Moscow

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Moscow is so different to what I expected. Somehow I'd pictured a stark grey place full of angular, austere grey buildings. But it is so not like that. I automatically associate it with the Soviet era forgetting that it was a great city before Soviet times so its full of buildings in every architectural style possible and in all shades of pastel colours. Plus, the Soviet style isn't just a grey box – Stalin was rather fond of classical Italian architecture so the buildings he commissioned are full of graceful arches, balconies and columns. Our walking tour on Moscow Architecture is totally fascinating.

We are incredibly luckily during our time in Moscow. Since June they have been having a heat wave and the day we arrive (29 July) it reaches 38.2C, the hottest day ever on record in Moscow. This is good for Edwin; the Moscow ladies are incredibly feminine and are fully embracing the hot weather wearing their shortest skirts, high heeled sandals and skimpiest tops – they really do look incredibly feminine and pretty. The not so good side of the heat wave is the hundreds of forest fires raging in the countryside and blanketing Moscow in smoke so dense that you cant see and people are being warned not to go outside as pollution levels are 10x the normal safe level. The day before we arrive the wind changes and the smoke is blown out of the city, the day we leave it changes again and the smoke is blown back in. In between – 5 clear days, I cant believe how lucky we were!!!

And last but not least on the luck front we have a friend in Moscow – Simon, we rode around South America together last year. By chance our hotel is only 10 minutes walk from his apartment. Simon & girlfriend Dasha do a grand job of looking after us and showing us an alternative side of Moscow. They even spend their weekend driving us round the outlying sights including probably my favourite spot in Moscow – the statue of Yuri Gagarin. Its so futuristic, like its come from the Metropolis stage set.

We do all the usual tourist bits: the Krelim with its golden domed churches and grand palaces full of treasure, Red Square with Lenin's mausoleum, St Basils Cathedral which is as colourful inside as it is outside. Wandering round its like putting face to familiar names – I grew up hearing about the Lubyanka (KGB headquarters), the Bolshoi Theatre, new reports from TASS the Soviet News Agency and now here I am standing in front of the buildings themselves, its like a real live history lesson.

But our first stop in Moscow is the Gulag Museum tucked in amongst the upmarket boutiques on ul Petrovka. On the Trans-Siberian we stopped at so many stations that were staging posts for prisoners/exiles en-route to the Gulags it seemed right to come here and learn a bit about them. Unfortunately the Russians haven't quite got the hang of multi-lingual museum yet but the ladies are keen to try and explain and show us a documentary in English. It is an incredibly powerful documentary; 3 survivors recounting their time in the Gulag building the, never completed, Railroad of Death in Northern Siberia. 40 years on and they are still reduced to tears when they recount the things they had to do to survive.

We spend the whole of one morning underground. We stopped at lots of grand, chandelier laden stations along the Trans-Siberian route and now we are visiting the just as grand, chandelier laden Moscow Metro with stations that are “marble-faced, frescoed, gilded works of art”. Each is decorated in its own style with stained glass panels or wall frescos or ceiling mosaics or bronze statues but they all tell the same story – the unity of the peasants & workers, friendship between soviet peoples, revolutionary heroes. They really are works of art and its not just us indulging – there are several other tourists gazing up at the ceilings & interrupting the flow of the 9 million daily Muscovite users.

That's it, suddenly our 5 days are over and we have to catch our last train from Moscow to Amsterdam. Moscow is a great place to visit, really vibrant and buzzing with energy so not how I pictured it.

In one last twist of fate the exhibition hall in the Krelim is full of “Treasures of the Ottoman Sultans” an exhibition on tour form the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. We may have started riding the bike in London but the real adventure started in Istanbul. And now, although it will be 3 days before we get home it feels like Moscow is where the adventure ends.

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Photos

towering art - Moscow monuments
WWII obelisk in Victory Park, its 141.8m high which is 10cm for every day of the War. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. Peter the Great, 95m high, by controversial artist Tsereteli.

The Krelim
with its 15th century walls & cathedrals and its 1830s Great Palace. In the background are the glass towers of modern Moscow and the spires of 2 of Stalin's 7 Sisters.

Moscow blanketed in smoke from forest fires
this is how the Kremlin looked for days before we arrived and for days after we left. We were so lucky to miss it.

Russian's like their fancy cars
if they're not driving Aston Martins with 007 number plates they're in Rolls Royces. I saw more here than I have ever seen in the UK

1960s Moscow -the TASS building
the source of all the Soviet era news reports - growing up seeing this on the TV news is probably why I thought the whole of Moscow would look like this

1940s Stalinist Moscow - Kudrinskaya Apartment block
one of the 7 Sisters commission by Stalin to rival the US sky-scrappers

1930s Stalinist Moscow - the Hotel Moskva
allegedly Stalin was shown two blueprints for the façade and initialled both. The architects, to terrified to challenge him, decided to build one side according to each plan.

1900s Art Nouveau Moscow
Gorky House with its curly railing & flower mosaics (and Church of the Grand Ascension in the background). Hotel Metropole with its decorative panel depicting the legend of The Princess of Dreams.

the 1897 neo-baroque Lubyanka building – KGB headquarters
originally built as the headquarters of the All Russian Insurance Company, after the Revolution it was seized and used as the KGB headquarters.

1890s wacky Moscow
a Moorish Castle studded with seashells and an English Gothic Castle both built for textile merchant Morozov. His mother's opinion “until now only I knew you were mad, now everyone will”

1820s Cultural Moscow – The Bolshoi Theatre
where Tchaikovsky's Swam Lake premièred in 1877.

18th Century colourful Moscow
the Kitay Gorod area, originally a 13th century merchant area. Now housing The Synod Printing House (in blue), the ex-Volzhsko-Kamsky Bank (in green), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (in orange)

17th Century religious Moscow
the 1690 baroque Epiphany Cathedral, the 1630 merchants Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki with red & white spade gables rising from the square tower

16th century Moscow – The Old English Court (reconstructed)
the residence of England's first emissaries to Russia sent by Elizabeth I to Ivan the Terrible.

1561 St Basil's Cathedral with tent roofs and onion domes
based on traditional wooden churches, built to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's victory over the Tatars at Kazan. It was once scheduled for demolition by Stalin.

St Basil's - its as colourful inside as it is outside
but the colour was only added to the domes in 1690

traditional Matryoshka dolls
the Bolshevik banned dolls inconsistent with the regime's artistic or ideological goals e.g. tailors, bakers, ethnic groups, mermaids or goblins. Obviously standards have now changed.

“THESE ARE 12 OF MANY MILLION”
that's the caption under the photos - in one north Siberian Gulag 300 prisoners/month died attempting to build a, never competed rail-road.

Novodevichy Cemetry
full of lots of famous people and the most amazing headstone

memorials
they crop up on walls all over the city.

Moscow Metro in all its grandeur
Komsomolskaya station with mosaics of Russian military heroes.

Mayakovskaya station
in the award winning art deco central hall in pink rhodonite are 34 brilliant ceiling mosaics by Alexander Deyneka with the theme "24-Hour Soviet Sky."

the unity of peasants, factory workers, heroes and all the peoples of the USSR
as depicted at Novoslobodskaya, Belorusskaya, Mayakovskaya, Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Kievskaya stations

Moscow by night
the buildings are beautifully illuminated (Marshall Zhukov statue, icon on Kazan Cathedral, Church of the Grand Ascension, TASS building)

this sums up Moscow
the most potent communist symbols displayed within exquisite works of art. Its so not how you imagine communism.

Comments

[David & Diana]

Your luck
Weren't you lucky with the brief change in wind direction for the few days you enjoyed Moscow!!! ? Very lovely set of photos..... David & Di.