last weekend i checked off one of my "must see's"...a visit to the novodevichy monastery cemetery. i'd been to the monastery before, on the tour with dad this past summer. swan lake is there...or the pond that inspired swan lake. it is also the pond that inspired the scene in Anna Karenina where Levin meets Kitty for the first time on the skating rink and falls in love. anyway, what they don't really tell you, is that the MOST INCREDIBLE cemetery known to man is right next door. and it took me, oh, about 7 months to figure it out! and i'm so glad i did. definitely among the top 5 or 10 things i've done in moscow. this place is russia in a nutshell. amazingly over-the-top, stunning beauty, outrageous ego and hubris, and immense stoicism, strength, and grace all rolled into one. 2 hours here is a lesson in all you need to know about russians. they pride themselves on honor, glory, art, culture, military prowess and fame. and they are NOT afraid to show it. they are also loyal, stubborn, gritty, graceful, strong and among the most intelligent people i've ever met. so here are some photos of the cemetery. see what you think. this is the cemetery where some of the most famous russians are buried...prokofiev, shostakovich, chekov, kruschev, yeltsin among others. here you go...i hope you enjoy them...and i'll say, when i die, it would be an absolute honor to have such a tombstone. there would be no mistaking i was here, that's for sure.
this is the grave of raise gorbachev. the former soviet pres's 2nd wife
yeltsin
this is yuri nikulin. famous actor. with his dog (but i'm not sure the dog is actually buried with him...)
this is the grave of someone famous, or well-connected that was just buried last month. the russians are incredible in their honoring of their past relatives. the flowers are astounding.
chekov
you can see the monastery in the background. it was founded (er, well, if only cuz she was banished there) by peter the great's sister sophia. it is a very beautiful monastery.
shostakovich. amazingly strange and complex composer. really crazy stuff.
i love the fall colors in this photo...despite the cold and clouds (it's kind of winter now) it was a beautiful day.
orlov! an author, who is the favorite of my friend louise. she sent me one of his books when she found out i was moving here.
a cosmonaut. the russians do love their spacemen!
a sportsman...he won gold for pole vaulting, as you can see on his tombstone.
a scientist of some sort. i LOVE that he has equations carved all over the tombstone! i love the personalization of these graves. they really tell you about the person and make their memory live on...which is kind of like giving them eternal life. a pretty beautiful statement.
so this guy was an army general...he's got a war theme relief on one part of the sculpture, then it shows him sitting writing his war plans. for some reason i found this a bit, well, ironic for a cemetery...showing a man drawing up war plans...plans that were meant to kill people...so even in death he planning death...
this is kruschev. the black and white were meant to show the good and bad sides of him.
i call this the hall of generals.
again, another view of yeltsin.
so it was quite an eye-opening experience for me. and definitely told me more about the russian way than even a visit to red square. may have to go back if there is a sunny day, and wander around some more. this first visit i was focused on finding all of the famous graves. there is a map of about 250 marked graves, out of the thousands that are here. so i circled those i wanted to find and set off on a little scavenger hunt of sorts. it is pretty fun actually, cuz you run into people who ask "have you found chekov?" and you say "no, but shostakovich is right over there!" and they smile and dash off. a communal game of sorts. with a lot of russian history thrown in.
and here are some photos around town...give a good impression of moscow in the late autumn.
this is out my work window.
an amazing parking structure.
out my kitchen window one night.
patriarch ponds...which play a central role in a book by bulgakov...master and margarita. i haven't read it. too intimidated. but perhaps i will have to now that i've lived in moscow.
more of patriarch pon.
sculpture at patriarch pond park.
so as we quickly slide into winter, i am also quickly sliding into my last 5 weeks living in moscow! i will move down south at the end of november. i will spend a month in krasnodar, a city near sochi where we will be doing the majority of our cast rehearsals. then sometime around christmas i will move to sochi and then fun begins!!! or so we hope... wish us luck. it has been extremely difficult just to get to this point....and i can't imagine what it will be like when we are onsite, and the pressure ratchets up that much more! but the show must go on. i only hope i can survive it.
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