We awoke to a grey blustery morning … and then it began to rain. Fortunately, by the time we’d had breakfast it had stopped, but it was quite a bit cooler, which was actually very pleasant. Chris has picked up a bit of a cold, but put on a brave face and soldiered on.
Zamoskvorechie – which means ‘Beyond Moscow River’ – stretches south from the bank opposite the Kremlin. First we stopped at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which was completed in 1997 in time to celebrate Moscow’s 850th birthday and replaces an earlier Cathedral built to celebrate the victory over Napoleon, which was destroyed by Stalin. A 315m high Palace of Soviets topped with a 100m statue of Lenin was planned for the site, but never materialised and the site was used as a swimming pool for 50 years. The new Cathedral is garish and opulent with gilding but somehow lacking in any heart.
From here we walked over Patriarshy most which crosses the Moscow River to Bolotny Island, spotting Dom na Naberezhnoy, a prestigious residential block in Soviet times …
… and the former Red October Chocolate factory, now a vibrant arts centre …
… as we crossed the island. We took a sightseeing boat from Tretyakov bridge down the river as far as the MOD of the Russian Federation …
… turned and came back passed the gargantuan statue of Peter the Great which was erected in 1997 to commemorate 300 years of the Russian Navy, and at 98m is the 8th tallest statue in the world.
Next was the Cathedral again looking sparklynin the sunshine …
… then the Kremlin and from the river gives a far better idea of how big it is.
There was a quick peek at St Basil’s …
… and another view of the Kotelnicheskaya Apartments …
… before turning into the Vodootvodny Canal to complete our trip round Bolotny Island passing a mixture of new developments, neo-classical restorations and building sites.
Disembarking, we crossed the bridge …
… and walked to a vegetarian restaurant called Sok where we had a lovely lunch of soup and warm mushroom salad, Hot Ginger for Chris to help his cold and Buckthorn punch with cardamom and cinnamon which came in a teapot for me. I’ve had this sea buckthorn a couple of times – apparently it is a super food with lots of vitamin C and this is what it looks like …
We made a fleeting visit to the Tretyakov Gallery which has been designed to resemble an exotic boyar castle. The gallery contains the biggest collection of Russian icons and prerevolutionary Russian art.
A distinct Russian icon tradition began with Theophanes the Greek and here is his Our Lady of the Don.
His student Andrei Rublyov became possibly the best Russian icon painter and his most famous work is the Old Testament Trinity.
Jumping forward to C19th, The Peredvizhniki or wanderers were the major artistic force. They saw art as a force for national awareness and social change and included Ilya Repin, perhaps the best loved of Russian artists who painted social criticism, history and the famous and here is Religious Procession in the Kursk Province and a portrait of Tolstoy.
Returning to the river, we walked past the huge Peter statue and noticed how the decoration of boat helms reminded us of the Rostral Columns in St Petersburg.
We continued along the Krymskaya Naberezhnaya embankment past some reclaimed Soviet sculptures and a monument to the Victims of the Totalitarian Regime.
We walked as far as the gates to Gorky Park or officially ‘Maxim Gorky’s Central Park of Culture and Leisure’ which says it all – a huge variety of sports, dance classes and bike tracks as well as regular musical and theatrical festivals and a massive ice rink in the winter. Not that we saw any of it as the sky came over black and we headed instead for the metro.
Foolishly, as it happens, we made a detour to a phone shop to sort out our Russian SIMs that had stopped working, and the heavens opened. So you remember all those pavement works … well those together with a lack of Health & Safety and a downpour resulted in people balancing on bricks on get passed of huge puddles that would have swallowed Dr Foster easily.
We got pretty wet on our way back, not good for a chap with a cold, and decided to eat in the hotel rather than venture forth once more!
Off Travelling Together 