Last Day

My three weeks in Russia are drawing to a close. I made one last visit to "Teremok," the bliny (crepe) establishment for a blin with red caviar. It's the most expensive option on the menu, but it only comes out to about $7.50. A cheap and tasty supper. The weather was a little better today - a bit warmer with only a little rain - and so I had another walk around town during the afternoon. Central Moscow is definitely more attractive and more pedestrian friendly than I've ever seen it. And the beautiful eighteenth to early twentieth century architecture that has always (in my life time) been here now stands out thanks to ongoing restoration of facades. I'll look forward to even more positive changes when I visit next.

Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church from the back

The chapel

This building also belongs to the church. I stayed in a room here my two nights in Moscow.

Dietrich Brauer, former student at the seminary in St. Petersburg, now bishop of European Russia, and just recently elected archbishop of the ELCROS

Dean Lena Bondarenko.

The Church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian on Maroseika Street in the Kitai Gorod neighborhood.

Yes, I ate here. Where else am I going to get an Egg McMuffin for breakfast?

Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker in Kitai Gorod

This was a feature of several buildings in St. Petersburg too.

The Spaski Tower of the Kremlin is in scafolding

The inside of G.U.M.

Resurrection icon on the Resurrection Gates

Both Helen and I had this as our first view of Red Square (not together.) I will never forget coming up over this rise and seeing St. Basil's and the Kremlin walls and towers for the first time. It's still a breathtaking sight, even in bad weather.

Angel on a chapel in front of the Resurrection Gates

The Resurrection Gates. Reconstructed after being destroyed in Soviet times.

Jingoism. It's not just for Americans any more.

The Ritz Carlton. We stayed here with my parents in 2000. Except it was a completely different building, a rather ugly glass, steel and concrete highrise called the Intourist Hotel. Helen and I also bluffed our way into to their breakfast bar when we were students.

Another new pedestrian zone.

Yuri Dolgoruki ("long-arms") the founder of Moscow.

I've always liked this statue.

Moscow city government works out of this building. Or at least it used to.

A blast from the past. Except I remember them being two-tone grey.

The Eliseevski Store. It continued, somewhat paradoxically, in Soviet times.

Eliseevski Store monogram on the sidewalk outside. The buildings facade is being worked on, so I don't have a picture of that.

Denis is trying to attract attention to himself. I think it's working.

The Marriott-run Aurora Hotel

Bikes for rent. I saw at least one person using this service.

The Bolshoi Theater. I don't remember the parking out front.

Monday in Moscow

Got up at 3:30 to catch a 6:15 flight from Ulyanovsk to Moscow. As we flew in below the cloud cover it became clear that Moscow had received what I later learned was its first snowfall of the season. UTair, the airline I flew with, apparently doesn't have jetway privileges, and so we had to descend down a partially iced-over stairway to the tarmac and then walk through snow and slush into the terminal. If this had been in the U.S. the airline's legal counsel would have been apoplectic at all the potential sources of lawsuits. But Russia isn't there just yet.



Snow turned to rain for the rest of the day here, but I decided I needed to get out in it and take some pictures, because it might not be any better tomorrow.

Nikol'skaia Street, which runs into Red Square, has been turned into a pedestrian zone since the last time I was here seven years ago. Beautiful!

I was tempted, but I walked on by.

The Kazan Cathedral, originally built in the 16th Century, I believe. It was not there when I first came to Moscow in 1984. It had been destroyed sometime in the 30s. I remember kvas dispensers on that spot. When I came back on a research trip 10 years later, there it was. I was astonished. It has been rebuilt according to the original design.

Icon of St. George

These gates at the entrance to Red Square had also been destroyed in Soviet times and later rebuilt.

Your iconic view of Red Square. You're welcome.

Another view of the Kazan Cathedral from half way down the square.

G.U.M. ("goom")  = State General Store, opposite the Kremlin.

And what's that? An icon of the Savior-not-made-with-hands? I don't remember that being there.

 

I'll repost here what I posted with this last picture above on Facebook a little while ago for those who didn't see that: "Yucky, rainy day in Moscow, but I had to take the obligatory walk through Red Square and snap a selfie where Helen and I took pictures of each other almost exactly 30 years ago (I think it was November 8, the day after the big parade.) Helen and I met in Moscow during the fall semester of 1984 while studying at the Pushkin Russian Language Institute, where we lived two doors away from each other in the dormitory and had many of our classes together. 30 years ago today she was in Kiev with the British contingent and getting ready to take the night train back to Moscow. We weren't a couple yet, but it was about to happen."

St. Basil's. Another obligatory photo.

But who doesn't like taking pictures of St. Basil's?

I have a picture of Helen on this street in 1984 too somewhere.

Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church, where I'm staying for 2 nights until I fly home.

This pedestrian zone has been created in the two weeks since I was last here. They're still working on it up at the top of the hill there.

The Church of Christ the Savior

That last picture is of another church that was not here when Helen and I were students 30 years ago. The original church, built in the later 19th century, was blown up one night in 1932 or 33, if memory serves, on Stalin's orders. As the story goes, he planned to build a skyscraper on this spot with a statue of Lenin on the top that was supposed to be bigger than the Statue of Liberty. But when construction crews started the project they discovered that the ground on that spot would not support such a large building (and they didn't even know how the original Christ the Savior church had been built there either!) It's supposed to make you believe that something mysterious was going on, i.e. that God didn't want the building to be built on the spot of his church. Of course I wonder why God didn't then do something miraculous to stop Stalin from blowing it up in the first place, but who am I to question such a mystery? I know, it's a wonder (!) I'm a pastor with such a skeptical attitude, isn't it?