Really unwillingly we leave Suzdal, not without going around another little bit, this time by car (but.. where is Mischa?). We
also buy something in a market. We cross Vladimir (Cesare and Giorgio didn't see it the previous day) and we leave for Moscow.
The road is really nice, in the middle of big forests, all straight, with 4 lanes. It's full of traffico, there's no more the
peace we could breath in Suzdal.
We find some traffic also in the city. For me it's the first time, I'm really excited, I'd like to stop as soon as I can to
see, go around.
At any rate we have to find a hotel and the opinions are different: as usual someone wants to go in the central hotel (where we are and which is beautiful, elegant and, most of all, expensive) and who, as we do, wants to pay less also if it costs more time in the research. The only thing is not get depressed. We have parked in front of the hotel Rossija, which is 100 meters from the Red Square. We begin to argue, we call, we talk with a couple of Italian who suggest us a quiet near hotel. We want to leave and go towards the out-skirt. Brave-heart1, Cesare and Giorgio follow the Italian to see the hotel. While we're waiting, under the sun, a little bit nervous, Francesco eats and offers me some buiscuits:
I've bought them at the kiosk before, Cesare has told me they're tasty.-In fact they're good and I read what there's written on the box, I like to read in Russian, I like to improve:
Biscuits for birds!Well.. we laugh, we go on eating them, we won't die. Michal gets nervous:
we lose too much time, let's go.And we go, everybody follows us:
If we don't find anything we can come back hereBraveheart hopes, but he prefers company..
It hasn't been difficult: near the Exposition Center we find a lot of hotels, but they're almost full, but in the end..
Our hotel is really cheap, there isn't the parking but there's a man who asks just 30 rubles to look at our car by night.
Weather is fine, but I think it will rain anyway.. I'm really curious, so we get ready and we go to the center by tube. Moscow! We go around in the Red Square, I ask to the military in front of the Lenin's tomb when we can visit it: tomorrow from 10 am to 12 am. We visit the Gum market, then we buy a lot of commemorative medals, Alena buys a gas mask...
We go back to the hotel under a torrential rain, we're really wet, but happy. Moscow doesn't disappoint, hoping for tomorrow ...
Very early we get up and we leave towards the tube, we wanna go to the Red Square. We take a short-cut, it seems to be in the country.
We are in front of the Lenin's tomb at 9.30 am, the "guys" protest
-it's a bluff, there's not the real Lenin there, it's a false one, made in plastic ... -After 15 minutes they notice that it was a good idea go there earlier, because the queue behind us il long more than 300 meters. When we are there to enter we notice that it's forbidden to enter with cameras and stuff.. Michal and I decide to wait there with everything and enter when the others'll come out. They give us a lot of things, also Braveheart, who is stopped also by a policeman in the entrance 'cause he's got another little one in his pocket. I find a certain resemblance between Lenin and Michal and this confirms to me that I see in my husband the Russian imaginary that I have: the hair are of the same colour, the bear is the same.. the severity of the persone reminds me when Michal tells me:
-rigour, Betta, you need rigour-.I'm really excited. Also when we go out, between the tombs of famous men (also women.. Lenin's wife, for exemple) Michal tells me something about each of them.
The others are waiting for us on the Square, Francesco buys two busby made by rabbit, Brave-heart is still in rage with the policeman who has stopped him.
from the left: The Red Square, then Cesare, Giorgio and Brave-heart on the Red Square and then Giorgio in front of the Kremlin.
And now? Michal suggests to go to Tretjak, nobody knows what it is, anyway we trust him: on foot, walking, we cross the gardens in front of the Kremlin, (we'll visit it tomorrow) then the bridge on Moskova river, there's a nice sun shining and a light wind. At a certain point we find ourselves in a nice street, with beautiful buildings and all... The picture-gallery is in an ancient palace, which is very modern in the inside. There's a yard in front of it where there's the Tretjak statue. Tretjak was a trader in works of art who began collecting pictures and who, friend with many painters, took so many pictures that now his gallery it's the second most important one in Russia. And he has given it to the State while he was still living. We have spent less with the hotel, but we spend 170 rubles to enter, not everybody's happy, but we're all together ...
We'd need a whole day to look at everything with calm, it's so marvellous! We discover a new universe, at least it's so for me. Now I know what to answer to the ones who tells me that art it's just in Europe. -Come here to see.- I can't remember any name, but three hours later we've bought two fantastic books of the gallery, which have inside all the most famous picture in it. So now I can list the names of the most important painters, or the ones who have painted the pictures I love the most: I think it's important, because I can't scan the photo of the paintings and put them here, because they are covered by copyright copyright, I've asked for it but they have refused to give me permission.
I've found the website of the gallery: unluckily it's all in russian, after 30 minutes I've understood that there isn't any picture there ... (just very few and very little) www.tretyakov.ru/
01/08/2000: after an year I've changed my opinion: from today I begin inserting the paintings that I think everybody should see ...: Art in East Europe.
We go out of the museum at 3 pm, we've also eaten something at the restaurant in the inside. We are less tired than before, but however I feel too sleepy.
We go very slowly towards a curious building near the river, on the other side: a big iron boat, very tall and black, which we
had seen from the bridge going to the Tretjak. Along the road Francesco tells us about his youth: when he was young he worked
for an year and a half on a boat which travelled towards Africa. And he discovered how big was his love for the sea.
They tells us that next year you'll be able to enter the boat. We stop there and we take a break.
The "guys" want to go shopping, we wanna look for a good bookshop to buy maps, manuals... ...
We don't find much, a part of a map of Russia and a geographic manual. But I haven't found what I dreamt: map of Ukrajna and white russia with the guides of the most important cities.
I'd like to sleep for some days, but in the evening we decide to go around another bit, but by car: Cesare and Giorgio come with us, then they'll stop in the center. We go up the hill where there's the university, we take some pictures while Giorgio has been captured by a matrioska-seller: she's showing everything she has... We go closer to them
-this is a good price, just for you - this has also a present inside ... the little matrioska ..-Cesare buys one of them, big and black, I succeed in convincing Michal, who was already saying:
-wait tomorrow, we'll find something else, we go around a little bit.. let's see others.-
I -no, we won't find other matrioska like these ones, I want this one for Alice, she'll like a matrioska with an oval face, not round as usual.. I won't find it anymore... -(the following day at the Harbat market we will find it as well, less expensive. Michal's was right, as usual)
today we go visiting the Kramlin. Not everybody's happy. In fact after the gun, the bell and the first church they leave us and they go shopping: Beaveheart needed a new bag, one of his three had broken. Alena and I resist other two church and a half, then we try to convince Michal to go eating something, but if he doesn't see everything it's not happy, so we leave him and we go looking for a pizza somewhere.
Everywhere I see there are Lenin's doubles. It's me or there is a lot of people who really look like him??
Michal reaches us after 2 hours, good! I wanna go to the Harbat, the road of Moscow famous for is market: it's really wonderful, full of stalls, people who play, painters who paint ... after having bargained over for half an hour, we buy a pair of glasses for aviator, even if they're a little bit broken; we find a lot of matrioskas, and they are the same of the one of the previous evening ... but we have to hurry up, bevause Michal wanted to go seeing also the Exposition: the VDNX, he tells us that when he went there with his granfather, 20 years ago, he thought it was impressed: there were the successes and the products of the nations of Sovetic Union, the agrarian products, the technological ones, divided in pavilions, there were the sputnik, the planes, and for each State the history and the resources. It seemed the Man Museum in Paris. But when we reach it the disappointment is big. There was just one, bleak and coloured marked. You could understand the magnificience of the past by something that Michal pointed: there a big foto of Gagarin, covered by a curtain, a very beautiful fountain, an enormous tapestry, on which the children used to climb, and also a plane and a lot of beautiful buildings a little bit scraped but still imposing. All this stuff in a park two or three km long, full of trees. There was a lot of people who sold or bought beer, sausages or stereos.. so it was difficult to imagine everything in the past rich and shining. Michal was deeply disappointed, I was sad for him, because I knew he wanted to take a picture like the one he had taken with his grandfather twenty years ago.
Alena and I take the little train to come back. A little train like the ones in the carousels, not to walk back 2 km. Michal reaches us in the hotel coming on foot.
In the evening we take the car to go on the Ostanknino tower, it's very tall, we will be able to look all Moscow, but when we reach it they have just closed. We decide to come again tomorrow morning, before leaving....
There's no reason to go fast today, the tower opens at 9 am, we load up the cars, Brave-heart has got a new bag, big as he is, the other one, also if empty, takes the place of a suitcase... We reach the tower, what a fear! It's the tallest tower in europe, inside it there are the offices of 22 broadcasting stations and a restaurant. It has been built by the same architect of the Statue of Victory at Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd, in 1967. It's the tallest structure in Europe and the second one of the world after the Cn tower in Toronto: 540 meters! To enter you have to fulfill a schedule and show the visa, then there are different doors and routes (as in Gardaland) to enter. There are no tourists, we are lucky, I think normally there are a lot... The lift took the breath away. You can't see all Moscow, but just the buildings there around, it's not like Tour Eifell or Mole Antonelliana, from which you see all the city. Maybe it's because Moscow it's too big, or because the tower it's in the center.. I don't know.. But I'm disappointed: there's also a little bit of mist. From there we see the cars and Leopoldo, who has not come. He's a little point, over there. Brave-heart shows us how brave he is and he goes on the crystal which covers part of the floor. I don't go.. It's too striking!..
