First day on my exploration of Moscow. Some fun facts: named after the Moskva (wet) River; 12 million population; one of the world’s highest concentration of billionaires and boasts one of the most beautiful underground metro systems in the world.
The golden domes of the Church of St Nicholas greeted me on my way to the Smolenskaya metro. I had both my English and Russian metro maps ready, only to discover that since some Congress was held in 2018, there are now English translations at every station, in trains and even voice-over announcements. Yay!
The Moscow Metro (also known as the People’s Palace) was inaugurated in 1935 in the era of Stalin. It is one of the biggest and densest in the world. It transports 6.5 million travellers each day; is made up of 12 lines, 200 stations and is 333 kms long. The average frequency at which the trains’ pass is 90 seconds and hence it’s not worth running if you hear a train arriving.
This Cathedral is the tallest Orthodox Church in the World; Byzantine architecture and seat of the Orthodox Patriarch, Cyril 1 since 2009. The Cathedral’s domes are electroplated gold, a new technique developed in the 19thC. The Cathedral’s history begins in 1812, after the victory of Russian troops over Napoleon’s French army. Tsar Alexander 1 wanted a temple to be erected in Moscow in honour of those who fought and died in the War, as a tribute and as a gesture of thanks to the sacrifice of the Russian people. In 1931, Stalin ordered the Cathedral to be blown up as part of a purge of all things religious. The site lay abandoned until 1958, when it became the site for a huge swimming pool complex, and so remained until 1994.
Astronaut Yuri Gagarin, Moscow’s hyperkinetic Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and members of the Russian Orthodox Church developed Cathedral reconstruction plans, an initiative supported by Boris Yeltsin and completed in 2000. Interesting visit inside – congregation members stand in their worship. There are no pews. Chairs or benches on the side walls are usually reserved for the elderly and infirm. A priest was holding mass at one of the many small altars and a small choir stood in a semicircle, singing hymns with a small group of parishioners. Many other altar areas around the Cathedral allowed for people’s personal prayer and candle lighting.
Walking from the Cathedral to Gorky Park along an embankment, Peter the Great stands proudly atop a ship in the Moscow River, clutching a golden scroll in his hand. He looks like a poised, triumphant ruler ready to conquer the seas. But unfortunately, this statue can’t even conquer the public’s approval. It’s the 8th tallest statue in the world at 100 metres tall, but unloved by locals who consider it an eyesore. It certainly dominates the river though.
Gorky Park is the city’s central park, with 40,000 visitors on weekdays and 1/4 million on weekends. Its reputation in the 90’s, was as a wilderness of garish carnival rides, loud pop music, and overpriced kebabs. Moscow’s Night Wolves biker gang, the local answer to the Hell’s Angels, had their lair in the park’s depths. But now the park is full of free-Wi-Fi-using, bicycling, nonalcoholic-mojito-sipping young things catching the late-in-the-afternoon rays. The lawns are strewn with funky giant beanbags designed for lounging on with a laptop. The banks of the Moscow River, which runs for three miles along one side of Gorky Park, has an urban beach modelled on Paris’s Seine-side plages. A couple of adventurous Frenchwomen have even set up an open-air pétanque alley. Holy middle class! I thought to myself.
Time for my one and half hour tour of the Kremlin! It’s a fortified complex overlooking the Moscow River to the south, St Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square to the east, and the Alexander Garden to the west. The complex serves as a museum with almost 3 million visitors per year. It includes five palaces and Cathedral Square, a spectacular collection of 4 cathedrals in the same plaza. This plaza is famous for being the site of the coronations and funeral processions for all of the Russians tsars. In this day and age, it is used in the ceremony for the inauguration of the President of Russia. Lovely frescoes inside the Cathedrals, more golden domes…
In addition, within this complex is the Grand Kremlin Palace that was formerly the Tsar’s Moscow residence in the mid-19th Century, and now is the palace in which the President of Russia holds official receptions. I have booked a special, incredibly expensive private tour of the Palace on my last day in Moscow.
Last stop before hitting bed….Cafe Pushkin for dinner. Tverskoy Boulevard and the streets around it played a significant, almost mystical role in the life of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. When the boulevard opened in 1796, it became a favourite place among Moscow high society for a stroll. Pushkin could be found there frequently.
More than 50 years ago, the legendary French chansonnier Gilbert Bécaud performed in Moscow. When he returned to Paris he wrote the song “Natalie” and dedicated it to his Russian guide. The song goes: “We are walking around Moscow, visiting Red Square, and you are telling me learned things about Lenin and the Revolution, but I’m thinking, ‘I wish we were at Café Pushkin, looking at the snow outside the windows. We’d drink hot chocolate, and talk about something completely different…’”
The song became incredibly popular in France, and it is no wonder that French visitors to Moscow tried to find “Café Pushkin.” They couldn’t find it as it existed only as a poetic fantasy in Bécaud’s song. But it was the song that inspired Andrei Dellos, an artist and restaurateur with Franco-Russian roots, to create “Café Pushkin.”
On June 4, 1999, “Café Pushkin” opened in a Baroque mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard. 10 years on….I enjoyed a delicious green salad with tomatoes, sheep cheese, tomato sorbet and pesto sauce for entree; and a trout stuffed with fish mousse and baked under crayfish dressing (served with champignons, shrimps, asparagus and parmesan) – OMG, to die for. Thought to self….must develop vegetable sorbet making skills on return home.
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