russia: moscow assorted

I know I've said it before, but Moscow has a lot to see and do. Since the three of us had only done a day trip the day before, we decided to meet up again on Sunday to get out and explore. During the first year Claire and I were in Moscow, the city was preparing for hosting the World Cup, which meant that there was a lot of construction, which was not pretty.

One of the places we wanted to see when it was finished is called the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy. The English acronym is VDNkh, or VDNH. 

Even in Russian everyone calls it by the acronym. It's basically a permanent place for trade shows and an amusement park, and goodness knows what else.

There are a whole bunch of buildings on the property, many of them were decorated in the styles of various republics of the former Soviet Union. In winter, an ice skating rink is set up; in summer there are several fountains and the landscaping is well done.

Angela hadn't seen the area at all, so it seemed like a good plan for the three of us to walk around. We met up at the metro station, then started walking. This was November, so construction of the skating rink hadn't yet begun, but it was coming soon. This was November, so the weather was crappy, but that's life.

I wanted to take a team photo with the Lenin statue, but Claire and Angela vetoed that idea. Apparently they'd had their fill of Lenin the day before, when we explored Gorky Leninskie. Even so, I asked Angela to take my photo with the main man.

It was nice to see most of the buildings fully renovated, I loved seeing the design styles of each former Soviet republic. I'd like to go back in better weather to take photos with each building.

At the back end of the property are several museums. One is an aquarium, another is a space museum. I'd already visited the cosmonaut museum, which is about the history of space in Russia. It's about the people, and the program. The museum in VDNH is about the science of space.

As seems so common in museums around Russia, there were several ticket options, none of which seemed obvious as the one we wanted. 

We didn't know which was best for us, so when the lady asked, I spoke in English and said "we want to see the museum." She understood, told us a price, we paid, and that was it.

The museum had a lot of models and detailed descriptions, and was well organized. I'm not much of a science person, so most of the information went right over my head, but I appreciated the work that went into the curation of the whole thing. 

Even though I didn't understand a lot of what I was seeing, I still took plenty of photos.

At the back of the museum there is a beautiful stained glass dome, with a huge 'globe' hanging down. Beautiful and photogenic.

After the museum Claire and I showed Angela the joy of the grilled cheese cafe we'd discovered the year before. So good.

The following Wednesday I went for my afternoon walkabout, to see a building mentioned on social media. Called Dominion Tower, it's an office building. The outside of the building doesn't indicate that the inside is of any interest.

When I got there I realized it wasn't a tower at all, that was just the name. It was several stories tall, but it was wider than it was tall. 

There is a photo to be taken of the escalators and open atrium in the middle of the building. Very photogenic, but not interesting in any other way.

On Friday, my kids had a field trip to the oceanarium on one edge of the city. I absolutely loved the penguins, though I hated their living conditions. There were a whole bunch of aquariums in the building, most of which were too small for the fish they held. I love that my kids got to see something they don't get to see every day, but I hated those living conditions.