Cross-cultures

Just back from eating sushi. Nick played 'The Star-Spangled Banner' on the piano in the mall until a guard told him to stop.

Uzbek cake

Moscow - Marvels and Miracles IV

Today we had a delightful lunch with a friend оf a friend, Ruth, at a marvellous Uzbek restaurant called Шеш-Беш.  The pickled garlic and green herbal tea vied for being my favourite things.  Afterwards, we strolled down Arbat and back to Red Square - actually getting in this time - and visited first GUM and then the incredible St. Basil's Cathedral.  In one of the upper churches, a four-man choir was singing orthodox music and the bass - from Kazakhstan - had the deepest voice I've ever heard.  The interior of St. Basil's is wonderfully colourful and strange - and this male voice choir added to the mysteriousness of it all.

Moscow - Marvels and Miracles III

l-r Aleksei, Sasha, Elena, Ivan's arm, me

Yesterday evening, Nick's colleague Sasha drove us out to his home south of Moscow.  We took our swimsuits and set off on bikes to the nearby pond (in which Sasha's wife Elena also bathes during winter - plunging into a hole in the ice).  Swimming in the cool water while the sun went down, reflecting on the lake, was very special.  We then went back to Sasha and Elena's for a fabulous dinner of borscht, salmon and melon, after which their son Ivan brought out a chess set and played with Aleksei, a neighbouring physicist.  Elena and Sasha gave me a book in Russian about art and a porcelain frog.  A truly magical evening.

Ivan v Aleksei

Moscow - Marvels and Miracles II

On our first full day, we visited the Kremlin with our guide Katya.  This was my record for most cathedrals in the shortest time - the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Cathedral of the Annunciation and the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael.  We also saw the Bell-Tower of Ivan the Great, the Tsar Bell and the Tsar Cannon.  The last, a 40-tonne monster, was never used in battle (who could lift a ball into it?) but came in handy to fire the ashes of the 'False Dmitri' (who pretended to be the dead son of Ivan the Terrible) back in the direction of Poland, whence he came.  The Kremlin gardens were a delight; the fleet of black official cars - engines running - rather more sinister.

Moscow - Marvels and Miracles I

On our first day, we saw Red Square through the Resurrection Gates but couldn't get in as they were locked as the 'airborne troops' were arriving home.  The 'airborne troops' were cooling off in the fountains in the Alexander Gardens - dyed pink for the occasion - and were happy to spray us as well.  We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Kremlin Wall but best of all was the air-conditioned mall in the Manege.

Pink Fountains

Boschian Arrival

Our arrival on Monday in Moscow was truly to an infernal scene - something out of Hieronymus Bosch.  We got off the train at Belarusskaya Station to a terrible smell of burning and a black sky - so grimy it was possible to look straight at the sun.  Smelling the brimstone, I half-expected the earth to tear open and sulphur to start pouring out.

But things got better...