Moscow of leaders and artists
Moscow, 19. July – Got up, got the train tickets to Yekaterinburg, got food at Subway (plenty of those in Russia). Checked out an interestingly and uniquely Soviet styled skyscraper, housing a Hilton hotel these days, decided what we already knew, too expensive.
Basic errands thus accomplished we followed the Moskvaaa, doooown to Gorky paaaark, listening to the wiiiinds of chaaaange… Sorry, I got carried away by The Scorpions… Parents reading this, DO NOT BE ALARMED! Scorpions are a band.
In the northern part of Gorky park are a bunch of satues of Soviet leaders, deposited here after 1990 when people of Moscow didn’t want their former oppresors/leaders displayed publicly anyomore. Nice, but not as many of them as I expected. There are also some satues of a more artistic nature and a reeeeaaaly giant one of Peter the Great, setting sail on the shores of Moskva river.
The rest of Gorky park is full of amusements such as roller coasters, dodge cars, trains for children, suffering deer… Yep, you read that right. Suffering deer. They had a stand set up, where people could get a photo of themselves with two deer. But with flaming 34 degrees Celsius and deer’s coats made to rough out the harsh winters of Syberia it was really more of a sad affair. The animals huffed and puffed, just lay on the ground hyperventilating while a family was actually petting them and getting their pictures taken just behind them. I don’t see how that would make a nice family photo. Maybe for the Pot family. As in Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge.
A warm beer later we were on our way again, over the bridge, past the gigantic Ministry of Defence. It really is a monumental piece of fearspect inspiring Soviet architecture. Huge block of concrete, all in straight lines, so tall the windows seem tiny while they are in fact quite abnormaly large. Soviet symbolsm on top, two howitzers parked in front. We could easily stroll by it, even climb the stairs to the entrance, take as many photos as we could. Two decades ago we would probably be arrested and anally probed for just thinking about pulling such a stunt. Accross the Moskva river, just opposite of the ministry, rests a real-sized model of the Buran, the Soviet space shuttle. A project so expensive and mismanaged it contribuited to the downfall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. In the end, it never flew. So the employees of the ministry go to work each day, seeing the great failure. It must be grounding.
One last tourist trap remained for the day. The Arbat street. It used to be the home of many of struggling artists such as poets, writers and street performes. The latter are plentiful to this day. There’s lots of portrait and caricature drawing, juggling, singing, even a mostly pathetic mime. Apart from that there are a lot of souvenir shops and restaurants. Perhaps the most useful part of the Arbat street is a fountain where you can chill out and observe the locals being their weird selves. It’s thoroughly entertaining and since it doesn’t involve much phisycal activity, it was just the remedy for our soring feet and a pleasant occupation for the remainder of the evening.
Leave a Reply