Enjoying While It Lasts

привет, my friend!

Winter is slowly arriving in Moscow, so days are becoming colder and shorter. I am rushing to visit all the remaining outdoor attractions. Places seen last weekend posted below.

пока!

Around the Road to Tver

After Tsarytsino, I went to Tverskaya -- the main drag in Moscow. During Commie years it was renamed Gorky Street, but after the Perestroika its name went back to being Tverskaya.

I ate a late lunch at my favorite Russian food restaurant: kasha and stuffed cabbage, but I forgot to take pictures of the food... I then visited some places listed on my Eyewitness Travel Guide.

This is the MKhAT (Moscow Arts Theater), where many of Chekhov's plays were premiered. I also took a picture of Chekhov's statue which is across the street from the theater.

This is the Central Post Office, built by the commies and now featuring Sony Ericsson ads.

This is the City Hall:

This is an statue of the founder of Moscow (Prince Dolgorukiy) near a Stalinist building:

This is inside Yeliseev's Food Hall, the most famous and exclusive delicatessen in Moscow. During Soviet times it was called Gastronom No. 1. I bought a bar of Twix and a bottle of shampoo there :-)

This is a church on Bryusov street, one of the few to remain open during Soviet times. The street is named after a scot called Bruce (got it? Brysuov...) and many actors and authors who worked at the MKhat lived here.

This is Moscow's Old University built in 1755.

This is the House of Unions: it was a nobleman's club house until it was taken over by trade unions over the revolution.

This is a random old and beautiful, yet run-down, building:

This is the Hotel National. It is just across the Kremlin and Lenin stayed here many times. I don't think he'd be able to afford a room now, since it was renovated to a luxurious 5-star hotel.

This 'beautiful' soviet gem is the State Duma, i.e., the Congress.

Tripod-ing in Tsarytsino

Last Sunday I put my tripod into action. It's the best acquisition ever, because all three legs are flexible and made with non-slip rubber. Therefore, I can wrap it around lamp posts, garbage cans, placards, etc... Here's a pic I pulled from the manufacturer's website, which illustrates what the tripod is capable of.

I went to Tsaritsyno on that day. The place has a a pretty interesting story: Catherine the Great bought the land and hired a kick-ass architect to build a kick-ass palace that would rival any palace from St Petersburg.

She approved the plans, but during construction (i.e., 10 years later) she visited the construction and hated everything she saw. She fired the kick-ass architect and hired his apprentice to fix it. After another decade of construction, the whole thing was halted because the empire ran out of money due to wars with the Turks. So in the end, nobody ever lived there and the buildings were just empsty shells.

The place was left in total abandonment until the City of Moscow built a park in 2004 and started remodeling the buidings. On to the pictures:

Entrance to the park, with the palaces and the church on top of the hill:

Me, by one of the bridges.

Me, by one of the decorative arches.

Me, by the kitchen and one of the arches. The kitchen is the largest building to be restored to date, and there was a beautiful exhibition there: old vases and china, pictures of a run-down Tsaritsyno during the 1930's and 1950's, and very interesting maps from old Moscow.

Me, by the Trinity Church

Me, by the Grand Palace, which is under renovation now. I was against the sun, and this was the best picture I could take...

A smaller palace being restored. It had a beautiful view overlooking the lakes.

Trail in the fall

Me, by the promenade

Me, laughing because 10 people gathered to see my tripod while I was taking the picture. The thing is that the tripod was wrapped around a tree branch...

I was starving after I left the park, so I stopped at an Uzbek kiosk and bought some fried pastry filled with grounded pork (or cat) meat. I survived!

More Subway Stations

After visiting Danilovsky and Donskoy Monasteries, I went to Izmailova market, which is THE place to buy souvenirs. There were some beautiful subway stations on the way, so I stopped at a couple of them to take pictures.

This is Kurskaya, certainly celebrating the Battle of Kursk:

I think these were taken at was Baumanskaya or Semyonovskaya:

These are from Partizanskaya, in honour of the Partizans:

I didn't buy any souvenirs at the market, because I want to go there with Livia. There were tons of soviet paraphernalia (from medals and posters to jetfighter helmets!), pirate DVDs (I bought Miami Vice, American Dreamz and The Black Dahlia) and all kinds of Babushka dolls (from traditional ones to unorthodox: Jewish families, The Simpsons, Kandinsky and Nascar!)

The Youngest and The Oldest

Last Saturday I visited 2 monasteries: Danilovsky and Donskoy.

Danilovsky was built in the late 13th century, making it the oldest monastery in Moscow. It is now the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church, but it served as a factory and a detention center during the Soviet period.

This is me in front of one of the gates:

This is me in front of the main church, the Church of the Holy Fathers of the 7 Ecumenical Council.

This is me in the courtyard: the pink tower is the main gate (St Simeon Stylite Gate-Church) and there is small chapel on the left.

I had a delicious potato piroshki there, made by the sisters of the monastery. The monastery is close to a research supplier where I will have focus groups in 3 weeks, so I will certainly go there to buy more piroshkis.

After visiting Danilovski, I took a tram to Donskoy, which is the youngest monastery in Moscow. It was built in the 1500's to house an icon which is credited with the victory in the 1380 battle of Kulikovo. The icon is now at the Tretyakov Gallery, so I'll check it out when I go there.

This picture is outside the monastery.

This is me by the New Cathedral.

This is me by the Virgin of Tikhvin Church, which is supposed to be one of the finest examples of Moscow Baroque.

This is the Old Cathedral, one of the original buildings dating back to the 1500's.

The crescent moons below the some of the crosses are supposed to symbolize the defeat of Islam, but my Russian teacher told me some people also say they symbolize a saucer where Christ's blood was gathered. Who knows the truth... here's a pic anyway:

During the plague of 1771, burials were prohibited in central Moscow, so the monastery became a cemetery for the nobility. Here are some pics in the graveyard:

поздравляем

привет, my friend!

A couple of weeks ago, there was a happy hour at work -- the 1st one since I arrived in Moscow. A category manager got promoted to New York, so we went there to celebrate.

One new world to the vocabulary: поздравляем means congratulations.

I also ate tongue for the 1st time, which is supposed to be a delicacy. Not my favorite, but at least I tried.

This me with Andrei Shevchenko (no kidding, that's his real name, like the Ukrainian soccer player!) and Corrado. Our ties read поздравляем.

And this is me and Polina, who also works in research.

пока!

The Blog Is Back!

привет, my friend!

After three weeks without any posts, I'm now blogging everything that happened in the past month.

Sadly, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer four weeks ago (but my parents only told me 3 weeks ago), and I didn't feel like writing.

As I slowly get used to the idea of her being ill, I got back to writing the blog and here are a whole bunch of posts.

пока!

CS / CSKA / CSKA Mosvka

There are many Brazilians playing in the Russian Premiership League. CSKA is the team with most of them: Vagner Love, Jo (ex-Corinthians but now injured), Dudu Cearense and Daniel Carvalho. Therefore, I decided to support CSKA.

After visiting Kolomenskoe, I went to the match between CSKA and Rubin, which is a team from Kazan (the capital of Tatarstan). I was kind of scared of going, since there are hooligans in every soccer match, regardless the country. However, I found the whole experience to be extremely positive: the seats were all numbered, each section was supervised by a babushka who checked tickets and at least 5 poliecemen + 2 army commandos, and they even gave me small plastic bags to put on my seat (it was drizzling)! Rubin scored the first goal, but CSKA came back and Dudu Cearense scored the second goal for CSKA. The only downside was some racist cheers from the fans, who imitated a monkey everytime a black (and I guess Brazilian) player from Rubin touched the ball.

On the following Wednesday I went to see CSKA play Arsenal for the Champions League. It was at the Lokomotiv stadium, and we went by subway to avoid the traffic. Here's a pic of Corrado and Sergio at the station (it was Corrado's first time on the Moscow subway although he's been in Russia for 2 years):

The stadium is pretty small, but it's been recently renovated and looked very awesome. Here's me at the entrance:

Security was very good too, and I was frisked at least 3 times. The cops cordoned off some areas around the stadium, so there were many small lines on the way but never chaos. This is the three of us before the game started:

During the line-up, they played the Champions League song and tears came to my eyes. I never imagined I'd ever see such a great game in my life. Here are the players (that's Gilberto Silva on the screen):

The beginning of the match was quite tense, and Arsenal was dominating. At the 25th minute though, Dudu Cearense was fouled near the box and Daniel Carvalho scored a beautiful goal. A miracle was starting to take shape: CSKA 1 x Arsenal 0. Here's a pic of the scoreboard:

We were sitting on the 1st row, and I am sure I was on TV during the goal celebrations. This is how close the cameraman was:

And here's Daniel Carvalho during a corner kick:

The rest of the game was exciting as CSKA played defense fiercely and Arsenal's midfield was totally ineffective. Tierry Henry actually scored a legitimate goal at the 85th minute, but the ref thought he'd touched the ball with his hand. Too bad for Arsenal, but it was time to celebrate! Here are some pics of me, some drunken fans who took their T-shirts off and the fans with colorful placards:

We went for dinner after the match as the 3 of us were starving. Sergio insisted we had pizza, so we drove for miles until we found an Italian place. Can't complain though, since Corrado's driver dropped me off one block away from home.

The funniest thing happened the following day: Sergio told the GM that we'd gone to the match and the GM then came to my cube. I thought he was going to complain that we were taking too many risks and yada-yada-yada, but he actually asked me to buy him tickets the next time we go to a match!

Next 2 matches: Spartak x Inter Milan (got tickets already) and CSKA x Porto (Sergio's driver will buy us tickets). I am also trying to buy a CSKA shirt and have my name in Cyrillic printed on the back! Will work on it next week.