To Moscow, with love

{ Disclaimer: I tried to make this post shorter, but failed miserably. If you're not interested in reading, skip down and scroll through to see the pretty pix. I won't be offended, promise.
Will share bits about St. Petersburg later. } 

I lingered over a lovely beet soup the other day, reminding me of Moscow. The idea to go to Russia began as a crazy joke about visiting The Fella's ancestral roots, but became a reality once we realized it really wasn't soooo crazy. 

The city had me positively enamoured. 

Twenty-four hours+ of traveling, and then we sleepily stumbled off the airport express train and entered an era of 1950s grandeur. Strains of classical music was broadcast over the lofty courtyard, flanked on all sides by a sweeping, palace-like metro station painted in what I can only describe as "Soviet-era green", a sort of ethereal, soft green shade. It's somewhere in between Easter egg pastel and that glowing green hue from the Wicked musical, and I feel the need to describe it so fully because this majestic color followed me all throughout Moscow. A Russian guard in a uniform of the same color motioned passengers to keep moving. 

Such stately elegance, a wonderfully stark contrast to the rows and rows of leftover Communist blocs seen on our way into the city. I sure was groggy, but this surreal first impression of Russia will be forever imprinted in my memory.   

{ "Soviet-era green", essence captured as best as possible. Sadly, I was too groggy to assemble the D90 to snap a pic of the Metro station described above, so this will have to do. }

Once in the city, we ooh'd and aah'd over the curious, framed art on the sides of walls and the beautiful buildings, like the Bolshoi Theatre (sadly, it was undergoing renovation so we couldn't peek in), indulged in vodka and caviar, and hit the shops of high Moscow fashion.  

 

{ pretty building, aglow }

{ framed art on the outside of buildings }

{ interlacing architecture at the Ritz-Carlton }

We zipped around underground in the ornate public Metro, doing our best to interpret Cyrillic along with our English-only map. Surprisingly, few people here spoke any English at all, but we managed.

{ Metro map + logo }

{ Moscow Metro, 12:00 a.m., the calm before the storm }

{ Moscow Metro, 9 a.m., morning rush hour }

The weather heated up, quickly. We spent our days exploring the city: jaunted over to the Red Square, explored the whimsical St. Basil's Cathedral, and attempted to visit Lenin's tomb 3x, unsuccessfully (first time, walked right by it, too distracted by the festival happenings; second time, closed on Mondays; third time, got there with 15 minutes to spare, but the guards wouldn't let us in – seriously, what national attraction is only open 3 hours a day!?). But, we did manage to shake hands with a Lenin look-alike.

{ Lenin }

{ St. Basils Cathedral }

 

{ detail, St. Basils }

{ church dome detail in the Red Square }

 

{ Red Square, nighttime }

An evening out at the Stanislavsky-Danchenko theatre for a perfect Russian ballet.

{ Don Quixote ballet }

We visited the Kremlin on a sunshine-y day, perfect for casting the whitewashed cathedrals and gold domes, aglow and lovely. Babuschkas were out in full-force today. If there's one thing I learned on this trip, it's that Russian women 1. like to walk arm-in-arm in pairs or threes, and 2. carry flowers around. Long stems, bunches, buckets of flowers, it doesn't matter.

 

{ cathedral inside the Kremlin }

{ babuschkas }

A side trip to a Russian market, to ogle the handcrafted dolls and fur hats, where we made friends with a matruyska vendor named Alex. He asked if we were diplomats, then bought us tea and merchant cookies while we chatted. We received a warm invitation to his family's village, a three-day trek, for some Russian barbecue and songs. We did more than ogle, in the end, we also bought many gifts. There was a serious matruyska party in my suitcase!  

{ rosy matruyskas on a ledge }

Some high-heel-watching action in the city. It's all true, Moscow women dress up, rather than down, and wear high heels EVERYWHERE, to boot. I saw stilettos and 5-inch platforms on the Metro, the cobblestone streets, in the rain, far and wide. My perspective on commuting in heels has been forever changed.

{ high heels + short skirts, everywhere }

A romantic stroll in the rain by the riverfront and we happened upon this tree-lined row, made of layers and layers of locks.

 

{ trees of locks (love), riverfront }

We were enamoured by Moscow's intriguing old-meets-new-world culture, full of romantic traditions amidst a new-found, relative wealth and indulgence in high fashion and food. Somewhere, in between the alluring bits of Soviet-era green and warm bowls of red borsch, we fell in love with a city.

{ traditions }