Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Russia & Sweden 2014
Venturing further afield
It was clear from the outset that this was going to be another day of glorious weather. We had a much cheaper and perfectly adequate breakfast at a local Starbucks branch. It was only steps away from the hotel, but we hadn't spotted it in time for our first Moscow breakfast the previous day.
Preparations complete, we set off for our first experience of the Moscow metro
system, something that all the guidebooks agree is a 'must do' for
tourists, regardless of whether or not they are interested in
transport systems. The first thing I noticed was that the stations
were very deep, but set in cavernous underground spaces. Some might
find the long escalators rather daunting, and going back to the
previous morning's theme of 'you are being watched', I couldn't help
observing that each escalator was supervised by somebody sitting in
a little booth. It also occurred to me that this might be nothing
more than a job creation scheme. Astonishingly, trains ran every 90
seconds or so. On the tunnel mouth in the direction of travel, an
electronic counter showed the elapsed time since the departure of
the previous train. Our train arrived exactly on
cue at 1m 30s! (The longest gap we would ever see was 2m 15s.) The
trains were old but perfectly clean inside and they were absolutely
devoid of dodgy-looking characters.
Novospassky Monastery
Our first objective of the day was Novospassky Monastery ("New Monastery of the Saviour"), situated close to the Moscow River and a short walk from Taganskaya metro station. This is the oldest monastery in Moscow, dating originally from the 14h century and the present site from the late 15th century. Typically, it had a troubled history during the Soviet era, serving as a prison, then a police drunk tank, and finally an institute for the restoration of art. It was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1991. On our visit, it turned out to be a peaceful oasis in a huge and bustling city, the buildings looking particularly fine in the morning sunshine. We were struck by the piety of local people: most bowed from the waist on entering holy ground and dutifully crossed themselves in a mirror image of the traditional western method. Women stopped to cover their heads with light headscarves.
We tried to have a look inside the five-domed main church, or Katholikon, but it was immediately obvious that there was a service in progress. A bearded priest stood at a shrine just beyond the entrance door, wearing richly embroidered vestments and singing prayers in the already-familiar, distinctive Russian style. We therefore had to be content with exploring the complex on the outside, which was absolutely fine on a day such as this.
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River Cruise
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It was a very short walk from the monastery to the river, where we joined a cruise boat as planned. Physically, it wasn't the nicest of craft. What also seemed just a little bit unusual was that the entire complement of passengers, apart from ourselves, appeared to consist of a group of special-needs teenagers and their minders. Now don't get me wrong - the kids were extraordinarily well-behaved, considering the difficulties they had to live with, and certainly didn't make for trying company. We did wonder, however, whether we had been directed onto some kind of charter sailing instead of the regular tourist boat.
Our faces fell more than a little when the boat made for the 'wrong' arm of the river, meaning that we would not be sailing past the Kremlin, which had very much been the intention. Bruce had mentioned several times since the start of the trip the words of his guidebook: in this city, your plans may not work out exactly as intended. We could now see, all too clearly, how pertinent this advice was proving to be.
The two branches of the river eventually merged again, at a spot marked by an enormous - and frankly rather evil-looking - monument that was clearly inspired by a sailing ship. Minutes later, we were able to disembark at Gorky Park.
Gorky Park & Sculpture Park
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Opened in 1928, the park was planned by Soviet avant-garde artist
Konstantin Melnikov, and consists of 300 acres along the Moscow
River. The increasingly decrepit amusement rides and arcades were
finally cleared in 2011, and the park has since been transformed
into one of the most popular open spaces in Moscow. We wandered
north-eastwards, keeping the river on our left, passing the
remarkable sight of a Russian space shuttle.
In due course, we came to what we were expecting to be Fallen Monument Park, containing a collection of statues that had been removed from public spaces after the fall of the Soviet Union. We were hoping that these would be in "as withdrawn" condition, literally toppled and just lying around. Unfortunately (in my personal opinion) the facility had been tidied up and renamed Sculpture Park, with the statues now once again placed in an upright position. It was still interesting, of course, but somehow rather less photogenic and less obviously reflective of recent history.
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| ABOVE: Well deserved al fresco lunch |
We set off once more in the direction of our next objective, but aware that it was now quite definitely lunchtime. Continuing initially along the riverside, we soon came to Patriarshiy Most, a pedestrian bridge crossing first the body of water that we had sailed along earlier and then the main Moscow River. As such it would eventually lead us to the city's main active cathedral.
After the first crossing, however, we spotted a
suitable lunch venue and descended to street level to find the way
in, only to climb back up again to the first-floor decking area, at roughly the same level that we
had started on. Sitting outdoors, but under the absolutely essential
shade of large umbrellas, we enjoyed sampling the restaurant's lunch
'special': a delicious mixture of smaller, contrasting
dishes comprising soup, noodles, roasted vegetables and sushi. We
constantly had to remind ourselves that this was a country that
stretched to within a few miles of Japan - a fact that we would be
verifying for ourselves, come September. 
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
Duly fortified, we set off once more on the short walk to Moscow's
modern ecclesiastical giant, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
There were some superb views of the Kremlin as we crossed the main
arm of the Moscow River, partially making up for the morning's
disappointment in this respect. Christ the Saviour is the tallest
Orthodox church in the world, but not the largest. The building that
we were looking at was not the original: that had been destroyed in
1931 by order of Joseph Stalin, to make way for a grandiose Palace
of the Soviets, the construction of which was interrupted by the
Second World War and never resumed. The cathedral was rebuilt
between 1995 and 2000.
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| ABOVE: Approaching the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour | |
Once again, I was struck by the people. For example, there was a group of teenage boys hanging around outside and looking particularly "laddish". But they were there for the purpose of visiting the cathedral and when they went inside, they split up and showed great respect, bowing, crossing themselves multiple times and lighting candles. It all seemed a far cry from contemporary western attitudes.
Although modern, the interior of the building was
once again lavishly decorated and absolutely spectacular. A long
queue of people formed to kiss what I assumed to be the relics of a
saint. The only 'off' touch for me was the use of a couple of red
dot-matrix word displays which, try as I might to dispel the notion,
felt more in tune with Las Vegas than an Orthodox cathedral.
Multimedia Art Museum
A
short walk in the strong, burning sunshine brought us to the
Multimedia Art Museum, which offered the possibility of some
air-conditioned relief from the heat in addition to artistic
enlightenment. A most enjoyable time was spent exploring this
facility from top to bottom. Most of the exhibits were photographs,
which suited both of us just fine.
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LEFT: By this time we felt we were almost getting the hang of the Cyrillic alphabet. Can you name these popular brands? (Answers at foot of page) |
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BELOW:
I'm fairly sure this fast-food stand is
called STAR-dogs, but does the offering
appeal to you?
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After a short, open-air refreshment and rehydration break, we returned to our local area by metro. Instead of going directly back to the hotel, however, we found a spectacular, upscale food hall reminiscent of the one we had seen in GUM, and stocked up for what promised to be a delicious in-room picnic.
Evening
After
a rest and freshen-up we had a final cocktail in the lobby bar and
then returned upstairs for our picnic. It was a wonderful feast of
mostly healthy produce, accompanied by an excellent bottle of wine.
Hard as it was to believe, our time in Europe's (wholly European)
largest city was all but over already.
| ANSWERS TO PUZZLE: 1. McDonald's 2. Starbucks Coffee 3. Pizza Express |