Moscow!

Moscow Arrived July 18th. This post is on July 27. Sorry.

It was a harrowing journey for me to find the place I was staying in Moscow - a private apartment of a friend. Suffice it to say I got there, using all of my traveling wiles to get it done. And I got to meet my friend's uncle who speaks no English but he was totally cool and we used international sign language (unofficial). After a little Russian television, I fell asleep on the couch. Just like home! Actually it was pretty cool watching "The Fly" with Jeff Goldberg speaking Russian. I could just make out the English behind the dubs. 

I woke up early (Traveler Tip #4 - wake up early! Go-getters like me are getting the best spots in line while you leisurely comb your hair and put granola in your yogurt or whatever it is that keeps your keister from walking out the door. I was out the door at 530am and decided to walk up to Moscow University, which wasn't too far and I could see the tall spire so it was unlikely I'd get lost. Just then a bus pulls up. I had no idea where this bus was going, but what they heck...why not ask. In my best Russian accent I asked, "Do you go to the Metro?". He said "da' which is good enough for me. Luckily my subway card works on all the buses (another brilliant innovation by recently former communists!) so I didn't have to hassle with pesky foreign coins that deliberately don't have numbers on em. Anyway I got on and felt pretty smug. Strangeley, not many people were up and walking around the university in the summer on a Saturday at 7am. I walked to where the logical place would be for a bookstore like in the US where I could buy a sweatshirt that said "Moscow University" for lovely daughter #1 who is off to college. Things were going swell until I encountered an open door, which usually screams "enter me!" to a guy like me. But...just then there was a metal detector with two guards, who adroitly spotted my natty attire and large tour book and determined that I wasn't a real student. They said "No tourist," which didn't leave me a lot of wiggle room for negotiation in Russian. I left. Still, it was a fun walk and an interesting architectural building, dubbed wedding cake architecture by characteristically jocular Russians. (you can look that vocab word up, students). More on Russian jocularity later. I have pithy things to relate.

Moscow University in early morning gloom

Mrs. Schliemann

The famous diadem Schliemann found and let his wife wear

Next stop was the main event for me on this trip - the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, in which are held the treasure discovered by Schliemann at Troy and deposited in Berlin at their museums. Once the Soviets got to Berlin during World War 2 (big famous war - look it up students...I always have random extra credit questions about World War 2), they weren't in the mood to quibble about technical ownership of things and swiped the treasure, keeping it under wraps for 50 or 60 years (which is longer than I've been alive!!!)  But then some busybody lady at the Pushkin museum went off message and admitted to having it, and they couldn't put her in the gulag anymore because of perestroika (look it up) so the Russians sorta just said yeah we have it and we're not giving it back so don't bother asking. Which explains what takes me, a great and loyal American, to Moscow (unlike that other guy holed up in Moscow's airport...look it up) 

Now like any good father, I stop at the internet hot chocolate shop so I can facetime my kids and have a banana cocoa (It was very good). What do I see when I look out the window is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior?

View from the internet coffee shop

I showed the kids on Facetime. They were impressed...sort of. This is one of the most spectacular churches there were in the Soviet Union, but once again, Stalin was a jerk about churches and despite the pleas of the people, he had it blown to bits in the 30's. Then he put in a swimming pool/ice rink for a while. In 1990, the Russian people decided they wanted their church back. So they used many private donations and had it rebuilt. If you look carefully, you'll see that there are endless lines to get in the church because they just discovered some piece of St. Andrew's dead body, and are installing it into the church. Anyway, lines are a mile long and cops and military are all over the place directing traffic. Due to the hoohah about the relics, lines were miles long and I didn't end up seeing this, although it was on my list. It would've robbed me of too much time elsewhere. 

Ok so I got past the security to the Pushkin and it was a pretty good museum. Not really as good as the Hermitage, but not bad at all. Interestingly (I guess I should let you be the judge of that) the Pushkin used to be a museum that would offer kids the ability to see good copies of the masterpieces of the world so they could emulate them. Since they couldn't actually leave the Soviet Union on trips to see the museums of Europe, they recreated the masterpieces for them, including the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. Interesting theory. So there are tremendous amounts of plaster copies of the famous things from Greek and Italian antiquity in this museum, except of course the Schliemann Treasure. 

The Scliemann treasure was special to see. Somehow it makes seeing the excavations of Troy very real. When visiting Troy, parts of it can look like a BMX track. Seeing the treasure reinforces that something very big happened there. It was exciting in a geeky historian kind of way. Now since Schliemann was kind of a doof archaeologist, it's really hard for current archaeologists to figure out exactly when the Schliemann treasure dated to. In any case, the myth is strong and moving. 

Tanya, Anya, and Nadya

So after I closed down the Pushkin, I went back to the apartment. My friend Tasha had put me in touch with her cousins, Nadya, Anya and Tanya. We decided to hit the town and check out Red Square and the GUM department store (actually it's kind of a shopping center)

Kev cracking a funny in front of panorama. Random lady on left. 

Now Tanya (friend of Anya) was driving the car, but it turns out that Anya and Nadya had bought the car in secret, and don't yet know how to drive so they keep it at Tanya's. Anyway, all went well. Here's Red Square:

St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. Apparently the colors of the domes were the colors added in the 1700's

Girls in front of the Kremlin

I bought everyone a good Georgian dinner, wherein the foreign hosts try to order uniquely original food that they think you'll hate so they can show how unique it is. I always foil these nefarious plots by (and my kids know this) eating everything on my plate and expounding about how delicious it is. This mildly deflates the hosts as they wanted to reinforce the stereotypes about Americans as having diets consisting only of hamburgers and cokes. (Special serious traveler tip: When you're in a foreign place, eat their food and love it.) Don't make squeamish faces or eat miniscule bites off of the edge. Nothing says you respect their culture more than being open Just pretend you are a prisoner of war and haven't eaten in 3 weeks. That being said, Georgian food was actually awesome. Lots of stews and bready things that were tasty.

Lenin's Tomb

Convent on the lake

GUM department store. Not Cyrillic writing

 We checked out the GUM department store. This is why it is so nice to do a little preparation before you go to Russia or Greece or countries with different alphabets. If you could learn their alphabet (and let's face it...how hard is it. You learned your own alphabet when you were four). Anyway they use the Greek gamma for G and a Y for a U. Ns are H's and H's are I's. It's actually kind of fun to test yourself, and it's really helpful on the subway and for streetsigns. (Tip: Learn the alphabet before you go!!)

The girls drove me home. I never got to see Anya or Nadya again but Tanya drove me over to Grisha's house, where he had invited me to a special dinner. I was honored! It was his daughter Mariam's birthday, so I had some flowers and gave them to her. But that's for my next post

I realize I really need to finally post something!! For my loyal followers I apologize for the delay, and thank you for caring. There are plenty of frustrating excuses for not posting but ain't nobody got time to hear that. 

Mr. Keating

P.S. Postcard alert - I have been writing and mailing postcards to my students as I go, so check your mailboxes. KPK