, and had no reaction to some. 

As always happens in a gallery/museum, some people pay attention to the other visitors, others do not.

russia: oryol

Oryol is listed in my guidebook, that's the reason it ended up on my list of places to visit in Russia. When I told one of my coworkers where I planned to go the upcoming weekend, she told me I was saying the name wrong, and I'm glad she did. The way the name is written in English indicates one way of saying the name, but the name in Russian indicates the correct way. Sometimes transliteration doesn't work properly with names. The pronunciation is actually arrrr-yol, not or-yol. Even knowing this, I still tend to mispronounce the name, I expect most English speakers do.

Oryol is a little over 360 kilometers south/southwest of Moscow, with a current population of just over 315,000. The population is slowly shrinking, I'm guessing people are moving to other cities with more opportunities.

Like heaps of cities in this area, evidence of habitation in this area predates written historical records. Archaeological evidence shows that there was probably a fortress settlement there as early as the 11^th century. In the 15^th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which at the time was the largest state in Europe,) swooped in and ruled the area.

As neither the Grand Duchy of Lithuania nor the Golden Horde were good to the locals, they soon abandoned the city. As a result, Russia took over in the 16^th century. Ivan IV had a new fortress built, but it wasn't strong enough to fight off the Poles when they invaded in the 17^th century. As soon as the Poles sacked the city, the locals left again, abandoning the city once again.

The powers that be decided the fortress was useless, so it was taken apart in the early 18^th century, not long after Oryol was granted official town status in 1702. 

Not long after the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks took the city, and it stayed that way except for a week in October of 1919, when the White Army was in control.

Oryol was a sight of fighting during WW2, and was ruled by the Wehrmacht for a couple years. If I'm reading Wikipedia correctly, Oryol was one of the first cities to be liberated, on 5 August 1943. This is the date the city now uses when it celebrates its birthday.

Oryol was the hometown of several well known (in Russia,) writers, there are a few sights around the city related to the writers.

My arrival in Oryol was exactly on time, at 0351 on Saturday, obviously not a convenient time to arrive anywhere. I was thrilled when I found rows of seats in the waiting room that didn't have armrests between the seats, allowing me to lay down for a few hours. I didn't really sleep, but I did doze off a bit.

The main hall of the train station was quite nice, with a few stained glass windows and a chandelier. I'm not sure how often anyone walked through that hall, since getting from the tracks to the waiting room did not take you through the main hall. 

There was also a tiny little chapel in a small area between the main hall and the waiting room, definitely the first time I've seen anything like that.

When I left the train station I realized it was very different from other stations I've seen in Russia. First, it seemed to consist of two buildings, one above ground and one below. Second, the above ground building was between sets of tracks, instead of being on one side. I walked through a tunnel connecting the two buildings to get out, after which it was easy to find a main street to head toward the city center.

Just outside the train station was a unique sculpture of an eagle on a globe. I think it is supposed to 'say' something like the earth is full of cities and towns, but Oryol is unique among them all.

From there it was an easy walk to my hostel. Check in was easy, and I stayed inside for a little bit to warm up. It was a beautiful sunny day, but pretty cold. My phone told me it was -3C, but felt like -9C. Normally I don't find -9C to be all that cold, but touching the metal of my camera, tripod, or phone made me nearly lose feeling in my fingers, not fun.

After I started walking, my first sight was a war memorial. This one was a tank memorial, with an eternal flame. Nothing terribly unique in Russia. My next sight was a memorial to the man known as Ivan the IV, or more often Ivan the Terrible, or Ivan the Formidable. In the memorial he is a man on a horse.

This memorial was only a few meters away from a church. The outside of the Epiphany Church is all white, but the inside is all painted, with a gold iconostasis up front. I liked it, though the inside felt rather small.

This church sits on a small peninsula in the river right where the Oka and Orlik Rivers come together. Right near the tip of the peninsula is a monument honouring 400 years of the city. I nearly fell on my butt a few times getting close to this monument, as the pavements were covered in ice, and I don't have a lot of balance when I'm walking.

After crossing a bridge, I walked up Lenin street, which did not feel like the main street it usually is. Despite not being a main street, the House of Soviets was on the street, with a big statue of the main man in front of it.

Off the back side of the House of Soviets was a stelae that designates Oryol as a city of military glory. It was quite different from all the other such stelaes I've seen, as it was just the one stelae, and nothing else in the monument. Usually there are four cubes on corners around the stelae, with scenes of fighting and the city history on each side of each cube.

After the stelae I kept walking, making my way to what was listed as one of the house museums from the writers of Oryol. Unfortunately I got there to find a sign on the door saying it was under renovation, and pointing me down the street to another one of the house museums a few blocks away. 

I'm not sure whether the exhibits inside were moved or not.

I made my way to the Bunin Museum, another house museum. Ivan Bunin was the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1933. From what I can tell, he was actually living in Paris at the time he became a laureate.

The houes museum was well done, with several rooms of photos and information about Bunin and his family. One of the rooms was set up as his office had been, complete with desk and books. I was particularly happy to see beautiful wood floors throughout the house, I'm such a fan of beautiful floors. I was the only person in the musem at the time, it was easy to wander around and look at everything in detail.

It was already getting dark as I walked out of the museum, so I wandered through random streets before finding a fast food dinner and going home. As always seems to happen on my weekend trips I went to sleep early on a Saturday night.

The next morning I eventually packed up and checked out, and was able to leave my backpack at the front desk.

My first sight was nowhere near anything else in town, back off the other side of the train station. Getting there took me under a bridge that wasn't yet finished, on small trails that weren't common places of walking, and across the train tracks.

The doll museum is listed as one of the top sights in Oryol, (how does the algorithm decide this sort of thing?) but it is a new museum, and privately owned. The woman who owns it made many of the dolls on display, complete with face paint and clothing.

The dolls were grouped according to style, and 'who' they were supposed to be. There was a section of Gone with the Wind dolls, and a section with British royal dolls. There was a huge section with characters from Hollywood movies, as well as a section of celebrities.

It was fun to walk through, but creepy at the same time, since it always feels like all those eyes are watching you whereva you go.

Walking back to the city center took just as long, and of course there was a short snow storm as I walked along. The kind of storm where the snow comes out of nowhere, makes it really hard to see much of anything for about ten minutes, then just goes away completely.

After crossing the rivers again, I headed toward another house museum of a writer. Ivan Turgenev was a writer of novels, short stories, poems, and plays. 

He also translated and popularized Western literature in Russia. That being said, I'd never heard of him until I arrived in Oryol.

This house museum was bigger than the Bunin museum, but had the same types of exhibits. Photos and his writings, as well as items from his life. There were also exhibits and information about other Russian writers.

Just like the day before, it was almost dark by the time I walked out of this museum. I ended up doing the same thing I'd done the night before for dinner, I had fast food. 

I suppose I could've done a little research to find something 'better' to eat, but I'm not into food enough to care. 

From there I picked up my backpack and walked back to the train station.

Another great weekend trip, though I doubt I'll come back to Oryol.

russia: bryansk

I'm not sure why I chose to go to Bryansk. It's not well known, there is nothing particularly spectacular to see or do. Either way though, I enjoyed my weekend there, as I do most of my weekend trips around Russia.

Bryansk is 380 kilometers southwest of Moscow, with over 415,000 residents. The first written mention of Bryansk goes back to 1146, when it was called Debryansk. Wikipedia tells me local archaeologists and authorities think the city goes back almost 200 years earlier to 985, when it was a fortified settlement on the Desna River.

Like other Russian towns of the era, Bryansk didn't fair well when the Mongols invaded. The town was conquered in both the 13^th and 14^th centuries. In the mid 14^th century Lithuania gained control of this area, and various factions of Lithuanian royalty fought over the town of Bryansk.

Moscow finally conquered the town in 1503, after which it was turned into a proper fortress. During the Time of Troubles the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied the town in 1610, and it remained in Polish hands as part of Smolensk Voivodeship until the Truce of Deulino in 1634. 

(I don't know what the Smolensk Voivodeship and Truce of Deulino are, these names come from Wikipedia.)

Bryansk was one of the battlegrounds of the 1812 French invasion of Russia. Just after the October revolution Belarus claimed the area, then the Bolsheviks came in a year later and took it back. During WW2 the Germans were in charge for a couple years, the war in general wasn't good for Bryansk.

Wikipedia goes on to tell me the city is now a center of steel and machinery production. 

The main industries are machine building, metalworking, chemicals, electrical equipment, electronics, wood, textile and food industries, locomotives, diesel engines, freight cars, motor graders, pavers and other road equipment, agricultural equipment, construction materials, and garments.

My train arrived in Bryansk long before sunrise, so I ended up hanging out in the train station for a while. When I got off the train it seemed like there were two buildings that made up the train station, but I was only able to go in one of them, the one that looked more boring. Darnit.

When I finally left the train station I was greeted with a dark day. The clouds were heavy, and it felt as if it was going to start raining any minute. And it was cold. Not freezing, just really cold.

It made me feel better when I spotted a Lenin statue just in front of the train station. The statue was not marked on the maps I'd seen, so it was a nice surprise. After taking those photos, I followed the roads over a bridge and around a corner to a small park and WW2 memorial that were 'behind' the train station. (I always think of the 'front' side of the train station as facing the city, and the track side as 'behind,' though there is probably a better way of describing them.)

The memorial had an eternal flame, but was generally the same as most of the others I'd seen. Also in the park was another Lenin statue. Yay. I wonder why this one was so close to the other, and I wonder when each statue was raised.

After taking the photos I wanted, I walked back across the bridge, heading toward the city of Bryansk. (The train station is nowhere near the city center, it's not at all convenient.) The bulk of the city is on the right bank of the Desna River, while the train station is on the left bank. Argh.

While walking over the bridge over the river, I noticed a beach area along the water. 

Instead of continuing to walk, I figured out how to get down to the beach. Since the day was dark-ish and heavy, the sand felt the same. I imagine the area 'feels' a lot better in late spring and summer, but I still got a kick out of a beach trip at the end of November.

I saw two large city signs on my way into the city, but both of them were in places where it would be impossible to take photos with the signs. Argh. One of the signs was near the ugliest apartment complex I've ever seen. The buildings were orange and blue, yuck.

The main part of Bryansk used to be fortified, and/or part of a fortress, so it makes sense that it was on a hill. Yours truly got to figure out how to get up the hill on her own, as neither Google nor Yandex had the roads marked correctly on my phone. The area through which I walked was filled with beautiful wooden homes, though most of them needed at least one coat of paint.

On my way to my accomodation I passed at least three different churches. One of them stood behind locked gates, so I wasn't able to go inside.

Since that particular church had an exterior of red brick, I didn't mind not going in. I have no idea why, but I don't like red brick as an exterior.

I was happy to go on the property of the Bryansk Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The property was quite large, with big empty areas around the main church. The bell tower was completely separate, at least 20 meters away.

The outside of the cathedral was all white, with gold onion domes on top. The inside was big and open, with a few columns to support the ceiling, I liked it. 

The church must be quite new, as there were a lot of frescoes all over, but there was still a lot of unpainted space. There was even scaffolding near the walls in one area, to support the people doing the painting. I wonder how long it will be before the entire church is painted.

My hotel was still decorated in old school Soviet style, complete with single beds and ugly comforters. That being said, my room was warm, so I didn't care. After warming up and resting a while, I went back out to walk around more.

My first sight was an obelisk honouring 1000 years of existence of the city. (Obviously, the city used the 985 date for this to happen.) It is listed as an obelisk, but that's not what it really was. Just a tall memorial, with three different sections coming together at the top. I was able to stand at the bottom and look up to see where they connected.

In front of the monument was a statue of a guy on a horse, looking out over the valley area. The guy on the horse is supposed to be a monk warrior, Alexander Peresvet, from the trinity monastery of St Sergius. 

When you know this it makes sense that there are prayer ribbons wrapped around the spear carried by the monk.

From there I continued going down the hill, eventually ending up on the land surrounding the Friendship theatre. I was drawn to the lifesize matrioshka dolls lined up in one area, just because. I assume they were there as part of the city holiday decorations.

After taking a few photos, I walked along this street until I found a cross street allowing me to go back up to prospekt Lenina, where I'd started my city walk. 

I followed that street for a while, simply to walk for a bit longer. Bryansk isn't a city with heaps of things to see, but it hadn't gotten dark just yet, so I wanted to walk.

During this walk I saw several monuments. All of them looked like typical Soviet monuments, so I didn't make particular note of them other than to take photos. Not too long after darkness fell, I made my way to a pizza parlour for dinner. Even though I'd rested for a couple hours earlier that day, I still crashed early that night.

The next morning I woke up early as I always do, then eventually got myself sorted out. I packed up and checked out, taking my backpack with me. Thankfully the weather was a lot better this day, though it was still cold. It's always a lot easier to motivate myself to move along when the weather is better, is better, I suppose that's normal.

First up for the day was another Lenin photo. This statue stood in the platz right in front of my hotel, but I had waited to take the photo, since it had been so dark the day before.

I walked to the end of Prospekt Lenina, which put me in the platz in front of another monument. In typcial Soviet style, this one honours the liberators of Bryansk, though I haven't done enough research to know which particular liberation the monument refers to. WW2 presumably, as that is the norm for most of these monuments.

Across the platz I found another city sign, and I was able to take a photo of me with the sign, yay!

At the back of the platz was the museum I wanted to visit: the state museum of local lore. Basically the history museum of the region. I was disappointed to have to pay the full entry fee (which wasn't big,) only to discover that half the museum (the upper floor,) was closed for renovation. Argh.

That being said, the floor I did get to see was pretty good. It was arranged in chronological order, starting with the flora and fauna of the area. As 'time passed' the exhibits focused more on human habitation, and how that changed over time. 

There were photos and information, as well as clothing and religious item exhibits.

One of the exhibits in the fauna section was a stuffed moose, with a sign encouraging you to take a selfie. Obviously, I did.

After leaving the museum I started walking toward my last intended sight in the city. I walked for over an hour, stopping a few times to take photos, as I always do. One of the places I stopped was at a Chornobyl memorial. As Pripyat is more than 450 kilometers away, and the winds of radiation blew west, not east, I'm not sure why the memorial is in Bryansk. 

That being said, its always good to remember the disaster, so hopefully those mistakes are never made again.

At last I got to my last stop for the day/weekend. Called the Kurgan Bessmertiya, it's a big memorial area. A very big memorial area. At one end there is a stelae that designates Bryansk as a city of military glory, it looks just like all the other such stelaes I've seen in Russian cities.

At the other end is the main monument. It sits on top of a special hill, with stairs going up each side. It's a star of sorts, with a mosaic mural wrapped around the whole thing. It definitely makes you stop for a moment, to appreciate what it is and what it honours.

After hanging out for a little while, I walked back to the train station. It was another long-ish walk, but I had the time. My route took me past more cute wooden houses, which were nice to see. 

Back at the station I was able to sit around for a little while before boarding the train and arriving back in Moscow exactly on time.

I don't feel the need to return to Bryansk, as I think I saw everything on my list.