Moscow Never Sleeps

I’ve been putting off writing this blog post for the entire week and I still haven’t figured out why.  It could be that I’m lazy (which is probably a big part of the problem).  It could also be that my to-do list this week has been three times the normal length.  But, in all honesty, I think that my brain needed a little time to process everywhere we were, everything we did, and everything we saw.

There is a song (think house music/electronic dance) entitled “Moscow Never Sleeps” and I believe this to be entirely true.  The city hums with activity, and it felt as the Muscovites never stopped going…there was always someplace to be or something to be done.  And I feel that because of this, there was a sort of tension about the city.  Moscow was also a very Russian city, especially after coming directly from St. Petersburg, which is very much like a European city (after all, that is what Peter I wanted for Russia).  I actually found it to be slightly intimidating, and Sasha went so far as to say “Москва, я боюсь тебя” [Moscow, I am afraid of you].  But all in all, we did survive.  We conquered Moskva.

Our first full day in Moscow was spent wandering.  We both agreed that Red Square was the only thing that we absolutely had to see, and since we decided to go there on Friday, we were left with a completely open Thursday.  At one point, I think we both considered just staying in the hotel and sleeping, seeing as we were both thoroughly exhausted after St. Petersburg.  But we were in Moscow, and we weren’t about to let our time there pass us by! 

Our first stop of the day was the Bolshoi Theater.  Bolshoi [большой] in Russian means ‘big’, and the Bolshoi Theater was just that.  I actually don’t have anything else to say about the theater, which is slightly disappointing.  We couldn’t go inside while we were there because the doors were locked (and we couldn’t break them down because they were большой, as well), and, although we had discussed seeing a performance while we were in Moscow, there simply was not enough time.

Большой Театр

Next, we took the metro to a district of the city named the Arbat.  But before I talk about the Arbat, let me first give a few words on the Moscow Metro.  The St. Petersburg Metro, in my opinion, is better.  The Moscow Metro is great, don’t get me wrong.  And most of the stations we were at were actually more elaborate than the stations we were at in St. Petersburg.  But when both are equally as mind-blowingly beautiful (for what they are.  I mean, after all, we are talking about the subway), it boils down to ease of access and understanding.  And for us, using the metro for the first time in both cities, St. Petersburg was easier to navigate than Moscow.  Don’t ask me why.  It could simply be that we were more tired when we were trying to figure out the Moscow Metro than the St. Petersburg Metro.  I just don’t know.  We got on the metro train at Станции Революции  [Stantsii Revolutsii] (meaning ‘Station of the Revolution’).  I think this was my favorite station by far.  The walls were lined with statues of people, the people of the Revolution.  And since we had nothing that we actually had to do, Sasha and I decided to ride the metro for a little bit.  There was one stop in between where we got on the train and where we needed to get off.  We hopped off the train one station before our destination, admired the station, hopped back on the next train, got off at the next stop after our destination, admired the station, found the train going back the other direction, and finally made it to the place we needed to be.

This was apparently the good luck statue. You can
see that the dog's nose and hind leg are shinier
than the rest of the statue, and the people would
rub the dogs nose and leg as they walked past it.

We walked around Arbat Street, which is right in the heart of the Arbat District and is one of the oldest streets in the city (dating back to the 15^th century).  The buildings were very nice and it was a nice place to walk around, but it was definitely a very touristy area.  I’d say that at least sixty percent of the buildigns were filled with souvenir shops or American food chains (we saw Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, and a Wendy’s, just to name a few).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Old Arbat
(Also referred to as the "White House")
One of the Seven Sisters

Arbat Street

And finally, Friday.  Red Square day.  The day we had been waiting for since we arrived in Moscow.  The place where a good portion of my pictures from Moscow were taken.  I had seen pictures of Red Square, but it most certainly wasn’t the same as actually being there.  It all looks so much bigger in the pictures than it actual is.  That is, except for ГУМ – Главный Универсальный Магазин (GUM – The Main Department Store).  This was possibly the biggest and prettiest mall I’ve ever seen in my entire life!  When we were on Red Square at night, it was entirely lit up with string lights, and it reminded me of Christmastime.

We wandered around the Square for a while, dodging tourists (there were so many people there!!) and taking pictures.  St. Basil’s Cathedral reminded me of the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg.  Except for it wasn’t as big.  And it was more of a museum than a church, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but still.  In the end, I think I liked the church in Piter better.

View of Red Square from the second floor of St. Basil's.

Unfortunately, while we were there, Lenin’s Mausoleum was closed to visitors.  Both Sasha and I had wanted to go there, but now, looking back on it, I’m kind of glad that we didn’t.  Now that I think about it, the thought of seeing Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed body kind of freaks me out a little bit, so it may have been a good thing that it was closed.

Lenin's Mausoleum

Of course, our trip to Moscow wouldn’t have been complete without a few night pictures.  We bundled up and ventured out to Red Square Friday night, where we met a friend of Sasha’s who lives in Moscow.  She gave us a little tour of the city and it was great!  I think we saw more in two hours with her than we saw in our two days wandering!  It was a great way to end our time in the city that never sleeps!

You can kind of see ГУМ all lit up to the left of St. Basil's.

Река Москва
(Moscow River)

Getting off of the train in Yaroslavl on Saturday night, I realized how nice and quiet our city is, which is funny, because I remember thinking when I first arrived here a couple of months ago how loud and busy it was!  Moscow certainly put things into perspective.

It was really cold when we got back.  It seems that once the calendar turned to November, the temperature decided to drop about 15 degrees.  Yesterday, it was -2° Celsius and it felt warm, which is sad, because that means that it was even colder earlier in the week.  And it has snowed every day this week, as well, but there has been no accumulation on the ground.  Just snowflakes in the sky.  Also, it was so cold on Monday that I broke out my big wool scarf.  I walked out of the apartment bundled up almost as much as the little kid from “A Christmas Story” (You’ll shoot your eye out! Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)  And everyone must have known that I was an American (or at least not a Russian), because there were little kids walking down the street less bundled up than I was!

But for now, let’s all just keep our fingers crossed that I don’t fall on my butt anytime soon while I’m walking on the sidewalks.  I came close three times today.