May Day in Moscow

May Day Poster

Happy May Day, although here in Russia there is nothing really happy about it except for the fact that they have tomorrow off.  Today there were marches and demonstrations but nothing fun like in Bavaria where they have the Maypole celebration and drink lots of beer and May wine flavored with sweet woodruff.

Yesterday, as you may have gathered, seemed to get away from us.  We had a lovely relaxed morning and decided to go to an afternoon concert at the Moscow Conservatory of Music.  The concert was to start at 2 pm so we left the house at 12:30 and walked over to purchase the tickets before heading to the Kremlin Gardens.  The gardens were packed with people celebrating the long weekend and just taking in the lovely weather and having fun with the fountains that had been turned on that morning.  One of the loveliest is the Fountain of the Four Seasons, symbolized by four bronze horses.  At one end of the fountain there is a arc of twenty-five streams of water that forms a ten-foot wide path. At the other end there is a grotto with water flowing out and down a wide terraced waterfall. It is where the original river used to flow that provided the water for the moat around the Kremlin. Now it traverses only about one hundred yards but flows though little pools that are filled with statues illustrating the fairy tales of Ivan Krlov, who mostly stole his stuff from Aesop.  It is, however, a truly beautiful series of canals and pools that everyone enjoys.

Four Seasons Fountain

It was now time to head back to the Conservatory for the concert.  The room itself is large and brightly lit, but has fallen on hard times. The paint is peeling, the once lovely powder blue paint has faded and it is in general need of major repairs.  The first half of the concert featured a fabulous violinist who played five very difficult and exciting pieces.  The second half was piano music by a twenty-three year old who looked twelve but played with great force and conviction, if not emotion.  Much of the concert was ruined for me by the external noises that kept invading the concert hall.  Just outside the windows was a courtyard where a man was breaking apart the rusty chaise of a truck. He was using drills, saws and other tools that made a horrible noise that lasted throughout the entire concert. It that wasn’t bad enough, other students in the building were still practicing in practice rooms and you could hear them as well.  Cindy correctly stated that the Muscovites are so used to loud background noises in their daily lives that they just tune them out.

At the end of the concert we walked over to the embassy to do some shopping but since we never go there on weekends we didn’t know that they closed at four.  We arrived at four thirty, so instead we walked up to the grocery store near the apartment and did some shopping there, not getting home until ten of six.   Dinner was a simple meal of grilled Polish sausage, pan roasted potatoes, garlic and onion and a cheese and herb omelette.  The meal became much more interesting when we cracked a nice bottle of Entre Deux Mers, a crisp, dry white from Bordeaux.

Today we walked over to the embassy and did our shopping and walked back past the multitudes around the Zoo. It is overcast and much cooler today but still no rain.  I’ve been on the computer planning our travel for the week we have between Cindy finishing work and our heading back to Charles Town. We are going to be going to Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia, cities we have wanted to visit for a long time.  The Internet is marvelous and using a combination of TripAdvisor and Book.Com I got great hotels at really good prices. I used Travelocity to book the flights and saved two hundred and twenty dollars over booking directly with Air Baltic. Such a deal!

Happy Sunday, Cindy and Wm.