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Bolshoi theatre
Our first night in Moscow! 20 June
Early start for our flight to Moscow, its just over 3 hours away. Greeted by the Go Russia sign at Moscow airport, first time personally collected by a sign! Our hotel was very nice, just time for a cuppa and a lie down before negotiating our way to the Bolshoi ballet, which was our first Russian challenge. We knew it was 2 stops on the Green Line, but all the signs are in Cyrillic so bear no relation to the 'English' name. And of course when we got out, which building? The ballet was La Sylphide, a beautiful classic and the dancers, scenery and orchestra were marvellous. The cream was the beautiful old theatre (called the 'new' theatre just to confuse), it was extensivley renovated over several years and millions of $$ and sure had the wow factor!
21 June
Met our guide Luba and the others in our group, turned out to be a great mix of people. Two British couples around our age group and five 'young ones' from US/ Scotland as Blu nicknamed them. Our travel in Moscow was all by Metro, the most convenient way to get around a city of 21
million. (Nine million a day travel on the metro!) Much easier with a guide too! Luba was a great guide, so knowledgable and really good at making sure we all got to the right place together! First stop Red square, where we visited Lenin's tomb (he is lovingly embalmed and on full display), and admired famous busts (men, not women!) and graves lining the Kremlin walls. Pretty impressive place, and St Basil's cathedral even more so. It is a maze of tiny Chapels rather than a cathedral, and in one of them a men's chorale singing old religious chants, voices from heaven! Time for some Russian food again, late lunch of verenaki, tasty dumplings with meat fillings and sour cream (Russians have it with everything). Like the dumplings we had the previous night with a different name! Of course we had to wash them down with a Siberian beer. Tried out our new skills on the metro to get back to base, the trick is to memorise what the lettering looks like for your stop, then count the stations. Another confusing thing is when you change metro lines at the same place, each line has a different name for the
same station! Russians make yummy cakes, bakery near us was too tempting, had to get some gateaux!
Spent our evening at the Nikulin Circus, unbelievable! A very professional and modern show with the traditional clown, trapeze artists, a live orchestra, truckloads of animals and glamorous dancers, burlesque style. Our eyes were popping out, especially Blu ha ha. And the animals, there were ELEVEN big cats - tigers and lions - plus animals for Africa, excuse the pun - including different types of monkeys - macaques, a chimp, gibbons, lemurs - Great Danes, doves, horses, llamas, ostriches, a zebra and even a kangaroo! Oh, forgot the porcupines! Incredible!
PS if you are wondering about the title to this blog, about 15 years ago, a close group of friends got the nickname Russian Spice Girls from a photo taken on a weekend away and it stuck!
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