Abramovich is everwhere!

Today was a day dedicated to the art of sightseeing and street wandering.  I picked up my guidebook, looked some places up I deemed worth seeing, and set out, ready to take Moscow by storm. My friend Yana would be meeting up with me a little later to help show me around.

I started relatively early by walking down and around Red Square to the south where the Moscow river snakes its way though the center of the city, east to west, cutting the city in two jigsaw puzzle pieces. This was the first time I had ventured down to the river. I walked the length of one of its banks and passed a few notable spots, the Pushkin Museum (named for the famous Russian poet and housing a number of famous paintings, sharing exhibits with the likes of the Louvre in France) and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a massive, newly built cathedral that dominates the skyline with several golden domes. The original cathedral was razed and torn down during Stalin’s purges and in its place was planned a 100 meter statue of Lenin, coordinated by Stalin himself, but the statue never got around to being built. A few years ago, the city built this cathedral to replace the old one and is more recently famous as the staging area for the protests for free speech led by the band Pussy Riot who were later arrested and are now imprisoned, famously.

Christ the Savior Cathedral

There is a beautiful pedestrian bridge made with masterfully crafted, blackened iron railings that crosses the river from directly behind the cathedral offering stellar views of both the cathedral and the Kremlin. In fact, this is the view, I am now realizing, that now exists on my magnet. The bridge crosses over a small island in the middle of the river where Red October, an old chocolate factory that was supposed to be closed and torn down in an earlier effort by the city to relocate its factories out of the city center. But the factory was spared and is now housing an excellent art gallery by the same name, and many of Moscow’s top and most expensive clubs. I would visit the gallery later but I continued on to the other side of the river and down the other embankment to a small park, well known because of its garden of weird, eclectic statues. There was a small section of the statues where a collection of statues of the old Soviet leaders and some of the original Bolsheviks exist. It was home to statues of such favorites as Lenin and Sverdlov (Lenin’s friend and leading Bolshevik from Ekaterinburg - in fact, during Soviet days the city of Ekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk for its Bolshevik local, but then was changed back after the fall of the USSR - many train tables though still use the name Sverdlovsk when they really mean Ekaterinburg which tripped me up more than a few times...), but the park also had the only statue I have been able to find of Josef Stalin, Russia’s evil dictator. Russia has admittedly done a good job erasing that man from their history. But there is one statue (that I know of) and I found it today. His nose was smashed off.

The only Josef Stalin statue I've found in Russia, missing his nose

Just outside the park, in the middle of the river, rises a massive statue of Peter the Great standing by the helm of a ship, disproportionately smaller than he is, sailing in the sky atop an absurdly large pillar. I don’t know anything about this statue except that most Muscovites think it is tacky and I think it is awesome. It looks like Captain Hook’s flying ship in Peter Pan and Peter the Great is holding a huge scroll and appears to be yelling at nothing in particular, a crazed look of adventure on his face. Yana told me the sculptor was famous during Soviet times but no one likes him because he wouldn’t sculpt for the sake of art but on government commission.

Peter the Great meets Peter Pan

I then met Yana at a nearby metro station and she took me to the famous Gorky Park, named after a Muscovite poet, and is to Moscow what Central Park is to New York. I was informed that the park is actually owned by Moscow’s very own Roman Abramovich, the Russian business tycoon turned billionaire turned philanthropist who apparently has been doing good deeds for Moscow and good deeds for the world. I knew of him already because he is the owner of one of my favorite English soccer clubs, Chelsea, in London and has done some bold things with the club - with mostly favorable results. He also famously has a girlfriend who runs youth programs in the city (both Moscow and London) and created a modern art gallery and artistic culture haven in the north of the city in an old, abandoned factory. I plan on visiting this place tomorrow. Abramovich, after buying “Central Park” has turned it into one of the nicest places in the city. Each winter they set up an ice rink that winds its way along walking paths around the park. So its not one big circle, but a long line of paths so that you can skate around the whole park. A wooden walkway is built above portions of the rink so that you can watch the skaters below. Yana went on and on about the improvements Abramovich has made to the park and to city in general - he is popular with the city’s youth.

One of the pathways of the skating rink in Gorky Park

After we finished with the park, we hopped the metro to Yana’s university, Moscow State University which is also the best and most famous school in Russia. And it has an impressive campus, well worth the visit. Yana is Russian but she was raised in France, speaking both French and Russian as her native languages. She moved back to Moscow when she was a teenager and now speaks English fluently, her Spanish is pretty good (better than mine) and improving, and she even speaks some Mandarin (we met in Chengdu). Suffice it to say she’s a bright girl. Moscow State University is located on a hill in the south portion of the city on the southern bank of one of the bends of the Moscow river. Views from the campus offer panoramic shots of the city. The campus is dominated by one massive building that looks like the city of Oz (to me) which was commissioned by Stalin and built in the very tall, domineering Soviet style. It is quite impressive. She walked me around the campus a bit, we stopped in a cafe to warm up awhile, then we parted. We’ll meet up again tomorrow.

Yana by the Moscow River

The main building of Moscow State University, commissioned by Stalin

Me above the Moscow city skyline, outside of Moscow State University

But I headed back to Red October, the old chocolate factory turned art gallery. The gallery offers one large space with one large exhibit created by the famous contemporary artist Jon Meere, a German artist, who is also crazy. At least, you have to be crazy to create the stuff that he created within the exhibit. The space explodes with German, revolutionary themed pieces. Paint is smeared all over newspaper clippings and doll pieces and old German movie posters and skeletons and dinner tables and all kinds of weird stuff. He also made movies of himself in all of his creativity that are displayed throughout the exhibit. He’s crazy, let’s leave it at that. But he’s also famous for his work and has one awards all over the world. It was a pretty interesting exhibit.

The old Red October chocolate factory, now art gallery

A portion of Jon Meese's exhibit

But that was it. I left the exhibit after wandering around for an hour or so and I made my way back to the hostel a little early so that I could one, catch up on these posts, and two, start making serious preparations for the next few week’s worth of travels which I need to do shortly. I’ll let you know how that goes...