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!!!