Moscow Day 4

The multilevel Izmaylovo Market

Izmaylovo Kremlin, a little Disney-esque

And popular with wedding parties, we saw 4 brides and their entourages just around the corner or on the other side of a bush from each other. 

The next morning we woke early to make it out to a giant flea market called Izmaylovo Market. In the front section was rows upon rows of nesting dolls and fur hats. As you got deeper there were miles of elderly russians selling personal items, antiques, art and army surplus. We knew we were no match for them in the bartering department and were content to just browse. We did buy a few souvenirs to ship home, only to find that  to ship $150 USD (the max allowed) of stuff would cost close to $200. We also got lost trying to find the UPS. Oh well. We had been too good at finding our way and getting by Moscow so far, and had started getting cocky. The city needed to show us who was boss.

The bustling river-front of Gorky Park. 

A double-decker carousel in Gorky Park.

The upside of getting lost was that we stumbled into Gorky Park. Unfortunately, it was not cold enough for all the walkways to be flooded and turned into one long network of ice skating paths (!!!). This would not work in central park, sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. As if Matt didn't get enough of space yesterday, there was a scale model of a space shuttle. We were looking for the Fallen Monument Park but kept coming up to construction fencing. I guess we'll do that next trip (when we can also buy lots of soviet era memorabilia and antiques and just carry it all home). 

-Bree

Moscow, Day 3

Statue of Yuri Gagarin in the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics.  

We finished up our last couple of days by heading out to the Monument to Conquerors of Space (love the name) and the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics which is housed underneath the monument.  Upon entering the museum, a nice but stern museum worker ushered us into a theater watch a film about the history of Soviet-Russian space exploration, all in Russian of course. The soundtrack was perfect Tangerine Dream-esque 80's synth while Cosmonauts floated in zero-Gs. The museum itself had awesome Soviet era spacesuits, a replica of Sputnik, the actual taxidermied dogs, Belka and Strelka, that went into space and the actual capsule that Yuri Gagarin used to return to Earth after his orbit.

Entrance to the All Russia Exhibition Center. 

Once known as the Space Pavilion, this building now houses garden supply vendors.

Then we walked over to what is now called the All Russia Exhibition Center. When it was originally conceived and built in the 1930's it was called the USSR Economic Achievement Exhibition (VDNKh) and was like a world's fair for Soviet idealism. There are pavilions for most of the former Soviet states (Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, etc.) There are also pavilions representing different aspects of the successes of communism (atomic energy, space, engineering, radioelectronics, etc.). Today, it's sprawling grounds and architecture are still extremely impressive but inside the buildings, crappy 'capitalist' vendors give the place what I would call a 'dirt mall' vibe.

-Matt

Moscow, Day 2

Kachapuri, Georgian pickles, Sulguni (pickled cheese) with tomatoes, fried Lavash, and kidney bean lobio.

Eliseevskiy Grocery Store, since 1890.

Today we decided to take a day off. We realized we had been travelling for two weeks and, since this is our only job now, we needed a weekend. First world problem I know. We did venture out eventually to wander the streets and then get a delicious Georgian dinner. They say Georgia is to Russia as Mexico is to America: we love their food and have bastardized versions of it in every city, but we would rather their people not come to our country. Khachapuri is georgian bread, shaped like a boat, filled with cheese and baked. When it comes out of the oven they crack an egg on top and immediately bring it to the table. Once there you kind of mix it up, and the egg cooks some, then you cut off pieces and share it. We are still working on getting a photo of one before we tuck in, but you can see the remnants of one on Matt's plate in the Georgian dinner photo. We had been warned that Moscow was extremely expensive. It is, but it's not exceedingly so for a couple of New Yorkers who were just visiting London. I can't imagine how we would have felt arriving in Moscow after India or SE Asia.

-Bree

Kiev to Moscow

We were pretty pleased with ourselves for getting to the Kiev train station, figuring out how to read the Russian train ticket, getting settled into the right seats, and even practicing some Russian with our elderly seat mates. Unfortunately all my well-rehearsed phrases went out the window when the stern baby-faced Russian customs guy came on the train at 2am and started barking orders at us. All I could say was "niet russkiy". He gave up on us, and then the immigration guy accepted our Amereeka passports with a sigh. 8hrs later we arrived in moscow and negotiated our way on the metro to the hostel. There are no English signs here, but we are getting good at putting Cyrillic letters to our phonetic directions and memorizing the order of the symbols "B with a hat, O, eLephant, SHleeping E"
More to come!

- Bree