Monday 25th March 2013

Gorky Park : Novodevichiy Convent : Arbatskaya

 

Our plans today are to visit Gorky Park, Novodevichiy Convent and the Arbatskaya area.

It has now been snowing continuously since Saturday evening. Unfortunately, yesterday I learnt that my boots were letting in water. Well, there is no way we are going to waste our precious time here in Moscow looking for shoe shops. We are doing a lot of walking so I need to be comfortable, therefore I don’t want to be walking in new shoes. The only other option was to line my boots with plastic carrier bags to stop my feet becoming wet, so this is was what I did.

Dave and I have both commented that if we had been aware of how bad the weather was going to be we would have travelled in our walking boots; but it’s supposed to be springtime!

We took the metro to the ‘Park Kultury’ station, which is the nearest one to Gorky Park. The metro station is one of the ornate ones. There are bas-reliefs depicting different types of recreational activities. As you are reaching the top of the escalators in the station, one needs only a little imagination to believe you are entering a stately home and not a station foyer.
We walked across a bridge; the ice of the frozen Moskva River appeared to be thicker than yesterday. Many snowploughs and tractors were busy ridding the capital city’s roads of the snow and keeping the traffic moving.

 

Gorky Park looked pretty in the snow. An ice rink is built for the winter months and of course there are many more activities occurring in the summer months. The park also boasts a large outdoor theatre, and a boating lake.

The loudspeakers that now play music once broadcast propaganda to the public. An unexpected sight was a space shuttle, which was one of the test vehicles for the Buran project.

We stopped for a hot drink at a pleasant French café. We watched the many council workers both male and female, shovelling, scraping, and generally clearing the snow from the paths, metro entrances and underpasses. There are many underpasses, particularly at big junctions and crossroads. People are only permitted to cross the roads either at a pelican crossing or via the underpasses in the city centre. We didn’t see anyone not adhering to this rule.

Our next stop was the Novodevichiy Convent also known as Convent of the Maidens. This fortified convent lies in a beautiful peaceful setting far away from the noise and the bustle of the city. Within the grounds there are numerous interesting buildings, towers, churches, palaces and a cathedral. We marvelled at the architecture, the resplendent cathedral with its gold and silver domes, the unusual gold trimmed Prokhorov Chapel. It all looked picturesque in the snow.

Adjacent to the convent is a cemetery where many famous Russian people are buried. One of the most recent being Boris Yeltsin.

We spotted one of the nuns who wore a black wimple over a high coif; this made her headdress quite elevated.

 

 

There were a couple of exhibitions taking place, mainly displaying painted icons made of different materials, in various shapes and sizes.

We found the photographic exhibition the most interesting. There were photographs of churches, convents and monasteries, before, during, and after the communist era. Some images showed how the beautiful buildings had been partly demolished and left to ruin. Others showed the stages of them being painstakingly rebuilt.

 

Some of these buildings have only recently reopened after years and years of work. Indeed, in these convent grounds you can see evidence of some of the walls and towers still in the process of being repaired.

The convent’s grounds and its buildings looked beautiful in the snow. We had expected the weather to be spring like, as it usually is, in late March in Moscow. However, I had said on numerous occasions that I would love to see and photograph the city in the snow – well, wishes do come true!

 

We took the metro to Arbatskaya. We came out of the metro and I immediately said ‘We’ve taken the wrong exit again’, as once more, we saw the huge statue of Dostoevsky gazing down at us. So, we studied our map and set off once more, hoping that this time we were heading in the right direction.

Arbatskaya is an area where, in summer, one would find many buskers performing in the main pedestrianised street. It was still snowing but we agreed that we would rather have snow than rain. We were warmly clothed in plenty of layers but we wished we had brought our walking boots!

We were walking quickly in the cold but the House of Friendship mansion made us slow our pace. It’s eclectic style of architecture with elaborate stonework and lacelike turrets are an impressive sight. How I wish I’d taken a photo!

Arbatskaya had a few souvenir shops, crammed full with Russian dolls, hats and amber along with the usual coasters, plates and other products emblazoned with ‘Moscow’. Ninety per cent of the world’s amber is mined in Russia. There are a couple of retailers selling only amber. We saw a beautiful chess set made from the fossilised tree resin; also extremely popular as a gemstone, there were many items of jewellery.

We found a Russian and Georgian restaurant for lunch. We peeled off a few layers and felt warm and cosy in this traditional restaurant. We looked out of the window at the snow, the people passing by and the tractors piling up the snow. We ordered a traditional Russian appetizer; mushroom julienne and I finally got my borscht. The waiter informed me that I should accompany it with a glass of vodka but I declined the offer. The borscht was served with sour cream. We chose a Georgian dish named Chenhali, which was stewed beef with vegetables served in a terracotta pot. We also ordered a beef stroganoff. The meal was served with a plate of Russian black bread.

 

After our meal, we walked along the rest of Arbatskaya. We admired one of the city’s seven gothic skyscrapers, which were built in Moscow in the 1950’s. The impressive buildings are often referred to as ‘Stalin’s Gothic’ or ‘Stalin’s Wedding Cakes’.

 

We made our way back to the hotel, stopping to pick up some sandwiches and a bottle of wine for later that evening.

Tomorrow we will be leaving Moscow and travelling to St. Petersburg. Apart from the wonderful sights we have seen, we have also witnessed things we never have before. One example is people standing on roofs, knocking off the dangerous huge icicles, which threaten to fall and cause injury to a passer-by below. We have found very few people that speak English, and at this time of year the capital city does not appear to be geared up for tourists. We would have liked to have seen the descriptions and other information in the Kremlin, Novodevichiy Convent and other main sights in the English Language as well as Russian. However, we have found people to be incredibly helpful, some showing us the way by pointing on a map, another opening sandwiches to show us their contents in a bakery.

It is wonderful to know that magnificent buildings, like the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer, are still being built today. Its stunning interior with all the intricate stonework would have needed expert craftsmen using skills thought to have been long forgotten.

We have had an amazing time in Moscow. We have loved every minute of it.

 

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