From Russia With Love

Yesterday was fabulous.

Becca and I decided we wanted to go to the Tretyakov Gallery which is this art gallery that has all Russian art and it was a private gallery collected by this Tretyakov guy.  So we go to the metro to make our way there and we see these four policemen walking around the metro station which isn't all that unusual.  They can ask to see your documents at any time (which includes passport, registration, and visa) and you have to show them or else.  They're kinda shady and sometimes corrupt so we avoid them as much as possible.  Well yesterday not only were there four of them together (walking 2x2), they had this ferocious looking dog (it was black and scary like a doberman or something) with a muzzle on and they were just strolling along looking intimidating.  Then there was another group of police just a little ways away with about 3 foreign looking guys and they were checking their documents.  Not that we had anything to worry about because we have all of our documents, but it's still a little scary and if they ask you just have to show them.  It gave us a little taste of what Soviet times might have felt like.

So anyway, we were fine.  We get off the metro and finally figure out where we're going and after going to the wrong building and checking our coats, make it to the art gallery.  They have coat checks everywhere which is so nice because you don't have to lug it around all day.  We start going through the gallery taking our time, but we didn't realize how huge it was.  By the end, we were so hungry and tired that we sort of hurried through, but we still soaked in all the culture.

We saw lots of portraits of people, especially royalty and they had some major bling back then. And they all wore these gold furry capes.  We only saw a couple of Romanov paintings, but a lot of Catherine the Great and Elizaveta Petrovna (we had no clue who she was but apparently she's a big deal).  Then we saw some that were during war times and these were so much more interesting because you can see the history in them and see how artists wanted to portray atrocities of the time.  Some were very moving.  Then there were more religious paintings and interpretations and then OMG there is this HUGE painting that is at least 50 feet by 30 feet.  It's in this enormous room and there are chairs set up so you can sit back and look at it.  We saw sculptures and 16th century jewels and church stuff.

SO.  Here are a few of my favorite paintings of the day.

    

The first painting is of Ivan the Terrible and just look at his face.  He really does look terrible. And look closely at the background.  He is inside St. Basil's!  And we knew that because we've been there, too!  Anyway, apparently the story goes that he ordered the architect to build St. Basil's (in 1583 maybe?) and when it was finished, he had the architect's eyes gouged out so he could never create anything as beautiful.  

The one next to it is called The Morning of the Streltsi's Execution.  It is obviously set in Red Square which is so weird because I've been there and walked there, too, and so have people in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries!  Next to the big painting of it, there are individual ones of some of the people in the painting explaining who they are.

The bottom one is by the same painter as the Execution one (his name is Surikov) and it's called Boyarina Morozova (I had to write these down, so don't be too impressed).  I don't really remember the story but something about a princess or some lady being taken away and all of the townsfolk laughing at her.  It's way better at the gallery because the paintings are so big and you can just walk right up to them and look at all the detail.

Whew ok so after the art gallery we perused the gift shops and then headed to this huge sculpture of a ship with Peter the Great sailing in the Moscow River.  It is ugly.  I'll say it.  It's weird.  Oh wait I forgot!  On the way there, we were walking down the street and they were filming a movie!  It was set in NYC and there was this fake NYPD car and this guy that kept having to drive a car into the same spot with a New York license plate and this lady kept running across the street yelling.  They told us we could walk through (we'd be like extras) but we decided to walk around anyway because we wanted to find a place to eat, too.

Ok so the boat.  You pretty much just go look at it but it was a beautiful cold day and the sun was sparkling on the river so it was kind of nice.   The ship is kind of controversial anyway because it was supposedly a gift to the US but we didn't want it so they put it in the Moscow River but Peter the Great despised Moscow anyway so why put it there?  Right.  But I can say I've seen it.

Rick met us at the ship and we were starving by then so we went to Old Arbat and decided to eat at Hard Rock Cafe and oh it was so worth it.  The food was really good and we just sat back and enjoyed.  They had all the Hard Rock-ish stuff like a Jimi Hendrix fur jacket, one of Cher's outfits, a poster signed by John Lennon, you get the idea.  So we finished dinner and we were going to try to find a show for the evening but most of them started at 7 so we were just a little to late.  Instead we walked down the street and saw all kinds of different types of people and we were plenty entertained with the breakdancers and the musicians.  I stopped at the coffee vending machine for a drink to warm me up (it was really cold!) and then we went into Starbucks because, you know, we just needed a little piece of America.  And I had this traumatic bathroom experience but I won't go into details.  Let's just say I ended up the boys' bathroom (I think, I can never tell) and there was no toilet paper and...anyway.  But it all worked out in the end.

Then we headed home!