Skating in the dark

One of the things we did whilst my friends were here was enjoy the possibilities of outdoor ice skating. For reasons I can no longer quite make sense of, we elected to avoid the joys of the more obvious places such as the Red Square rink (too loud/gaudy), Hermitage Gardens (too obvious) or Patriarch's Pond (too picturesque?) Instead we went to a 'Movie' skating rink KinoKatok.

This involved both metro and trolley bus ride and took us into the middle of a huge, empty and bleak sports park. What we had trouped out there thinking would a big warm indoor rink with a huge video screen turned out to be basically an iced over car park with no-one else around, and a small - and very blank - open air screen at one side. 

Worked out okay in the end, as the adjacent cafe meant we could sit eating chicken and chips whilst we watched the only determined person amongst us, happily skating on his own in a snow blizzard!