Back from The USSR !

Sally returned from her work trip to Russia two weeks ago. Regrettably we ended up not joining her - it was just too complicated to do. She had a great time marveling at so many aspects of Moscow, of course not the least its history. She had three days of work then opted to stay on by herself for a further three days, taking in a UK public holiday. Below is a compilation and summary of her E-mails to us and to her family in Australia. 

 

The traffic is very, very heavy.  It took two hours from the airport to the hotel.  The smoking is even more here than in London with people still allowed to smoke inside. It’s really expensive and I am not sure how the average Russian copes.  There is, however, some very serious money here- very high end shops around, some pretty impressive cars being driven around 

very fast.......

 

... and women dressed up to the nines - amazingly lots of them walk around in really high heels even though the pavements here and the cobble stones are worse than London!  There is so much to look at and be amazed /confounded by!

I thought of you all tonight, but especially Kathryn.  Do you remember like I do the afternoons after church and Sunday roast when Dad would put on one of our ballet records?  It was usually either Swan Lake or Coppelia and Kathryn would dance around while the rest of us galumphed!

Tonight I am in Moscow, having been here since Wednesday afternoon for work, and I found my way at the end of our meeting past St Basil's and Red Square to the new Bolshoi (the old has apparently been under renovation  for about 10 years),  

Having been unable to find tickets on the internet, 

I was told the only option was to try to buy a ticket at the front of the theatre. Twenty minutes before start time I handed across less than I had expected - about £30 - and texted Mark to say I hoped I'd got a real ticket.  I certainly wondered if I was throwing away good money, but at 7pm the curtains went up and I sat for the next 2  1/2 hours watching the Bolshoi Ballet perform Coppelia!!

It was amazing and something I will remember for the rest of my life.  The music was all familiar from childhood, the costumes gorgeous, complete with lots of pairs of Russian red boots and the whole performance just wonderful.  The grace and strength of the dancers was hard to believe - it was all just fabulous.  It is hard to imagine in this big, busy, commercial and open city that when we were dancing around all those years ago to Delibes, Russia was the centre of the Soviet Union and the Bolshoi was something few people other than Russians got to see. I keep saying it, but "if you had said to me a year ago".....I am so excited and can't believe I have been lucky enough to have this experience.  The beauty of the ballet combined with the childhood memories brought tears to my eyes.   While I was there by myself, I was amongst locals, Dutch, Americans and Spaniards - everyone so happy to be there and loving it.  While I was there by myself, you were all there with me and Kathryn was dancing,

The Moscow Metro is really fast and efficient, even though the carriages are older than London; they come more often and are larger and longer.  Unlike London tube stations where you never know how they are going to look, the layout of all the stations is the same here. Unlike London it is the amazing decorations that differentiate them.  The very difficult thing is trying to understand where you are because there are no signs in English, just in Cyrillic.  Fortunately one of my colleagues recognises letters from her Greek and another from his time in Mongolia. When he and I “did” the metro last night I got him there with my amazing map reading skills and he used his amazing Cyrillic skills to work out how to get around and which way to go!

TUBE STATIONS NOT MUSEUMS !

 

 

I went up to Ishmailov markets by metro with 5 others on Saturday morning.  It was great fun wandering among all the stalls and seeing how similar some of the stuff is to Iran and Syria.  I would have spent much more, but I ran out of money and had to come away with less than I would have liked :-(  Anyway, it was a fun experience.

Lunch was at the markets - everyone ordered bbq lamb shashlicks which were brought upstairs to a smoky room above with little old ladies (babushkas?) in charge of everything.  I had fish instead and it was beautiful salmon.  

I have no idea where it came from!

Crapdogs ?

The ladies who served lunch

We went to the Kremlin in the afternoon.  I could have spent a day there, but there are so many people go through in summer time that they limit how much time you can have in places like the armoury museum.  The Kremlin is absolutely huge - a city within walls it has many churches, govt buildings, theatres, presidential building etc etc.  The churches are stunning while the artefacts in the Armoury are beyond price and unlike anything I have ever seen.  More pearls, diamonds, rubies than I have ever seen on some incredible items like bible covers.  We didn't even get to see the diamond store, though I might try tomorrow. 

 

Another hot day of walking the streets of Moscow!  I was out for 9 hours today and am exhausted, having walked everywhere with few places to sit down and stop.  I have been sweating heaps (who said this place was cold – it’s been high 20s every day!) so I’m heading up to have a shower and will then try to get to a concert (probably won't happen but no harm in trying).  I have been to the Russian Fine Art Museum and seen Flemish masters amongst others, the Church of our Saviour and the Diamond Fund at the Kremlin (rivals the Crown Jewels) – stunning stuff.  I didn't get all the complex rules though…

… the Tchaikovsky concert hall organ recital was an absolute hoot - The young beautiful female organist was fantastic but it was bizarre going from traditional to modern to choral to rock with string then string and recorder in between (with organist mimicking flamenco then going off to change her outfit for the first of several times!). Her last departure was off the stage on a motorbike !!  Quite different from anything I have ever seen before!

Lat day - I caught the metro by myself this morning (all in Cyrillic!) and went down to see St Basil's.  I was going to try to see national history museum but ran out of time having decided to spend more time at St Basil's which was gorgeous.  Came past tomb of Lenin to see if I could go in, but having missed the 2 hours it was open yesterday, today it was closed.  Have seen lots and done lots but I leave with a list of things I would still like to see here and with St Petersburg on the list too - that as they say will have to wait for another time!

Sitting in the Domododevo airport.  French Open is on to occupy us - we got here early having allowed 2 hours to airport (what it took from airport to city) but got here before 3 for a 5.30 flight and flight is now going to be at least 40 minutes late because the aircraft is late from London.  Ho hum! See you all soon XXX