Bright Spots in a Dreary Fall

Since we got back from our vacation to the East, the weather in Moscow has been pretty much abysmal.  Almost every day is gray and dreary, with frequent showers.  So we find ourselves looking for the bright spots week to week;  a nice outing, a rare sunny day, and we're getting by.  As the end of our time here approaches, we're also rapidly trying to see things we haven't seen and check off as much as possible on our Moscow "Bucket List". 

In the beginning of October, Stephanie and I went to see an Opera at the Bolshoi Theater, which was very high on our must see list.  Tickets to see the ballet were just more than we could justify spending - over $300 for bad seats, but the opera was much more affordable and we were able to get very good seats. 

The website for the Bolshoi didn't prove to be very trustworthy.  They said that most people would be dressed in evening attire, but we saw more people in jeans.  Still, it was a fun excuse for us to get all gussied up. The website is also very adamant that you may not take photos anywhere inside the theater, but when we arrived we discovered that the opposite is true.  They even have a series of restored waiting halls where they encourage you to photograph the opulent surroundings. 

We appealed to the kindness of strangers (we weren't very optimistic given some of our experiences here) and asked a couple of people to take pictures of us on their camera phones and gave them my e-mail address.  Surprisingly, the people we asked were very helpful and one young woman took a bunch of pictures and sent us several that she had taken on her own as well. She definitely proved that stereotypes don't cover everyone.

Speaking of stereotypes, we've been finding in general, that young people in Russia are much friendlier and more willing to help strangers than the older generations.  We tried to go to lunch at one of our favorite places a few weeks ago and it was packed.  The waitress told us it would be a 2 hour wait.  But then this young woman at the counter said they have a sister restaurant not far away.  She called for us and made a reservation and then used her iPad to show us directions.  How friendly is that?  It just shows that things can change anywhere and it's always too soon to give up on trying to improve a situation.  That's all I wanted to say about that, back to the Bolshoi...

The opera itself was fantastic.  We saw Boris Gudinov, which is one of the most famous Russian Operas and I had a lot of fun researching the historical background and learning about where the time period fit in with our explorations of Russian historical sites.  The sets, which the Bolshoi is particularly known for, exceeded all expectations.

Coming home was a bit of a challenge.  Stephanie was not wearing comfortable walking shoes and we had found a reasonably priced taxi to get to the theater.  Going home was not so easy as all of the cab drivers hiked their rates to take advantage of people leaving the theater.  The best offer we got was about $50 for a 9 minute cab ride.  The subway wasn't far, and Stephanie proved that New York girls are made of tougher stuff than what the cab drivers are used to dealing with and decided to take the metro closer to home and get a cab from there.  Even at the metro station near us, drivers wanted exorbitant prices, but we eventually found one who understood it was better to get a reasonable amount than nothing and we made it home just fine.

The weather hasn't been all bad and we took advantage of a beautiful day in October to enjoy Izmailovo park during the golden autumn.  It doesn't beat New England foliage, but it was still very pretty.

Halloween was much more exciting this year as Aiden really got into it.  He was very excited about pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts, skulls and bats and was a great helper when it came time to carve our pumpkin.

 Getting the pumpkin was a bit tricky as I had to try to explain that we wanted a pumpkin that looked nice on the outside because we wanted to carve a face on it.  I had to be fairly pushy at the market to get them to show me enough pumpkins until I found the right one.

It was worth the effort for Aiden's reaction.  We also hosted a kids' Halloween party and Stephanie came up with a lot of neat treats like Nutter Butter ghosts and Oreo cookie witches' hats.

Aiden's Halloween costume was somewhat open to interpretation. With the wings and devil horns, some thought he was a fallen angel, to others he was a devil in disguise, some guessed he was an imp, and sometimes we thought he was just dressed as himself. 

Either way, he was very excited about the horns and even more excited about trick-or-treating.  We took him to the Embassy compound for the festivities and he got so into it that he got mad at us if we stopped to talk to anyone instead of taking him directly to the next door. 

Last weekend we took advantage of another clear, but chilly day, to see some of the sights of the Taganka neighborhood, which we really hadn't explored. 

I think my favorite was the Potter's church, which was built in the 1650's by the potters who lived in the neighborhood.  They even adorned it with pottery friezes to show off their work, which are still visible today.

We also tried to visit one of the only churches that dates back to the time of Boris Gudinov, but Stephanie wasn't allowed in because she was wearing pants.  A priest was nice enough to come out and explain to us that there is a scripture that says women shouldn't dress like men before the lord.  Our guide book said the church was part of the Old Believer's religion, but when I asked about that, the priest was most offended and said it is Russian Orthodox.  Oops.

The guide book we used doesn't always give the best directions, which sometimes results in interesting detours, like the discovery of these trees full of red winter berries...

And a nice late-year flower garden still in bloom behind one of the churches.

We finally made our way down to the Andronikov Monastery, which is another very old religious settlement, with some structures dating back to the early 1400's.

On our way back to the metro, we passed a street of carriage houses, because this area used to be the last stop on the highway between Moscow and the next major city.  Funny to think this used to be a place for an overnight stop and is now just a stop on the metro, 15 minutes from the city center.

Last weekend we also celebrated Stephanie's birthday with a trip to the restaurant Chimodan (it means suitcase), where we had a very nice Siberian mean, including deer steak crusted in pine nuts with edible pine cones on top.  I had no idea you could eat pine cones at any stage of their development, but these were quite good.  For her big day, we also made yeast pancakes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and enjoyed a variety of Russian pies (cabbage, salmon, and tvorog).  And most importantly, I made her favorite, black magic cake (which I didn't mind helping to eat.

This weekend we decided that we couldn't wait for the sunny days to get out because we'll soon run out of time. So we braved the cold cloudy weather and occasional drizzle and made for Red Square.  Aside from some nice views toward Christ the Savior Cathedral,...

We discovered an eternal flame in plain sight that we had never seen.

Then we went to see Lenin's tomb, which didn't interest Stephanie that much, but has been high on my list since we got here.  It's just not that often you get to see such a major historical figure in person almost a century after they die.  There are no cameras or bags allowed inside, so we took turns rather than braving the baggage check.  We had to follow a rather round about route, and were not allowed to stop and look at the corpse, but had to keep moving.  It was very eerie with a general low red lighting but bright spot lights on his face and hands.  I found this picture on the internet that does as good a job as I could have of capturing it.



After our viewing, what else was there to do but to try the new Krispy Kreme that opened in sight of the Kremlin.  They captured the recipe perfectly and it was a real treat.  I find it very interesting that our love of junk food is one of our most successful cultural exports, somehow a matter of pride and shagrin at the same time.  And at the end of the day, it was delicious.

 

We explored a lot of different neighborhoods that day and ended up at a Czech restaurant to sample their honey beer and a huge plate of sausages that was big enough for us to take it home and have it for breakfast today. 

On the way home, Stephanie mentioned that someone installed bollards on the sidewalk near our building to keep cars from driving on the sidewalk (one of my pet peeves).  However, the next morning, she saw the guards from our compound cutting them down with a metal saw.  The best we can figure is that they would lost income from the sport car salon around the corner, which parks its cars in our parking lot at night. *sigh*

Still, we keep looking for the bright spots, and I'd say rather successfully.