Toronto
Approximately at 21:00 on one summer night, the sky was still glowing and I was ferrying from Toronto Islands to the city of Toronto, Canada. Reflection of the CN Tower, the icon of the city looked beautiful in the glittering water of lake Ontario.
Toronto Tuesday: A weekly photo feature
« Previous post: Arbatskaya Ulitsa | Next post: »
Church bells at Novgorod
Thanks for sticking around while I was on a blogging recession recently. Since its been over 14 months since I returned from Russia, these pictures are quite dated but I still intend to complete the Russia series and post interesting stories from my travels.
Stored outside the Cathedral of St. Sophia, built in 1052 AD in the little town of Veliky Novgorod (वेलीकी नोव्गोरोद), were a number of old Church bells. The massiveness of these bells struck with me and on touching them I felt a strange kind of buzzing, empty feeling.
All these bells have been decommissioned now, small and efficient electronic bells often taking over their jobs (I don’t know about this particular place), but perhaps one could imagine the glorious old days of Church’s rule when these bells occupied immense importance.
In my previous post, I wrote about the orchestra of bells at Orthodox Churches. Here in Novgorod, we were lucky to catch a little musical show at the bell tower. It seems an important part of tourist infrastructure, as you can buy tickets in advance and climb up the tower to see the orchestra in action.
I thought that these bells were huge, but they are dwarfs compared to the Tsar Bell in Moscow’s Kremlin, which is arguably world’s biggest bell.
Bell ringing in Eastern Orthodox Church (including Russian Orthodox) is complex, with particular bells being rung in particular ways to signify different parts of the services. Russian bells are usually fixed, and are tolled by pulling on a rope that is attached to the clapper so that it will strike the side of the bell. Very interesting to observe that.
« Previous post: Arbatskaya Ulitsa | Next post: »
Related posts
« Previous post: Stalin’s Seven Sisters | Next post: Russian Orthodox Church Bells »
Things to do in Moscow’s artist’s block
Arbat Street is a 1.25km pedestrian mall and is one of Moscow’s most famous streets. It’s an art market, with instant portrait painters, craftsmen, jugglers, buskers and little cafés offering nice treats.
Arbat Street, with poet Pushkin’s house
Arbat St and little picture exhibits
There were a number of performers who were handing out discount coupons for circuses and music shows and other gigs.
Wall of peace
This wall at the east end of the street consists of individually painted tiles on the theme of international friendship. A section of it is covered in spent chewing gum, forming an interesting but sticky mosaic.
Café. I can’t quite read cursive Cyrillic alphabet
шоколадный торт и кофе с молоком
Sports Bar (near Arbatskaya)
At night, I went to a sports bar to have some local beer and watch a football (called soccer in USA) game between Moscow and St. Petersburg (I think). I was meeting someone I found on couchsurfing, and she told me it was important to get out of the place before the match ended. The place was getting louder as the match was drawing to an end. I did encounter drunk football fans in the subway later on. 
So as you can see, I had fun on Arbat street and it definitely deserves more attention that I gave it!
« Previous post: Stalin’s Seven Sisters | Next post: Russian Orthodox Church Bells »
Related posts
« Previous post: GUM, the Soviet Department Store | Next post: Arbatskaya Ulitsa »
Seven most prominent buildings of Moscow
The “Seven Sisters” is the English name given to a group of Moscow skyscrapers designed in the Stalinist style. Moskvich (Muscovites) call them Stalinskie Vysotki (Сталинские высотки / स्तालीन्स्कीए वीसोक्ती), meaning “Stalin’s tall buildings”. They were built from 1947 to 1953, in an elaborate combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles, and the technology used in building American skyscrapers.
The buildings had more symbolic than utilitarian value and gave a taste of Soviet architectural and technological progress.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia
The building is on the first ring highway of Moscow and close to the Old Arbat artist street.
The building was obviously bigger than what my camera could take!
The seven sisters are as follows:
Moscow State University (MGU), Sparrow Hills
Hotel Ukraina
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel
Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building
Kudrinskaya Square Building
Red Gates Administrative Building
Lomonosov Moscow State University seen from my flight. (Also seen is the circular Olympic stadium)
« Previous post: GUM, the Soviet Department Store | Next post: Arbatskaya Ulitsa »
Related posts
« Previous post: Lenin, in Post-Communist Russia | Next post: Stalin’s Seven Sisters »
The communist ideal of the past has radically changed to a symbol of flourishing capitalism
Red Square: Kremlin to your left, GUM to your right
Государственный Универсальный Магазин, (गोसुदार्वेन्नीई उनीवेअरसाल्नीई मगाझीन / Gosudarstvennyi Universalnyi Magazin – गुम/GUM) or simply known as the State Department Store during Soviet times, is a beautiful building on the north side of the Red Square.
GUM
Soviet era: By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the building contained some 1,200 stores. After the Revolution, the GUM was nationalised and continued to work as a department store until Joseph Stalin turned it into office space in 1928 for the committee in charge of his first Five Year Plan. After reopening as a department store in 1953, the GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that was not plagued by shortages of consumer goods, and the queues to purchase anything were long, often extending all across Red Square.
GUM at night, with the iconic St. Basil’s cathedral
Post communism: At the end of the Soviet era, GUM was partially and then fully privatized. It is open today as a popular tourist destination for those visiting Moscow. Many of the stores feature high-fashion brand names familiar in the west; locals refer to these as the “exhibitions of prices”, the joke being that no one could afford to actually buy any of the items on display. I agree, the prices were ridiculous.
The swanky shopping mall
Indeed, one of my fashion-conscious friends joked, “We go to London or Paris for shopping.” 
« Previous post: Lenin, in Post-Communist Russia | Next post: Stalin’s Seven Sisters »
Related posts
« Previous post: Pereslavl Zalessky and the journey back to Moscow | Next post: GUM: The Soviet Department Store »
Communism might be a thing of the past, but the presence of Lenin still lingers.
Lenin mosaic, Sochi
I associated the breakdown of communism with removal of Lenin’s statues from public spaces of eastern Europe. On my trip to Russia, I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of statues of Mr. Vladimir Lenin (or Nikolai Lenin) on streets, parks and squares. Granted, their numbers might have decreased, and Lenin’s reverence among the post-modern generation might have declined, but you still get a feeling that someone is watching you all the time.
Lenin was the founder and the first head of state of USSR. He tweaked the Marxist communist theories to suit the predominantly agrarian Russian economy and lead a revolutionary movement against the Tsarist monarchy in the country. It is very interesting to read the history – Russian Revolution of 1905.
Lenin’s Mausoleum, Red Square, Moscow
Today he rests in a mausoleum at the Red Square, in the heart of Moscow, his body fully preserved. When he died in 1924, the line of mourners wanting to offer respects to his dead body was so huge, that Stalin, Lenin’s successor, decided to preserve Lenin body as a holy relic. Lenin’s brain was removed for scientific studies (of the perfect communist brain), his face was bleached, eyes and lips were sewn tight and his body was finally sent for preservation. The preservation technique is still a state secret.
Lenin has been resting here since 1924 (except a retreat to Siberia during WW II). From 1953-1961, he shared his tomb with Stalin, but then a well-known Bolshevik lady narrated, to the Soviet Party congress, her dream in which Lenin expressed to her his unwillingness to rest next to his ‘evil’ successor. Many believe this ‘dream narration’ was planned by the leaders. Stalin was promptly removed and buried among other (minor) leaders of the Soviet state.
Lenin’s Mausoleum, simply titled “ЛЕНИН” (“LENIN”)
The mausoleum is open for public visits from 10:00 to 13:00 except on Monday and Friday. Visitors must deposit their baggage at the left-luggage office in the State History Museum on the Red Square. Young soldiers posted every few meters will prompt you to keep walking and their serious, humorless faces will make sure that you don’t indulge in a non-serious behavior. Photography is not permitted inside. Lenin’s body can be seen enclosed in a glass case and brightly illuminated. His face looks kinda pale, shiny and waxy, but very similar to his statues and pictures. You may stand here for a couple of seconds, but you’ll be nudged to move on by guards who look like ghosts – since they are completely covered in dark army uniforms except for their faces which look bright and pale in the dim light emerging from Lenin’s casket.
Salutes to Lenin, one of the great leaders the world had.
« Previous post: Pereslavl Zalessky and the journey back to Moscow | Next post: GUM: The Soviet Department Store »
Related posts
« Previous post: New Jerusalem Monastery »
An idle one-street town on the outskirts of Moscow, Pereslavl Zalesskiy was the last orthodox religious center I visited…. by then I was stuck with church fatigue.
I had seen so many Russian churches, that I grew tired of them… they all start appearing the same after a while, don’t they? You get the same fatigue after spending a week visiting Bhutan’s Buddhist monasteries or Peru’s colonial churches.
Purification church of Alexander Nevsky.
Pereslavl Zalesky town and a sign of faded communism.
‘AZS’ fuel station and a convent in background.
More churches… I was so bored that I didn’t bother to go inside any of them.
Small town Russia
Fishing in the still river.
“Здравствуйте!” (Zdravstvuyte झ्द्राव्सत्वुअीच, meaning “hello”). People greeted me, you know how it is in small towns, they wave and smile at you. It seemed that they don’t get many visitors, especially since it was a quaint settlement along the river. I was simply walking along the bank because I found it interesting. I was inviting curious stares too.
Quite quiet.
I want to go home
I waited for what seemed like ages at the bus terminal, waiting for my bus back to Moscow. The scheduled bus at 19:30 was cancelled and the next one was at 21:00. It was cold and dark outside. I was kinda worried to be stranded at that place at such a time – there was nobody to keep me company except a drunk man and a babushka who sat behind the ticket window. She looked grumpy on first look (like most Russians) but as soon as she heard my Russian, she got delighted and asked me to come inside her office. Her office had heating, tea and cookie, wonderful!
Look. If you are learning a foreign language, don’t learn it all the way. You get more points if you are seen to fumble with words yet attempting to talk.
Waiting for the bus… only 2 hours. The floor is clean only because it was cleaned 5 minutes ago.
Ticket and information window.
I reached Moscow at 23:30 – not a good time for an outsider to be on the streets. By the time I changed subways and went to the place I was staying at (other end of the city), it was past 00:30. I will be honest: I was shit scared. Every man looked like a criminal or a skinhead.
While I never had a problem myself, Moscow’s streets are not known for safety at night, especially when it concerns foreigners. There are shady characters, often drunk, and women are seldom seen. My safety index at night is directly proportional to the number of women on streets – I think its one of the most visible indicators of how safe a place is.
Factual information
Peresavl Zalessky is about 2.5 hours from Moscow and buses run few times a day from Shchyolkovsky (श्चयोल्कोव्स्की) terminal. Once you get to the town, you could walk to the interesting places, or take the only Marshrutka that runs down the road from city center to the bus terminal.
Not a highly recommended place unless you want you have a relaxed day walking through a sleepy town and visiting a church or two on the way.
« Previous post: New Jerusalem Monastery »
Related posts
-
Subscribe
-
Travelogs
Bhutan- 2008: Mystic Druk Yul
Canada- Toronto Tuesday (weekly)
- Niagara Region
- Provincial Parks
India- 2006: Kerala, God's own country
- 2006: Himalayas Trekking
- 2005: Himalayas Biking
- 2003: Goa-Mumbai Biking
- Sahyadri Trekking
Israel- 2007: Scrolls from the Holy Land
Peru- 2008: Andean Explorations
Russia- 2008: Travel stories
USA- 2008: New York City
-
|
All content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. All images are mine (unless stated otherwise) and you may not steal or leech them off my server.
In simple words: Content from this website may be copied or modified for non-commercial purposes as long as it is appropriately attributed to me. If you require a picture for personal or commercial use, please send me a note.
Archives · Photo Gallery · About · Contact · Subscribe ∞
Created and designed by Priyank Thatte. [ Personal Blog . Sitemap ]