About Moscow in May:

It's really fucking nice. Don't listen to anyone who might tell you it will be vastly colder than St. Petersburg and you should definitely bring your winter coats and boots and fleece-lined pants. No, don't listen to that person. It will beautiful and sunny and everyone on the program will come away a little tanner and a little pinker than they started off....

Moscow in May, being slightly further South than St. Petersburg, was also fully and completely in spring. There was lots of lying on green (!!!) grass in the sun (!!!), with trees in full bloom and budding all over the place. This also, of course, means that my allergies were out of control the whole time. On the train ride back to Petersburg on Sunday night, my left eye was so red people on the program tried starting rumors that I actually had pink eye. And, of course, it appears that spring came in St. Petersburg during the weekend we were away, because as soon as we were back it seemed there was pollen all over Petersburg as well. Luckily, there are fewer trees in St. Petersburg, so my sneezing fits are significantly less, though the drippy nose is a constant. Spring is definitely, finally, sort of, arrived in Russia -- now it's not just sunny but warm warm warm warm WARM as well, I sweated more in Moscow this weekend than I did all summer in St. Petersburg -- it gives me hope that summer will eventually come back too. I especially had hope when I saw that the beer garden where Adams and I passed so much time this summer was finally back installed outside of the metro. My life is coming full circle, yes it is.

So. Moscow. We did a lot. Here's a summary of my activies that I particularly enjoyed:

NOVODEVICHY CEMETERY:
This is the cemetery behind the Novodevichy Monastery where we went last semester. Emma and I ditched the monastery excursion briefly last semester and wandered through the cemetery, but it was pouring rain about about 10 minutes before the place closed so we didn't spend much time there. So I made a point to make the cemetery the first thing I did when back in Moscow. It's a really beautiful place, much like Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris that I loved so much, and, like that cemetery, is chock full of famous Russians who are buried there. I saw the graves of Chekov, Bulgakov, Gogol, Mayakovsky, Shostakovich, Yeltsin, Eisenstein and Nikulin. And, of course, as I love old cemeteries and this one was particularly gorgeous with moss and wild flowers and cobblestones, I shot a roll and a half and a shit-ton of digital pictures there. To be up, eventually, on my site.

SPARROW HILLS:
Really cool place in Moscow, the highest point in the city with great views of everything. I went with Zach and Louis and we wandered up the hill through the park which was so clean and pristine it could have been Berlin. Any parks like that in St. Petersburg would have had at least a couple beer bottles. Not only that, in the park they had trash cans with RECYCLING sections. They probably just throw it all out together anyway, but it blew my mind. Where was I?? Germany?? And then, at the top of the hill, is where the Moscow State University is located -- a huegly Soviet, a hugely huge, a hugely intimidating building. It is an enormous city university, of course, but unlike most other city universities with buildings spread out all over the place, all of the departments are in this one GIANT structure. We wondered how long it took you to get to class once you enter the building itself...

THE CIRCUS AGAIN:
So, we went back to the circus. Not as good this time on a whole, in my opinion. No beautiful trained white dogs, but the cats were even better this time. They didn't mess up jumping into their buckets or anything. There was one act in particular which (sadly?) didn't even phase me as I have been here for so long, but which offended a large number of fellow program participants.... I managed to take some pictures, but in short it involved a man dressed up as a rabbi and several chimps wearing yarmulkes acting out a Jewish wedding. And then the chimps dressing up further in different costumes acting out stereotypes of various other countries of the world. Oh, what to do. If I had gone to this when I was twelve or thirteen, those days when I would get on my soap box and lceture members of my family, I would have been outraged. But after this year of hearing some of the most racist comments of my life, I've learned that you just have to let these things roll off you. There really isn't anything else you can do.

OLD TRETYAKOV GALLERY:
I went back to the Old Tretyakov. Nothing really different this time, just went back to check on some of my favorite paintings....

PUSHKIN ART GALLERY:
This gallery is Moscow's equivilant of the Hermitage -- all of the city's Western and European art collection. We had a tour, but of course I skipped out after the first ten minutes to wander on my own. I hate those tourguides that get upset if you're not paying 100% attention to them and looking at them at all times, when all I wanted was to come to the museum to look at the PAINTINGS of course.... Anyway, I was surprised by how much I loved this gallery. The first floor wasn't very interesting to me, all that dark, still-life, 19th century portrait stuff... But the bright explosion of the second and third floors made me so happy. They have a huge collection of Matisse, including that great goldfish painting of his. If you like French impressionist stuff, this is the place to go in Moscow. It's almost an entire museum of just the 3rd floor of the Hermitage.

THE ARBAT:
I never made it to the Arbat last time, but I wandered on it this time. It's not that exciting if you're not into shopping, it's just a big pedestrian street, but there were a lot of street musicians and dancers and a lot going on. Also the only two Starbucks in Russia are both located on the Arbat, and even though in the U.S. I rarely go to Starbucks (unless I'm with the Erins in Milton) it was a homesickness comfort kind of thing to get an iced mocha and sit out on the street drinking it. I also loved looking at all the graffiti walls, including the huge wall of graffiti of the band Kino, that was in Malina's facebook profile picture for so long.

PATRIARCH'S POND:
The pond where the opening chapter of Master & Margarita takes place! I meant to go there last time but never got a chance, so I went this time and was thrilled. Louis went with me and we went right at sunset and it was eerie and oddly peaceful, the absolute exact way I pictured it when reading the book. It's also generally just a nice little park, full of baby strollers and dogs, much like some park on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. But you're in Russia. Weird.

RED SQUARE AT NIGHT, FINALLY:
Yeah. I made it to Red Square at night finally. This time it wasn't closed for a Nashi demonstration the next day. It's beautiful as hell, that's all I can really say about that. Much better up close than far away from behind a fence.

KOLOMENSKOE MONASTERY & PARK:
We had a big excursion out to the bottom of one of the metro lines to this huge huge park and monastery. The monastery itself was closed because of the holiday (the 1st of May), so we wandered the rest of the park, but it was gorgeous. I shot about 800 photos for the brochure just on this excursion, I went kind of nuts. Some members of the program were even inspired to go swimming in the dirty Moscow River. As for our guide, it was the same quirky man from last semester, and I think at one point he started just making up stuff to tell us. He told us at one point that the ravine we were walking through was famous for its teleporting tendencies. Good to know.

NEW TRETYAKOV GALLERY:
This might just be my favorite museum in the world. I wish, wish, wish I had had more time there, and whether Meri likes it or not I am dragging her back there in June. Take the Benois Wing of the Russian Museum, my favorite part, and make an entire museum of it and you get the New Tretyakov. It is all of the 20th century Russian art, all of the avant-garde that I love from the beginning of the 1900s, a whole fucking museum of it. Not only that, with all the Filonov and Goncharova and Altman and Kandinsky that I love, but they also had ALL of the Rodchenko photographs that I wrote my research paper on last spring for my history of photo class at Wellesley. I swooned on site. Really. There were witnesses.

Over all, my feelings about Moscow are still weird and mixed. Last time I was sick of it after the weekend and was positive that I preferred St. Petersburg to Moscow, but this trip Moscow grew on me.... I mean, Moscow is bizarre to me because I frequently forget that I am in Russia when I am there. It is such a typical, big, clean, global, not Western but international kind of city now, it's easy to feel like you could be in New York or London or wherever... St. Petersburg, despite supposedly being "less Russian" than Moscow and "more European" seems to have more of a Russian vibe, in terms of my interactions with people. More weird, random things happen to me in St. Petersburg, in Moscow people dress more normally and seem calmer and, in some ways, duller. More put together. Bryan once said that St. Petersburg is more of a provincial Russian city in disguise as a bigger city. I think that's true in terms of the general atmosphere of the cities, definitely. St. Petersburg is just kind of nuts, and while it was a good break from that craziness, I must admit I missed it. The consist factor in both of my trips to Moscow though was a general feeling of being overwhelmed, there being just TOO MANY THINGS that I want to do in that city, so in a 2 or 3 day trip, why even bother to try.... you really need to live in Moscow to get to know it at all or see much of anything, and last time I was there I was certain it was a place I could never really want to live in, but now I'm not so sure. It certainly grew on me during this trip, and made me think more and more about doing the Wellesley Wintersession program there next January.... WE'LL SEE.

I'm glad I get to go back to Moscow one more time though before leaving Russia, with Meri when she comes. It will be the first stop on our journey.