Park Life

another lovely day in moskva.  this town can be pretty darn nice on a sunny summer day.  met up with my friends marcia and david and we went strolling thru a couple of parks along the river, opposite the kremlin.  found a kooky sculpture garden, and a beautiful walk through gorky park.  hard to believe just a few months ago i was ice skating thru that same park!

this is another shot of the peter the great sculpture.  it is quite gaudy, but a handy landmark.  you can't miss it.

lenin and i think maybe marx guarding this path thru the garden.  there was construction so we couldn't walk it.  had to admire from afar.

random sculpture laid out in a lovely garden.  no idea who made these, or when, or where, or how they got here.  no signs anywhere.  but we enjoyed it.

this could have been at the top of the turrets around the kremlin.  or on top of a building somewhere.  surely it was used during the time of the USSR.  spending it's retirement in a lovely garden, remembered by fewer and fewer each year.

nice place for a nap.  

wonder how the baby jesus on the obelisk in the background thinks about this lovely piece.

peter!

this isn't art...or is it...

likely another soviet hand...lenin's maybe, or stalin.  

a kid's library on a bus!  this is in front of the modern art museum next to the sculpture garden.

and this lovely young man wanted to give me a rose.  so sweet.

powerful soviet sculpture.  says something about peace, or the future, or the world (MIR means all of those things).  but with the giant gun he's holding, i'm not sure it's about peace.  

native american (or mexican) indians play their pipes here, too!

these are cool fabric boats in gorky park.  i think my brother-in-law, brian, should make one for casper!

park life.

gorky park is beautiful.  there is a pond with paddle boats.  and pretty much every patch of green had people lounging.  and they have these HUGE bean-bag cushions everywhere that anyone could lounge on.  they'd be stolen, or covered in graffiti, or turned into beds for the homeless in any city in the US.  but they were perfectly pristine here.  our goal is to grab one early in the day one weekend and just lounge and read all day in the park.  

can't wait to show this city to my folks!!  they arrive in 4 days!!!

A Grand Day Out

it's full on summer in the city.  and it was HOT today.  a gorgeous, sunny day.  and i was determined to make the most of it!

we have started a regular weekend brunch at a cute place in the center of town called Schastye in russian.  it means happiness.  and it is.  super-tasty cocktails, fresh juices, brunch-y items, delicious coffee, and MACAROONS.  my new favorite food item.  

anyway, i'll let the pictures tell the story of today.  it was indeed a grand day out.

brunch group!  jason (newly arrived, from LA), jess, david, stephanie (also newly arrived), marcia, me. i'm having a "tennessee tini"...jack, rasperries, blackberries, sugar syrup and lime.  yummmm.

st basil's!  so fun to see it in the summer, not covered in ice and snow.

more st basil's.  mom and dad are going to be so excited to see it!  it's just gorgeous.

jason and i made an excursion to a big park south of the center of town.  it is called Kolomenskoe and it was home to a summer palace of Tsar Alexey Mikaelovich in the 17th century.  it also has this gorgeous church, called the Church of the Ascension, built also in the 17th century, and was the first church in russia to have a stone conical roof.  it is a unesco world heritage site.  

and it is also a popular place for wedding photos.

this is the apple orchard of the tsars.  back in the tsar's day it had 400 trees.  now it has over 900 apple trees!  and a good place for picnicking and relaxing out of the sun.

the pic on the right is the reconstructed tsar's palace.  it is made completely out of wood, and kind of looks like a gingerbread house!  we got to see the inside of the tsarina's quarters.  so ornate!  here is also a pic of the ceiling in one of the rooms...totally reconstructed and decorated according to the original architect's plans.  

looking up into a very ornate glass chandelier.  gaudy, but still very impressive and beautiful.

back to town for food and drinks at the rooftop bar on the left...strelka.  it is the expat's dream.  they practice hard-core "face control" here.  you gotta look good, or be "someone".  or, speak english.  :)  you sit and eat uber-expensive food and watch the boats pass.  easy way to while away the late afternoon.

THEN, i met my friend campbell for dinner at the Time Out bar, another rooftop restaurant with huge windows overlooking the city.  this is a sweet couple enjoying their view of the city.

menus.  they are old TimeOut Moscow magazine covers.

campbell drinking a very fruity drink...pomelo (like a HUGE grapefruit) juice, passion fruit juice, and coconut milk.  served out of half of a pomelo.  very refreshing!!

my carrot/mandarin concoction, and my "new york" burger.  it had pepperoni on it, as well as beet and orange salsa.  i guess that is very "new york"?!?  regardless, it was really good.  i lapped it up.

another pic of the bar.

so now i'm back home, and ready to crash.  and here is what it looks like at 11pm in moscow now from my bedroom window:

i will never get tired of the sun setting at 11pm.  i will miss that when i go back home.

Catch-up: KRASNODAR!

so krasnodar is like the des moines of russia.  a bit larger, but it is in a very rural area, is a very decent town with some historical attractions, but mostly it is just a working city with nice people, good food, and an easy lifestyle it seems.  my phone was filled up with pics and other info by the time we got to krasnodar, so i had to rely on my colleague kirill to take some pics.  but nonetheless, here they are:

flying into krasnodar.  we were in a smallish plane, a lot like those that fly into des moines!  and the terrain looks pretty familiar as well...  

at the airport waiting for our van to the hotel!

a fun sculpture in downtown.

a 600-year old oak tree!  this is one of the main attractions of krasnodar.

karaoke!  with wigs and hats!

i don't have any pics of it right now, but krasnodar has a beautiful boulevard through the center of town that becomes a total pedestrian zone on the weekends.  it has lots of shops and restaurants along it, as well as street performers and roving musicians.  one of the street performers was a guy with a HUGE (like, 2 meters long) python SNAKE.  a snake.  and not only was it nearly 7' long, it was yellow.  and slithering along the street.  you could pay to hold it.  or you could just gape as a 7' long yellow python slithered along the same street where you and your family were walking.  yikes.  anyway, all weekend long, people stroll and bike up and down it.  a very leisurely and lovely life it seemed.  

so, all in all, it was a terrific tour and fantastic to see a slice of life outside of the normal tourist areas of st pete's and moscow.  makes me want to travel all over the country. i also practiced my russian a lot, and am feeling more confident with it every day.  

mom and dad come next week, i can't wait!!!!  good georgian and azerbaijan-ian food in their future!!!!

Catch-up: SOCHI!

after kazan, we travel to the great SOCHI!  host to this little project i'm working on.  that was a fascinating trip.  sochi is essentially a grouping of little seaside and mountain-town villages stretched out along the black sea coast.  traffic is horrible.  there are rolling black-outs in sochi-proper.  and there is a hotel being constructed every 10 feet.  but somehow, it will all get done.  the people will come.  trains will emerge from a station that is still under major construction to take people to the mountains where they will stand on snow shipped in from storage units all over the caucasian mountains.  and we will produce a fantastic show in a stadium that, well, has a long way to go.  but like everything in russia it seems, things are always behind schedule and delayed, and waaaaayyyyy over budget.  but somehow they get done.  

so, sochi!

the patio tiles outside our hotel...ruble and isa coins...

hotel pool.  definitely looks like the winter olympics would happen here...

old-school hotel room...note the phone!

some of our group outside the hotel

this is the georgian version of "crack bread" (crack bread is amazing bread from the red bicycle bread company in salt lake).  the georgians certainly know how to make amazing bread.  and sochi is 6 km from georgia.

fun pic while waiting for auditions to start.

sochi has a lot of love for it's volunteers!

clamshell clock.  don't know what more to say.

again, lenin stands guard over downtown sochi.

more of downtown

hotels, hotels, as far as the eye can see...

and yes, the airport is under construction, too!

i love soviet-era cars!!  not sure why this one is on the tarmac, tho.

the rings outside the aiport!  it's really real...

yeah!!!

a fabulous little georgian restaurant...kapitolina (russian), kirill (russian), tatiana (russian)

a park downtown.  yep...i totally think palm trees when i think of the winter games...

even russians love sponge bob!

so yeah, a bit of sochi.  and i'm guessing it'll look much the same 9 months from now.  no snow, i mean.  but there are quite large mountains outside of town, and they are even still covered in snow, so that is a good sign!  still, it will be quite odd to see speed skaters and curling against the backdrop of palm trees.  will be quite an experience overall, i'm guessing....