Djurdjevic - Personal Photos - Around the World Trip

23 Jan 2011

March 2007

'Round the World, Again

Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Russia, Germany...

MOSCOW, Mar 25, 2007 - This Sunday morning looked like another perfect spring day in the Russian capital. Thinking it was as warm as yesterday, I went out for, what I thought would be, a brisk walk, wearing just sports shorts and a track suit top. Boy was I ever underdressed! A steady breeze made the outside air feel a lot colder than the actual temperature (-4C; 26F).

I had intended to walk just to the Pushkin Square and the park that runs along Tverskoye Boulevard. Since I've been there many times before, I had not planned on taking many, if any pictures. But curiosity and the charm of some of Moscow's back streets and little alleys took me a lot farther... about 1.5 hours farther. And here's some of what I saw...

The above monument to Yuri Dolgoruki (1099-1157), who founded the city of Moscow in

1147, after ruling as a Grand Prince in the former Russian capital Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine (click here for a travelogue from Kiev), is set just off Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow's main thoroughfares (small, right image is a close-up of the statue).

If you look to the right of the base of the monument (in the above bigger picture), you may notice a blue sign over a building door.

That's where a Georgian restaurant used to be for more than 50 years (click on left thumbnail to enlarge). I dined in it once in 1999, while it was still open. I learned then that it used to be Stalin's favorite restaurant in Moscow.

When I relayed that story later today to an ex-pat here, he remarked dryly: "They must have changed the cooks quite often." :-) [meaning if Stalin did not like something about the meal, the notoriously cruel communist boss might have had the chef whisked off to prison or exiled to Siberia].

A little farther along Tverskaya Street, one comes to the Pushkin Square. The young 19th century poet is one of the most revered Russians who ever lived (1799-1837). His monuments can be found all over Russia, but this one is probably the best known. There is even a town named after him, where Tsarskoye Selo is, outside of St. Petersburg.

You may also notice two other interesting details in the above photo. A pretty church in the distance with blue onion domes, and a communist-era building with a large blue commercial sign on its rooftop. That was (and still is?) home of Izvestia, another notorious relic from the communist days in Russia. Izvestia, along with Pravda, used to be the official newspapers and propaganda arms of the Communist Party.

Pushkin was going to be the end point of my intended walk. But I could not resist the temptation to walk some more through this sunlit park that runs like a spine through the middle of Tverskoye Boulevard. This whole area of Moscow is very artistic. Most buildings on each side are either theaters or galleries.

And then, of course, there are exceptions... such as this example of creeping globalization even in this cultured corner of Moscow.

Half way through the park, one finds another monument to a young poet. Sergei Yesenin (1895-1925) was a famous Russian lyrical poet. Through his poetry about love and the simple life, he became one of the most popular poets of the day. Blessed with good looks and a romantic personality, he fell in love frequently, and over a very short period was married five times. One of his marriages was to Isadora Duncan, a famous American dancer in the 1920s.

The last two years of Yesenin's life were filled with constant erratic and drunken behavior. Yesenin's last wife was Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya, a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. She attempted to get him help, but to no avail. He allegedly cut his wrist and wrote a farewell poem in his own blood. Then the following day, he hanged himself from the heating pipes on the ceiling of his room in the Hotel Anglettere. He was 30 at the time.

"So it goes," as the refrain goes in Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, "Slaughterhouse Five."

Moscow's parks, street corners, and even the little nooks and crannies tucked between massive apartment building are full of interesting stories like this. Which is why I decided to follow my nose into small side streets, away from the main avenues.

And a couple of hundred yards farther on, you can spy this one, built in the early 17th century, now surrounded by massive apartment buildings.

I remembered what an editor of a Moscow newspaper told me during my first visit here, in March 1997. He said that back in czarist times, Moscow was known as a 40 by 40 city. "It had 40 districts with 40 churches in each," he explained.

And even though the atheist communist had done their level best to get rid of many of them, plenty of churches still remain, as you can see, all renovated and pristine looking.

But what surprised me the most in my little exploration through the back streets of

Moscow was this site (above). The architecture was unmistakably British. Indeed, a sign at the entrance identified this church as St. Andrews Anglican church (Episcopalian in America).

As it turns out, an Anglican church had existed at this site since the early 19th century. The current structure was completed in 1884. It was even visited by the Queen (as you can see from the right thumbnail photo) in October 1994.

Just in case one gets engrossed too much in the history and culture, there's modern globalization to bring us back to earth. Here's Penelope Cruz helping sell L'Oreal cosmetics right next to another lovely old Orthodox church.

"C'est la vie," as the French would say. "So it goes," Mr. Vonnegut might also shrug.

By now, I was getting really cold and took the shortest route back to my hotel. Lo and behold I stumbled upon a monument to another great Russian artist...

Across the street, may have been a place where he lived (though my Russian is not good enough to have discerned that from the Cyrillic signs).

After I had thawed out sufficiently in my hotel room, my daughter picked me up in her car, and we went for a drive (and a short walk) to the park that surrounds the high grounds of Moscow's famous Lomonosov University...

This imposing building is one of seven "wedding cakes" built in the early 1950s during Stalin's era as the Soviet Union boss.

From the high ground in front of the university, one can enjoy panoramic views of Moscow, including this close-up of the Moscow 1980 Olympics main stadium.