(Ilia Rosenberg's comments are in italics.)
There is a street called the Arbat (pronounced R-bot) that has
many street vendors and shops that sell souvenirs.
That's the Old Arbat; there is a New Arbat that has more upscale
fare.
This statue is located along the Old Arbat.
It looks like a go-go dancer from a bygone era.
That's not a goose that I'm carrying; it's just
a shopping bag.
In the background is Moscow's famous Vakhtangov Theater. For decades, the most famous production of that theater was Giacomo Puccini's Turandot. I wanted to revive old memories and went there to see the latest production. The world famous opera was filled with political jokes, maybe relevant to the modern period of Russian history, but only very remotely resembling the Turandot as a world famous classic. I barely managed to wait until the end of the first act and promptly retreated.
Married couples in Russia try to
visit various places for good luck.
One of the possibilities is this statue of Marshal Zhukov riding a
horse in front of a big red building just off
Red Square.
Other popular spots are the Eternal Flame and
St. Basil's.
This big red building is just
off Red Square.
I don't know what the building is.
The statue of Zhukov riding a horse is
to the left in the shadows.
This newlywed couple asked anyone who had cameras to take their
picture, and I couldn't seem to dodge the fellow in the striped
sweater no matter how hard I tried.
There was a stiff breeze coming from Red
Square, and the bride had her
hands full keeping her hat on and her dress and bouquet under control.
They certainly seemed happy enough.
A traditional glass of vodka is in the groom's hands.
The Russian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Just barely visible at right center is an Eternal Flame.
There was a changing of the guard in progress, I think.
You can also seem some protective material hanging around the M things
on the Kremlin wall.
This picture, taken on a different day from the previous picture, is
actually of the area right in front of
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
which is off to the left.
We weren't allowed in the area that day, because Boris Yeltsin was
supposed to make an appearance.
The military band in attendance was in the process of getting warmed
up.
I called it "Boris Yeltsin's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
We waited about 20 minutes for Boris to show, but we were getting
cold and hungry, so we left.
A large building built during Khrushchev's era.
I'm not sure what it is or was used for; I think somebody said it
was an office building now.
The architecture was intended to look Western to impress visiting
Westerners.
Now there is a Spanish restaurant on the first floor, and I have found the safest food to be an outdated Corona beer. Traditional Spanish cuisine, especially dishes made of lamb, are highly not recommended.
This is Okhotnyj Ryad--a modern shopping mall creation of the Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. When there was a great influx of foreigners and foreign companies in Russian several years ago, Luzhkov sponsored the construction from the Moscow city budget with the idea to charge Fifth Avenue prices from the companies competing for the prime spot. By the time the construction was finished a year or so ago, the real estate market had crashed together with the whole economy, and this became yet another unsuccessful commercial endeavor.
More of the same shopping center.
Sort of puts the old Huntsville Mall fountain to shame, eh?
It is possible to walk under the fountain without getting (very) wet.
Same shopping center, different fountain.
In the water are statues representing different Russian fairy tales.
I'm not sure which fairy tale has the bear and other figures in it;
presumably, it's not Winnie the Pooh.
The McDonald's that is within walking distance of the hotel.
They have pretty much the same food as any American McDonald's.
Quarter Pounders here (and probably throughout Europe) are
called Royal Cheeseburgers because of the metric system.
This building, across from the McDonald's above,
houses at least a couple
of stores and a pizza place.
The yellow of the building with the Nestle's Quik bunny and his
entangled candy-cane straw seem to violently clash with the cool blue.
On my second trip,
I noticed that the Quik bunny building had been
painted completely yellow.
They should have painted the building blue and left the bunny!
A pretty Russian Orthodox (what else?) church.
Some of these churches were bulldozed during the Stalin era,
although most were utilized as warehouses or storage
facilities.
Many are being restored, at presumably great expense.
By the way, the gold-colored domes are coated with real gold leaf.
The Russia Hotel.
The letters at the top say "Russia."
Russians tend to go in for large multi-unit dwellings--they're probably
easier to heat, for one thing--but this is an extreme case; this hotel is
huge!
You will see the Russian Orthodox church in
the foreground better
in the next picture.
A very old church in front of
the Russia Hotel.
The thing that looks like an inverted colander houses the restaurant
of the hotel I stayed at. It may have had a few other shops in it.
I didn't go there much because everything there was expensive.
While I was there, the hotel's name changed to Renaissance Hotel Moscow.
They also changed accounting systems, and the JSC Travel Office had
a lot of trouble figuring out my travel voucher as a result.
Author: Porter Clark <jpc@suespammers.org>
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Last update: December 31, 2001
