We're in Moscow for a few days. Plenty of places to explore - the Kremlin, Red Square, the GUM Department Store and Gorky Park!! And the Metro is to die for!
Our hotel is the Peter I Hotel (Отель Петр 1), just round the corner from the Bolshoi Theatre, and a short walk to Red Square and all the sites this entails. It's a lot more upmarket than anything we've stayed at before — but who's complaining!
Today we're taking it quietly — we need to recover from the last few days' exploits. So first, out to lunch at the Barashka Restaurant (бapashka — why not mix Roman and Cyrillic type faces??!!), a Georgian restaurant just round the corner from the hotel. The meal was magnificent, and the price reasonable!
We decided to try out the Metro, to take us to the Moskva River near Gorky Park. The Metro system here is second to none. Some of the trains may be clunkers, but they're absolutely on time and reliable. During the Stalin years the stations below ground were set up as palaces for the people, and they really are spectacular. One of our days here will be well served exploring some of the best of these stations!
When we reached the Moskva river, we could not but miss a rather prominent statue — the monument to Peter the Great. This huge — and, let's face it, ugly — statue was created in 1997 for the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the Russian navy. Some even call it the 'Moscow Monster'. Moreover, there is debate about who the statue was really designed to represent. Rumour has it that it was actually designed as a monument to Christopher Columbus. However, no city with a connection to Christopher Columbus was willing to take it. The sculptor rebranded the statue for Moscow — making it commemorate Peter the Great instead. This may or may not be true, but Suzie can't look at the statue, or even think about it, without bursting out laughing!
Anyway, this was to be a quiet day, and the weather was rather warm, so we decided to wend our way back home (in part, via the Metro), past the Hotel Metropol (built in 1899–1907 in Art Nouveau style, the largest extant Moscow hotel built before the Russian Revolution of 1917) and the Bolshoi Theatre (presumably no further description required!), to settle in for a quiet night!
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