sunday walking

Finally did the walk along the Moskva River embankment, something I have wanted to do all my time in Moscow. Started from the Kotelnicheska Embankment building - one of Stalins 'seven sisters' skyscraper buildings (thanks to staying there with the endlessly generous N + I) - on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon. Then strolled past the Kremlin to Ostozhenka ( a district nicknamed the Golden Mile and home to both wealthy mansions and some good contemporary architecture).

The only problem, besides the incessant drone of traffic, is actually finding a way to get onto the riverside path itself. There seems to be only one underpass on the whole stretch. And the only alternative is a weird zebra crossing arrangement where you go half-way across one crossing, and then have to wait in the middle, in order to go via another crossing set at right angles to this one, whilst the cars zoom past curving either to your left or your right. Me and a young Russian guy both hovered at this mid-way point, unsure whether we wanted to risk our lives. And - as at other times when I have tried to cross a Moscow road - he followed the safety-in-numbers attitude, by grabbing my arm and hauling me out into the traffic...before the lights had changed. I tried to hang back, gesticulating wildly at the lights, but he took an even firmer grip, yelling 'Together, or I will die', and across we went with cars careering around us and hooting madly. 

And then, when we got to the river itself, he wanted, of course, to walk with me and practice his english.

10-of-the-best: no.4 Gorky Park

Gorky Park is in a constant process of re-invention right now, which is partly about an (almost first) attempt to make Moscow a more liveable city and partly about some weird deals between the Kremlin, the mayor and an oligarch or two (so what is new?)

The initial stage, commissioned through the Strelka Institute (set up by oligarch Alexander Mamut), was to add in some new urban designish elements - benches, more up-market cafes, an outdoor cinema and a summer 'beach', whilst clearing the last of the mini Coney Island type fairground rides from the river frontage. Then this next stage, which is AMAZING! There is now the biggest and best skating area I have ever seen, a mixture of different rinks linked by ice ways, all framed by some quite neat wooden and colourful pavilions and bridges.*  I note that their website has a fab, that is to say quite hammy, animated CAD walkthrough (skatethrough?) crooned over by Louis Armstrong.

The stage to follow in the Spring is the shift of Garage from, well the garage (Melnikov-designed constructivist) it was in, to here. This is publicised as beginning with a pavilion by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, then a  temporary home designed by Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) together with Olga Trevias/Form Bureau, which will convert the Park's concrete 1960s Vremena Goda (Four Seasons) restaurant, long abandoned. After that,  Garage will come to "occupy a nearby 8,500 square meter hexagonal pavilion. The historic 1920s pavilion of six sections with a courtyard (was) first constructed to house the first All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.."

So, of course, this leads to interesting questions. Well of course the usual one as to whether it will happen. And then there is the cash.  It was already known that Roman Abramovich has had a hand (and money) in the re-development of Gorky Park and now his girlfriend Dasha Zhukova, the owner of Garage, is moving in there too. As Andrew Osbourn put it in the Telegraph earlier this year: "using part of his estimated £8.4 billion fortune to turn (Gorky Park) into a showcase for the Russian capital is an undertaking likely to further endear Mr Abramovich to the Kremlin which regularly urges oligarchs to plough some of their fabulous wealth back into society". But then - maybe - they are also getting some real estate in return.

* I took the photo just after the ice had been cleaned, hence the emptiness. In fact, each winter since Soviet times, the paths of Gorky Park have been watered and left to ice all winter. I have only not skated there in the last couple of years because it always seemed as full as rush-hour in the Metro. Having a refrigerated bed has meant that this mild winter has not caused a problem; and the rink is just as full as it was in past times. 


Go here for more about the Gorky Park facilities and a list of the best other ice rinks in Moscow. 

getting the boot(s)

As the Moscow News guide said, there is a street market alongside Donskaya Ulitsa, selling mainly food but also these valenki - traditional felt boots. Sorely tempted even though my luggage is already stuffed full. And what can I do with valenki in Islington, north London?

sad but true

Went to visit the Shukhov Radio Tower today, which was top of my list of things to do. Why you may ask? Because it was the most amazing bit of 1920s engineering, a lightweight steel lattice grid, completely radical at the time: and because Alexander Rodchenko took some fab photos of it.  It is also under threat of demolition and I am an architectural junkie. I took a walk, based on this one from the Moscow News, although in reverse, that is, coming out of Shabolovskaya metro station first (the tower is directly opposite) and then going to Leninsky Prospect - not the prettiest bit of town, but quite representative. 


Also made me realise that I may be in Moscow, but I am a typical Londoner - I have my patch and don't go much beyond it. So in two and half years here have only infrequently been south of the river or over to the Arbat and the west-side. OMG, so much still to see.

a lovely walk (oh and where do you get the best coffee in Moscow?)

The area across the 10-lane Sadovaya (Garden) ring, away from Kurskaya and towards the centre is one of my favourite parts of Moscow. There are certainly other nice parts of the city within this 'second' ring road* - such as around Patriarchs Pond - but I guess this eastern side has always been my patch for happily idle strolling. 


There aren't any special landmarks, just the usual muddle of pre-revolutionary, soviet and post-soviet buildings, in varying stages of decay and renovation. Yesterday I walked along подоссенский/Podossenskii pereulok which runs parallel between these rings, and then further in the same(ish) direction, which - with a certain amount of getting lost, shortcuts through yards, and some serious zig-zagging - ends up (after coffee in the Coffee Bean on покровка/Pokrovka ulitsa) at Lubyanka metro. 


I rank Coffee Bean as one of the best places for coffee in Moscow, but there is lots of choice on both Pokrovka and on, or just off, the other key radial road down to Lubyanka, called мясницкая/Myasnitskaya Ulitsa. I also paused at the Art Lebedev cafe and shop (Ul. Myasnitskaya 22, bldg. 1 (Bankovsky per.5)) and thought about visiting the Red espresso bar, further up Myasnitskaya, towards Chisty Prudy, but stopped myself. 


As you may guess, I am a coffee snob - so would really like recommendations for the very best coffee in Moscow. Beanhunter only lists 2 for the whole of Moscow (the other Art Lebedev cafe and Coffee Mania, which is okay but screamingly expensive), so I think it is time to add some more....
 

*The innermost one is called the Boulevard ring. The Garden ring was built where the old city ramparts had been, and originally had trees down its centre (as the Boulevard ring still does). These were cut down in the 1930s, opening it up for soviet military parades and more recently post-soviet traffic jams. There is also another ring, further out, which as far as I can tell, has no name, err, just the fourth ring. And then a fifth called MKAD, which stands for Moscow Automobile Ring Road.  

idyllic?

This idyllic scene is literally 3 minutes walk from where I live; an unexpectedly Parisian-looking section of the Yauza river, a shallow tributary to the Moskva. There is a beautiful pink and white neo-classical set of buildings for the lock machinery and (presumably) the lock-keeper, given that the middle island has a small but exquisitely kept garden and house.  And I hardly ever go there, because both sides of the river are major traffic routes. Most times of the day it is completely impossible to cross. And I mean impossible; the flow of very fast traffic never stops. At weekends it is fractionally quieter, so yesterday I took my life in my hands, and ran.

And on the other side of the road there is this short stretch of path by the water which is separated from the cars by a small park. Lovely.

swimming

The other glory was that the dacha sat in a pine forest, next to a river. We went for a walk through the woods and then 3 of the group - all in their late 60s - stripped down to swim. Because of the current, this involved going some way upstream and then being carried back in the water to our waiting place. So peaceful, just someone fishing and some other swimming people at various points along the edge.

sunny walking

It was a major joy to be ambling in a park in the summer sun with the trees in full leaf. Kolomenskoye park is big - it has a stream through the middle and a dipping hill down to the Moscow river.  Lovely. And there are a whole band of these big parks and forests around Moscow, still to visit.

(Also some lakes and beaches; here is Moscow Elements magazine's top 7.)

Kolomenskoye

Got taken for a lovely afternoon walk in beautiful summer sunshine by V, as part of his on-going campaign to improve my education in Russian history and architecture. We went to Kolomenskoye park (conveniently accessible by metro on the green line) and visited the exquisite little group of buildings around the 16th century Church of the Ascension, a UNESO World Heritage site. And got into a discussion about how it looks like a rocket ship, so the space race must have started earlier than we thought... 

road works-not

Back in Moscow, albeit briefly, and start out very grumpy as I appear to have been completely re-Londonised in my time away.  Horribly flustered by heaving chaos, queue-barging and being stood very close to whilst going through Domodedovo airport passport control. And in the centre of town find that all the pavements have been (half) dug up, making walking about a bit haphazard (as well as a hazard), as if some disruption to everyday life must always be essential here.

And of course, the rumours are that the works - commissioned by the new mayor, Sergei (I will stop corruption) Sobyanin - are happening because his wife owns a brickworks, and yes you have guessed, all the pavements are being bricked. And now the city has run out of bricks.

Which is so typically crazy that you have to laugh, so then I remember that this is one of the many reasons I like Moscow and find I am very glad to be back.....
  

My hunt for local food markets has also taken a decided turn for the better, partly because with the weather improving more places are opening up. I found this one - near Rimskaya metro - entirely by mistake.


I was actually looking for a flea market in Shkolnaya Street - which is famous enough to get its own page on Wikipedia. It is a heritage protection area, a street of 19th century row houses and what were coaching inns now pedestrianised - like the much more famous Arbat - and with massive Khrushchev-period tower blocks looming behind. The story goes that the plan to attract more shoppers and tourists was unsuccessful, and so instead permission was given to host a flea market. Whilst the Arbat has become - to my mind - a boring tourist trap, Shkolnaya Street remains an ordinary, if slightly artificial because neatly decorated, Moscow street.


There was no sign of  the flea market on the Saturday I went, just a few food and clothes stalls  - like the pickles van above - but an interesting walk all the same.