russia: moscow: pushkin state museum of fine arts

Moscow has a lot of museums. Moscow has a lot of art museums. Moscow has a lot of big art museums. I decided to use this Wednesday afternoon to visit one of them: the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

Despite the name, the museum doesn't actually have anything to do with Alexander Pushkin, the poet. It wasn't even the first name of the museum, his name only ended up on the museum in 1937, on the 100^th anniversary of his death.

The museum owns a LOT of art, over 700,000 pieces. I assume they're not all on display, which means the museum also has storage buildings. There are early Italian paintings, Byzantine mosaics, sculptures, etc...

When I got to the ticket desk I was greeted with several different ticket options. I told the lady I just wanted to see the museum, so I don't know which one I got. 

After thinking about it, I think there is a separate price for the regular museum, as well as an option for whateva special exhibit is taking place as an add on, or just by itself.

The special exhibit during my visit was a lot of prints from a Japanese Edo collection. I went through that exhibit first, and quite enjoyed it.

Though I visited on a Wednesday afternoon, the museum was busy. I wonder if there is any time of the week or year that it isn't quite so busy. There were old folks and students, even some young sailors!

It took me over three hours to go through the museum. I'm pretty sure I missed a few rooms, but by the time I left I was arted out, and ready to leave. When it gets to that point there is no point in trying to see more, as I know I won't appreciate it the way it should be appreciated.

Exhibit halls were sometimes just as impressive as the displays themselves.

I imagine going back to the museum again, but probably not soon. Too many other art museums to see, just in Moscow :)

russia: veliky novgorod

While reading my guidebook I saw that Veliky Novgorod is sometimes referred to as the 'birthplace of Russia,' so I thought it would be a good place to go for a weekend, Claire and Angela agreed. (Though to be honest, the three of us are keen to go just about anywhere, especially if we haven't been there previously.) 
The first mentions of the city are from the year 860 or so, and are tied in with the founders of the Kyiv Rus empire. 

Like most cities that were really important in the beginning of a country/empire, it is no longer relevant, and in many ways, doesn't look as if it ever was.

After having an experience where we almost missed a train last year due to arriving late at the station, we didn't make that mistake again. Claire, Angela, and I arranged to meet 35 minutes early, so we had plenty of time to find and board our train.

This was Angela's first experience on a night train in Russia, which was another reason to make sure we were on time. I didn't want her to be stressed out and running to board a train. After boarding (for which we only needed our passports, not our printed out paper tickets,) we showed her how to make her bed, which didn't take long.

The train departed on time, at 2205. It also arrived on time the next morning, in Veliky Novgorod.

The train station in Veliky Novgorod wasn't very grand, or even all that big. I used my smartphone to figure out where we needed to walk to get to our accomodation, it was an easy walk.

My phone told me the walk should be 37 minutes, but of course it took us far longer. I always wonder what speed google maps thinks I walk. It didn't help our speed that we stopped for photos numerous times.

Among my first photos were a few of a big government building, I assume it was the local Duma. Just across the way was a large circular platz, I imagine it is good for large gatherings. On the edge of this circle was a big Lenin statue. Since it was still early morning, there was no one else around, so we took the opportunity for a team photo by the old man. (The three of us could do an entire photo album of us with Lenin.)

Continuing our walk took us to an entrance to the kremlin. My guidebook, trip advisor, and wikipedia all told me it is called the Destinets locally. I'm not sure where the name came from, but I assume there is a story, should I care to look it up.

The Destinets is surrounded by a moat, which is now dry. I have no idea if it ever had water (or alligators?) Since there is a moat, of course there was a bridge; surprisingly, (at least to me,) the bridge is not fancy. 

Just before the bridge is a sign in Russian and English showing that this is a UNESCO designated sight.

The sign to the side of the entrance gate says the kremlin is open from 0600 to midnight. We figured out toward the end of the trip that the area is a major way of getting from one side of the city to another, so it would be horrible if it were open or closed only according to museum hours. It is also free to enter the kremlin area, presumably for the same reason.

As we walked into the Destinets, I noticed two things immediately: the eternal flame and a monument along the wall, as well as a giant monument called the Millenium monument near the center.

This grand monument was erected in 1862 to commemorate 1000 years since the arrival of Prince Rurik in the area. This arrival is usually considered the modern marker of the beginning of Russia as we know it today.

The monument is big, 15 meters high. There is a cross on top, which is supposed to represent the power of the tsar. (Obviously, this is no longer applicable.) Around the rest of the monument are figures from Russian history, cultural leaders as well as rulers. At the bottom are others who were/are important to the history of an empire, including poets and princesses, historians and generals, translators and painters.

I wanted a team photo by the monument, and knew it was going to be the best chance we had to do it without anyone else around at that time of day. I also wanted a photo of the eternal flame, also without people. I took my photos, and since the weather was nice we wandered a little more around the area.

We found 'sculptures' made of straw, a peacock, a fish, and a dragon. There appeared to have been rain recently, as they weren't holding up very well. 

Needless to say, we took photos anywho. I have no idea why there were there, but it was fun.

Eventually we exited out the other side of the kremlin, onto another bridge going over a moat. Not only did the bridge cross the moat, it continued across the Volkhov River. We saw a beach on one side, just under the walls of the Destinets, which seemed rather odd, but maybe that's because we weren't expecting to see a beach. 

In better/warmer weather, I bet the place is packed.

Crossing the bridge (which we ended up calling the windy bridge because the wind was so strong every time we crossed,) took us to an area called Yaroslavl's court. There are a number of old churches in a small area, I think most of them are now museums. We didn't stop into any of them just then, we kept going to our accomodation.

At our accomodation we wanted to check in, but it wasn't possible that early. They wanted all of our passports, to register us, but I balked at that request. Due to the recent change in law in Russia, foreigners are now supposed to be registered at the actual place they live, it's no longer allowed for the employing company to do the registration. Many landlords don't want to do this, forcing foreigners to find another way to get it done. 
I had to pay to be registered in Moscow, and I didn't want to have to pay again just because I spent one night in another place. I tried to explain this to the front desk clerk, though I'm not sure if she understood. (Even at the end of the trip I'm not sure whether the hotel registered us or not.)

After sitting around for a bit, we left our bags behind the front desk and went out walking again. Our first stop was the church closest to the accomodation, literally across the street. 
It was closed, even though we arrived a few minutes after opening time. Across another street was another museum church, which was open.

This was our first negative experience with the so-called 'tourist tax.' There is a separate entrance fee for foreigners, much to our grand annoyance. Russians (and Belorussians,) pay the local price, everyone else pays nearly double. 
The kicker is that all the information inside was in Russian, so who knows where the extra money goes. I HATE being looked at as a human ATM. If you can't read Russian at all, you have no idea there is a difference, but we can read, and we did notice. To top it off, the church we were entering was really small, not at all worth the entrance fee. Even so, I took as many pictures as I could think of, trying to make something of our money.

From there we walked back across the windy bridge, right back into the kremlin. This time in we had a couple specific sights to see. As with other kremlins across the country, the area is filled with museums and churches. I've never figured out why so many churches are gathered in such a small area. How did they all survive when the population was so much smaller? How do they survive now?

The Cathedral of St Sophia is notable because it is the oldest building/church in Russia. Completed in 1052, it's been around a while. The outside of the church doesn't look old, and there is no real giveaway that it is important, and old. There is one golden dome on top, among several silver domes.

The current entrance to the cathedral is likely different from the original entrance, at least that's my guess. 
There is a big, fancy set of doors on one side, I'm guessing that was the original entrance. Those doors are now fenced, so you can see them easily. After donning our headscarves we entered and started wandering.

Wikipedia tells me the original frescoes were done in the 12^th century, and they've been repainted a few times over the years. The current frescoes are mostly from the late 19^th century. 
Apparently there have been enough fires (and burned incense,) in the church that some of the frescoes are really hard to see. I appreciated what I could see, making sure to look up as I always do inside a house of worship.

We exited the kremlin on the Lenin side, and headed toward our next destination: food. Since we'd arrived early in the morning, we hadn't had anything real to eat. 
A quick check of a travel app led us to a cafe we ended up liking so much we had three meals there over the weekend! I might or might not have ordered two breakfasts during this first visit.

After eating, we walked to our next sight: an old church. I'm pretty sure that every post I write in Russia could be filled with this sentence on repeat: I/we walked to another church. 
This one was listed as a monastery, but we couldn't find an open door, so who knows. At that point it was really really windy, kicking up the fallen yellow leaves, which was neat to watch. (Not so neat was our hair going every which way pretty much constantly.)

More walking took us to another monastery. Not suprisingly, we saw another church on the way to this monastery. 
This first church was small, in an otherwise empty field. It was super cute, and we could see a wedding being set up. As windy as it was at that point, the setup must've been a challenge.

We arrived at the monastery to find a nice church (open to visitors, free!) with a fantastic cupola. I'm always a sucker for a well done cupola. There was another church on the property of this monastery, but it had an entrance fee. 
Not only did it have an entrance fee, the foreigner fee was nearly double the fee for locals. So we decided not to enter. Sigh.

We walked back in the direction of the city center, passing some of what remains of the original city walls. These 'walls' are now under grass, a fun place to play.

As we walked we saw an eye catching building, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be one of the best buildings I've ever seen. 
It looked different from each angle, and was a dream to photograph. We looked at the map to find out it was a drama theatre. As the clouds were gray and rolling through, they fit perfectly with the idea of drama.

The theatre was close to the river, so we walked along the river for a bit, spying some very decrepit looking boats tied to the banks. I'm normally a fan of exploring abandoned places and things, but these looked pretty sketchy.

We then climbed back up a little to get to a bridge to cross back over the river. Walking on the other side of the river took us past a pair of pensioners sitting on a bench and watching the world go by. Coolest pensioners ever.

This part of our walk took us to (surprise,) another church. This one was really small, and was under renovation/repair.

At this point we felt as if we'd done enough exploring for the day. We opted to walk all the way back to the cafe we'd visited earlier in the day, and had dinner there. As in the morning, everything was plated beautifully, and tasted great.

After dinner we finally checked into the hostel, then ended up crashing pretty fast in our room.

The next morning when we woke up we ended up planning our travel schedule for the next few months, which was fun. There are so many places to visit in Russia!

Our first team photo of the second day was next to another Lenin statue, this one much smaller than the one from the day before. We never turn down a chance for a photo with the man.

Our next sight was back inside the walls of the kremlin. We went to what used to be the archbishops palace, but is now a museum, called the Chamber of Facets. It is basically a museum of shiny things: religious treasure and jewelry. We saw crosses and icons, chalices and books. Religious power was clearly visible in every display.

Like the other museums we'd already seen in town, this one had a different (higher) entrance fee for foreigners. ARGH.

Since we had to pay more, we did petty things like putting every information screen into English. When docents switched them back to Russian, we did it again.

After the museum we went to buy tickets to walk on top of the walls of the kremlin. Again, there was a foreigner fee; this time we decided to fight back. We said we lived in Russia, and had the documents to prove it. This allowed us to pay the local price, yay! Walking the walls was nice (and very windy,) but nice. We weren't able to go all the way around, (not even halfway,) which was a disappointment.

We had a lot of walking to do to get to our next sight. Along the way we passed a graveyard with collapsing churches in the middle. We also passed a building surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire, eeek. (It turned out to be a water treatment plant.) We also passed some people fishing in a lake, it was gorgeous.

We finally arrived at St. George's monastery, which is surrounded by tall white walls. We entered the grounds by walking through the bell tower, and were thrilled that there was no entrance fee. The most eye catching building inside was a church, though it was closed. The onion domes were blue with stars, beautiful! We entered another church which was partially being restored inside. Despite the scaffolding and such, we were still able to see beautiful painting all over the ceiling/walls.

Since I'm ultra graceful, I managed to roll my ankle as we were walking back out of the monastery. We tried to order a taxi to get back to the city center, but no taxis accepted my order. Thankfully we saw a bus stop closeby, and didn't have to wait long for the bus to come. Obviously, the ride back into the city went a lot faster than our walk in the other direction.

The bus dropped us off near an information office, which conveniently sold postcards and magnets, yay. From there we walked back to the hostel to pick up our bags, then back through the kremlin, and back to the cafe from the day before. Yay for eating three meals at the same cafe over a weekend.

After dinner we walked back to the train station, and thanks to good timing were able to board our train straightaway.

The next morning we arrived back in Moscow, on time. Woo hoo for another successful weekend :)

russia: moscow: random weekly moments

After our day trip on Saturday all three of us wanted to have a lay in on Sunday. Angela lives on the edge of town so she chose to stay out there instead of meeting up again in the city with me and Claire.

Claire and I met up at 1600, and did part of a metro tour. One of my goals is to see all the metro stations, and Claire is usually up to join me for it. On this day we decided to look at all the stations on the northern half of the orange line. Half a line at a time is a reasonable pace to see the stations, otherwise it gets overwhelming. 

Wikipedia tells me this line is the third busiest in the city, with a million people riding it each day. That seems like a really big number to me, but I have no idea how they count it all.

After finishing our 'metro tour' we went back to the same food court as we'd visited recently, but had thai soups this time. It was slightly easier to find seats than the last time we'd been there, but it was still the most difficult part of the meal.

The next day I hopped on the metro after classes were finished and made my way to a station called Fili, on the light blue metro line. 

I'd seen a church on social media, called the Church of the Intercession at Fili, and the architecture seemed different from what I'm used to seeing.

It was golden hour when I got to the church, so the lighting was really good for photos. As far as I could tell, the lower level of the church was open, but the interior was pretty boring. The upper level was closed, I'm hoping it is just being renovated. I don't know if the church holds services regularly or not, but it looked rather abandoned.

The field across from the church gave me a beautiful view of Moscow City, the business district of the city.

The next morning my kids had a field trip to a place called Neskuchny Park. Nice walking paths through a whole lot of trees.

I used my Wednesday afternoon to walk from school to Vagankovskoye Cemetery. The walk was a bit over 4 kilometers, and since the weather was nice I was happy to be outside. (In Russia it's a good idea to take advantage of good fall or winter weather, because it doesn't stick around as long as anyone would like.)

Vagankovskoye Cemetery is older than the United States! 

It was established in 1771, after the Moscow plague riot in that year. It was established in an effort to keep the contagion from spreading, I have no idea how well it worked. At the time it was outside city limits; the city limits have since moved.

The cemetery is huge. Wikipedia tells me half a million people have been buried there since it opened, and there are currently 100,000 people buried there. Graves from the Battle of Borodino, the Battle of Moscow, and the Khodynka Tragedy are there. It is now a popular place for people from the elite sports and art communities of the city.

Many of the graves are extravagant, to say the least. If I was Russian I'm sure I would recognize some of the names of people buried there, but I'm not, so I don't.

I walked through different parts of the cemetery, mostly amazed by the burial plots. Many areas are slowly being reclaimed by nature, at least it looks that way to me. It makes sense to me, as keeping up a grave is time consuming, and a never ending chore. I'm sure there are rules on how often a plot is reused.

On Friday I walked to Red Square after school, for a couple reasons. One was to see the way the moon looked really big behind St. Basil's Cathedral, and the other was to see the seasonal decorations in GUM department store.

russia: kolomna

September is generally a beautiful month in Russia, we didn't want to waste a moment of it. After the success of our day trip too Dubosekovo and Volokolamsk, we planned another day trip for the Saturday of the next weekend.

Kolomna was our next destination. It is a city of a shrinking population, like many cities within short distances of Moscow. Back at the end of the 80s, the population was 161,000 or so, now it is 145,000. The decline has been steady, but I don't expect it to stop. I get the feeling most of the towns and cities not too far from Moscow have the same problems with declining populations. 

The history of Kolomna is generally recognized as starting in the 12^th century, and has always been a part of the Moscow oblast administration. Empress Catherine 2^nd, otherwise known as Catherine the Great.

We met early Saturday morning at Elektrozavodskaya metro station, one of the more photogenic stations, then found the suburban station above ground to catch our train. We started our visit by taking a team photo, as there was a great city sign in a tiny field located right next to the train station. Big letters, each of us was able to stand in or next to one of them.

We started walking, intending to get to a church we had seen while the train was coming into town. It didn't really work out that way at all, whoops. First, we found the wrong church on the map, and ended up there instead. It was closed, but we were able to wander the grounds a bit and enjoy the beautiful wood roof.

We also found a platz of sorts, for some reason there was a giant samovar in one area of the platz. In another part of the platz was an adult sized playground type slide. I have no idea why either one of them were there, and we didn't see anyone else around.

As we walked through town we saw quite a few windows with rearview mirrors mounted outside the windows. Another mystery of the town of Kolomna, we had no idea what purpose these mirrors served. They were literally rearview mirrors taken off cars and mounted on the houses!

One house was particularly interesting in that it had fake birds mounted on the gutter and on the roof. Another house had toys in one of the windows and a shed covered in toys. Kolomna is definitely on the list as a quirky town.

We finally found the church we'd intended to see first. The bell tower was painted with blue and white stripes, the rest of the church was painted blue. 

Go figure, we stumbled into a funeral, whoops!!! As soon as we figured that out we backed out of the church as fast as possible, and left the property. We wanted to come back later in the day, but ended up running out of time.

We made our way in the direction of the kremlin, realizing as we got there that the river was nearby, and a bridge over the river was currently pulled back to let a boat go through. I was more keen to see it come back together than Claire and Angela, so they stood back while I tried to get closer. 

It wasn't very exciting, but I like bridges, so seeing the halves of the bridge come together was nifty.

We went through the main tower gate of the kremlin, though it didn't really feel as if we were inside a kremlin at that point. We could see a few houses, and streets in a few directions. Clearly the kremlin had walls around a large area, but the fortress section was a lot smaller.

As we were walking, we realized we'd stumbled on another surprise: a road race. Police had blocked off several roads, and were telling people to cross streets quickly or stay back as the runners came by. Maybe I can run this race next year?

We watched many of the runners go by, I think we were near the beginning of the course. Near our viewpoint we found the main square of the kremlin. Along the sides of the platz were three churches and a school. Well, to be correct there were two churches, a school, and a monastery. We entered the largest church first.

The frescoes were beautiful, as was the light streaming into the windows on one side.I practiced a lot of patience waiting for the photo I wanted to take. The second church was nice as well, but not as brightly coloured, and the ceiling was a lot lower.

From there we crossed into the monastery, which I think was actually a convent. I don't think there is a word for convent in Russian, the signs always say something like monastery for women. There was a yellow bell tower standing by itself in one corner, accomodation, and a couple churches. One of them was smaller so it was probably just a chapel. The other one was brightly coloured, it made me think Disney had done the decoration. I'd describe the church architecture as Disney on stilts, if that makes any sense. Go figure, the upper level had nothing to see, and only the bottom level was open, and the interior was not very exciting.

This convent also had a tall yellow bell tower, set apart from each of the churches.

We left the convent and walked toward the kremlin. 

(Remember, a kremlin is a fortress, not just the most famous kremlin in Moscow.) Though it should've been obvious, it wasn't so easy for us to find the walls of the kremlin. When we did find them, it was clear they had been fixed up somewhat recently.

We crossed the walls, which were surrounded by a moat of sorts, (currently empty,) then went through part of town. At that point we were all thirsty, so our focus was in finding a cafe or supermarket for drinks. We ended up settling on a supermarket, nearly chugging our drinks. Not too far from the supermarket was a Lenin statue.

Feeling better, we headed back toward the kremlin area. We found the corner tower of the walls, and headed back 'inside.' This brought us to another convent (female monastery,) in which we saw nuns in their regular every day life a bit as we peeked through open doors on our way to the church sanctuary. I'm not used to seeing the every day life of nuns or monks, it was kinda neat.

On the other side of the walls was a statue of a guy on a horse, a typical statue for just about any city in Europe or South America.

At that point we felt as if we'd seen nearly everything we wanted to see in town. It didn't take long to find a bus stop where we could hop on a bus to get us to our last sights. I wanted to walk, but the girls were a bit tired. (To be fair, we had walked quite a way, and it was only our second weekend of travel, so no one was in shape yet.)

The bus was supposed to follow a main street, which ended up being blocked off. The detour was a bit unnerving, but ended up being okay. We were able to hop off and see a locomotive on permanent display.

Our last sight wasn't far from the locomotive. There is a war museum in Kolomna, with some military hardware on display in front of the building. Not surprisingly, there was also a WW2 war memorial. This one was a bit different in that there was a GIANT head of a soldier as part of the memorial. The eternal flame was rather typical.

From there it was easy to catch a tram (I love trams most of all public transport,) back to the train station. We got really lucky with timing, the next train back to Moscow left in 15 minutes or so. Woo hoo for another great day trip.