Moscow, Russian Federation

Happy I found a mini guitar at the ВДНХ I celebrated with a glass of KBAC (kvas – a dark fizzy malted non-alcoholic drink made from fermentation with bread). PS: sometimes this malted fermented bread drink is sold from large tankers pulled by hand in the streets

Moscow, Russia

I must be honest and admit that the first act of tonight’s ballet of Romeo and Juliet by The New Opera Theatre Company was a little hard to follow, despite me knowing some of Shakespeare’s work already. But when Mercurio came on I instantly recognised and appreciated his power and poise. Despite an early exit – he was the first of the many ‘deaths’ – I could appreciate his superior skills. And he smiled intensely all the while he was performing his hard physical art form.

We had a 20 minute interval and then the performance resumed. Suddenly a harpsichord solo broke out and being so different I honestly thought someone hadn’t turned off their mobile! However, it was in fact Tanya, my benefactor, who was playing. And it was exquisite! Some of the orchestra we’re visible in the pit from where I sat but not the piano forte, her instrument (I learnt later that she was actually on an electronic keyboard).

When the second act finished in a huge fanfare I mistakenly interpreted the curtain call of ballet dancers, via the gap in the closed curtains, to be the end. Even at the time I’d thought that the curtain call via a tiny gap in the curtains was strange. When we were all vacating the theatre again I soon realised that this was in fact a second interval.

By the third and final act I was relishing the whole look and feel. The wonderful music composed by a famous Russian composer. And delightfully the poetry in motion that graced the stage.

Afterwards I met Tanya and her husband Dmitri, at the staff exit round the side. Tanya was fresh form her piano. Dmitri is a tenor soloist and opera singer. They’d both met in art/music school together.

Tanya offered to accompany me to buy my onward east bound tickets. We managed to get seats to Nizhny Novgorod and then a day later on to Perm. The fast train to Nizhny Novgorod wasn’t going on the Friday. So it’s the sleeping dorm trains for me.

Still to see inside the Moscow Kremlin (which is closed on Thursdays). And another Banya wouldn’t go astray.

Moscow, Russia

Tanya and I were finding somewhere to sit and eat lunch. We were walking through Red Square and decided to sit on the grass at the foot of the Kremlin’s north wall with a view of the famous amazing multi-onion domed church. We were just seated when a man came up and flashed a state security badge at us. We weren’t permitted to sit this close to the Kremlin Wall. Tanya was a little taken aback. She asked to see his badge again. I was also a little confused as only yesterday afternoon had I sat in a spot nearby with Andrei to watch the early evening sun strike dramatically on the multi-coloured onion domes. Anyway we moved on and later as we were walking along the Moscovian back streets through Kitay Gorad (China City) we passed a guy drinking seated on the footpath against the wall. He yelled something at me as we passed. Tanya laughed and translated. He’d said ” Welcome Mr Australian to Russia! I would very much like to visit your country and play with your kangaroos!” Tanya was not as surprised as I was. Apparently it is a game amongst Russians to guess the nationalities of foreigners. And they revel in the glory of getting it right. I don’t know what it was. Maybe my old waxed canvas hat. While technically not Australian it’s style sort of is. I was quietly pleased that my presence was noted, deep on street as it were.

Tanya in her breezy summer dress and child-like smile, led me over the Moscow River onto Bolotny Island and into the ‘happening’ Zamoskvorechye District. We made a bee line to the State Tretyakov Gallery. I was especially taken by ‘mood landscapes’ of Isaac Ilyich Levitan (Исаа́&#10 82; Ильи́&#109 5; Левит&#10 72;́н) (1860 – 1900). His landscapes, so intense and surreal. The piece called ‘Over Eternal Quiet’ (1894) was so moving that I simply didn’t want to move so that I could continue to feel the world moving inside me softly and torridly. And then Tanya took me to see the many and varied works of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel (Михаи&#7 69;л Алекс&#10 72;́ндро&# 1074;ич Вру́б&#107 7;ль) (1856 – 1910). And as Tanya explained, to my question of how to define him, “Well, it’s just Vrubel. Simple as that!. There’s no other epithet.” I was especially taken by ‘Demon Seated in a Garden’ (1890).

From the Tretyakov Gallery we submerged ourselves into the people’s gallery of the Moscow underground metro. We had to rush to the Novaya Opera for Tanya’s rehearsal for this evening’s ballet performance of Romeo & Juliet. I was invited by Tanya and apparently there was a ticket waiting for me. But when we arrived it wasn’t waiting for Tanya as she had instructed the administration. So she jotted some notes on a scrap of paper and asked me to wait in the ticket office queue to collect it.

I spent a couple of hours people watching in the Hermitage Gardens before moving in to watch the performance.

Moscow, Russia

The Hotel Bulgarov, Arbat, Moscow, undergoing internal renovations at the moment, has the smallest toilet cubicle I’ve ever had the pleasure of entering. There have been many toilets in my years of travel that have allowed me to find at least one position to throne and de-throne, even with the aid of something to hold onto or of a friend! But this one takes the cake. With the toilet at 45 degrees to the door opening I tried leaving the door open so one knee could protrude. But this failed. I could bend and sit but that meant that I was sitting on the cistern. I even tried to stand on the rim of the porcelain bowl but still the walls were too close for my long pointy knees. I’m off to find an alternative. Yours in waiting…

Moscow, Russian Federation

Today I walked and toured and photographed and smiled for 14 hours straight. Moscow looks and feels great. And my gentle and knowledgeable host was seventeen year old Andrei, my new friend. Stay tuned for more….

Moscow, Russian Federation

Arrived on the time 0530 into an already bustling Moscow. Leningradsky Station was big and soviet. Having rehearsed the Cyrillic names of all the stations and changes I entered the underground metro system. First hurdle: buy ticket. I was anxious that trains would already be running super packed as the multiple queues just for tickets from cashiers were horrendous! But in reality it took 5 minutes to buy the ticket and my pronunciation of Russian numbers was starting to flow. With my 10-ride contactless (i.e. electronic swipe) metro card I entered the gates. Checking the map once more to remember line termination names so as to pick the right direction I headed down the enormously long downward escalator. As I entered the pedestrian tunnels below I noticed an incongruous ‘muzak’ began over the piped PA. It was a corny instrumental version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”! As I walked and listened I felt a mild euphoria of contentment – I suppose this was the intention. I walked smiling innately at my fellow Metro goers – all serious and off to work we go. I must say I’m quite proud of myself having navigated to Hotel Bulgarov in Arbat – a bohemian area of historic writers and painters. Check-in is at 1300 but I asked nicely and got a shower with a clean towel. Feeling good for a first day of exploration in Moscow. Drinking a tea at reception and listening to techno rave music that the night clerk at front desk has going quietly, while I wait for Andrei (17 y.o.) to come here to meet me. He’s Katya’s (WWF) step-son. Sunny and warm. Looking toward to blini (pancakes) for breakfast!

Valday, Russia

21:20
Dog box to Moscow tonight. So far I’m sharing with a shy young non-English speaking student. The large wagon-matron, the provodnitsa, is already sternly calling the shots clearing the train of non-ticket holders. Mid evening and the fluffy seeds make the sunbeams casting across the tracks move like gimlet-coloured polyp-filled water columns.

The provodnitsa tends the hot water machine, the samovar, and I hear the endless tinkling of cups of tea being prepared emanating from said matron’s cabin.

22:15
I’ve just had a canned pint of Baltica. And as the long northern twilight began to produce its entire northern horizon explosion of pastel greys, blues and pinks I emerged from the dog box to take a photo from the corridor window. The young lass in number 7 had the same idea and it seemed we’d emerged in perfect synchronicity to photograph the same scene.

23:34
My fellow dog box companion is snoring soundly just centimetres from me. Like ships in the night we rush past north bound trains. Tw beech, oak and confer forests are interspersed with low shrub lands surrounding marshes and small lakes. Occasionally in towns and in industrial shunting yards I spy men cutting through the bush to cross the tracks the unofficial way. I wonder I’d we’ll have additional occupants tonight. They’ll have the top bunks if the do come.

0:10
I’d just brushed my teeth, made up the bed and was lying down looking at the passing forest and fading sunset reflected from the window behind my head in the mirror behind the closed door of the dog box, when we pulled into a small station and suddenly the door opened. The final two occupants had arrived. Being young and lithe they speedily stowed their bags and made thir beds without a fuss. The provodnitsa presented large glass mugs of tea and they then proceeded in silence to sit in their top bunks and eat fried chicken. Lucky I’d eaten. But the smell was vaguely soporific anyway.

Novgorod, Russian Federation

After spending the late morning and afternoon at the Novgorod kremlin I sat on the banks of the Volkhov River to feast upon my decidely non-vegetarian survival food: Russian black bread, local SPb cheese and a lovely looking Latvian salami stick! I then found the number 7 bus south out of town to a place dedicated to the ancient art of wooden architecture, with a whole village reconstructed using the log cabin style of construction. From the 9th century Novgorod served as the centre for the infant Russian state, influenced greatly by the Viking invaders from the north and northwest. The village was dedicated to the architectural style from the 16th to the 18th centuries. There were agrarian folk houses and amazing churches. And inside women in 16th, 17th or 18th century period dress (depending on the building you were in) completed the picture. They served as caretakers of the exhibits which displayed period family household and stable / barn items. A couple of young local women were in the same bus out as I and we ended up walking around the site at the same time. It turned out that they had just come to use the beautiful wooden buildings as mere backdrops for their portraits. I secretly smiled as they each took turns to position themselves in various poses on the bleached wooden steps or the verdant grass lawns, while the other took their photo. After an hour or so the swamp land that surrounded the site came alive with mosquitoes and as the welts grew large on my neck and shoulders I raced back out to wait for the old bus again to take me back into the town of Novgorod.

Novgorod, Russian Federation

We’ve all seen the practice of people placing locks on bridge balustrades engraved with their names and sentiments. Well on the bridge over the river beside the Novgorod kremlin I found a new take on this. A lock with the words ‘Hate you!’ in English had been placed around an already attached one. I can only imagine that the person who attached this lock was no longer in love with the person with whom they had attached the first one. Unable or not wanting to cut the original lock away (keys are customarily thrown into the river by the vowing couples after the lock is attached), they simply and efficiently attached what can politely be called the ‘annulment’ lock. I suppose it makes her or his dissatisfaction with the other party more public (in English language though). I wonder if there’ll come a ‘rebuttal lock’?!

Novgorod, Russian Federation

It reminds me of the late summer in 1993 that I spent in Alaska. Floating through the air tiny white fluffy seeds. Giving animated substance to sunbeams. Loosed by last nights downpour they lie caught in Novgorod’s gutter-edge grills and in the spikes of my beard. They’ve been floating for days now. I saw them in SPb. Racing against the northern summer’s brevity the seeds seek new dominion via the Baltic wind’s assistance. Maybe it was that light and the intense green of the beech and oak forests that reminded me if Alaska. The white flaking trunks and the freshness of the air made aromatic by the ever so delicate warmth of the sun. The gentle floating parade of the fluffy white seeds connecting all parts of this northwest Russian landscape gave me the sense of unity. From where I sit now outside the Novgorod kremlin I can see the fluffy whites drift before me, while off in the distance, across the moat and beset by the deepening green of the denser forest recesses, they make a steady passage i the same direction. Like a journey of faithful pilgrims making their way in unison despite and oblivious to the world that stands around them. There’s a sense of festival in the air. And it’s not he making of humans.