Moscow, day 2. Today, a walk around to the north of our hotel, and then down to Red Square again, to visit Saint Basil's Cathedral and the GUM store!
So first, out of the hotel and north up Neglinnaya ul. (Neglinnaya ulitsa, or street) to Trubaya pl. (Trubaya ploschad, or square), where Petrovsky bul. (Petrovsky bulvard, or boulevard) goes off to the right. Dennis (our driver when we arrived) had pointed out a market part way up that street, so we decided t check it out. Turned out not to be what we think of as a market, but instead a collection of rather interesting restaurants.
We continued on our original direction, but Neglinnaya bul. had now become Tsvetnoy bul., a wide boulevarde with parkland up the middle. A couple of hundred metres up this parkland, we encountered a fountain and statues of circus clowns and, looking to our left, there was the Nikulin Circus, where we were going th following evening! And outside the front of the circus building is a very realistic statue of Yuriy Nikulin himself, the movie actor, clown and circus owner.
On to the end of Tsvetnoy bul., where we turned left into Sadovaya-Sukharevskaya ul., a very busy main street. Walking along it, we noticed on the opposite side a puppet theatre with a spectacular metal sculpture on its frontage. We walked a bit further, towards a large Stalinist building — presumably an accommodation complex originally for government employees — before we turned back to turn southwards at ul. Karetny Ryad, because we noted on the map a little park with a number of interesting theatres around it. This was Hermitage Park, where there are the Novaya Opera, the Hermitage Theatre and the Sfera Theatre. It's also a lovely park, fairly busy, with a superb children's playground and a number of fairly good restaurants, one of which we took advantage of for morning coffees, while sheltering from a bit of a rain shower. There's also a statue of Victor Hugo, donated by the French government.
We continued southwards, then turned right into the parkland down the centre of Tverskoy bul., in which we found a number of statues, including one of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Further along, we came to Pushkin Square, with a statue of ... you guessed it!
Crossing southwards into Tverskaya ul., we first passed the entrance to the Pushkinskaya Metro station, which had a nice mosaic set into it of the scene at this intersection as it used to be!
This is a major street, with many interesting things along it. Of course, there were the inevitable food delivery people to be avoided on the pavements, riding bikes or scooters — this has really caught on in Moscow. Just a little way down is a grocery store, the Yeliseyevsky store (Елисеевский магазин, Yeliseyevsky magazin). Founded in 1901, it has become an institution. It's in a converted 18th century mansion, and still has all the trimmings of that time!
A little further down, opposite the red Building of the Mayor's Office, we should have seen the huge statue of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, who founded Moscow in 1147. Unfortunately, it was encased in scaffolding, but I found a picture of what we should have seen, for your edification.
Getting closer to our hotel, we passed through Kamergerskiy pereulok (Kamergersky lane) where there is a statue of Sergei Prokofiev sited just outside the apartment building where he used to live.
Outside our hotel there was a bit of a commotion &amdah; a burst water main was being attended to. (This action lasted for the next few days, and meant that we needed to be careful not to trip over the hoses lying all over the place!)
Then, finally, back into Red Square to reacquaint ourselves with St Basil's Cathedral. This time we went inside. It's an absolute maze of rooms and corridors, with something new to see at every turn. Magnificent! There was a four-man acapella group singing in there, and the voices were to die for. The tenor had a clear, soaring sound, and the bass was a true deep Russian bass.
After about an hour exploring the Cathedral, we crossed out and into the GUM store. It's a big building from the outside. It's amazing within. The top-end stores are everywhere, and there are places to eat in comfort.
Leaving GUM, we found that the heavens had opened. We made our way through the deluge back to our hotel, and settled in to recover from quite a long walk this day!
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