Svetlana
We met our guide Svetlana at 10 in the hotel lobby. We started out visiting the interior of Christ the Redeamer Church ( exterior picture posted yesterday). We were quite lucky, because they were having a service to present one of the artifacts for veneration. When we arrived, the icon door was open and we could see the alter behind the priest. I was surprised they let us in during the ceremony.
Christopher Columbus with Peter the Great’s Head
As we walked to our next stop, we crossed the river and Sletvana told us an interesting story about this statue. Russia made a statue of Columbus with the intention of giving it to the US. They tried Baltimore in 1977, Columbus Ohio, and several other cities. They learned that Americans don’t think much of Columbus. So they lopped off Columbus’ head, stuck on the head of Peter the Great, and put it in their own river.
From there we went to the Pushkin fine arts museum. Sletvana wanted us to visit the entire muesem, but we limited ourselves to the French Impresionistic exhibit. It turns out that the art we saw in St. Petersburg was originally part of the Pushkin colllection. The pieces we saw in St. Pete were wonderful, but Pushkin saved plenty of good stuff for themselves. All together, it’s undoubtedly the best collection in the world. (Sorry, there’s no boring photos of paintings.)
New Maiden Nunnery
From there, we went to Novodevichy (New Maiden) nunnery. In the old days, Tsars often had female sisters, mothers, etc. that they had to put out of the way. They uniformly found this nunnery to be a convenient way to keep them out of the public but allow them to live relatively comfortable lives. Peter the Great’s regent was his older half sister, Sophia. She learned to like being Tsar. When Peter came of age, Sophia started a revolution against Peter, so Peter stuffed her in the nunnery. Sophia started a second revolution from behind the convent walls. Peter put that uprising down also, and left a dead soldier hanging outside Sophia’s window for over half a year.
A Ballerena in New Maiden Cemetary
Next to the nunnery is Novodevichy Cemetary. Only important people an be burried here. “Important people” includes the normal list of generals and political leaders. But it also includes ballenerias, poets, authors, artists, and even a clown.
Clown in New Maiden Nunnery
Our last stop was Tolstoy’s house. Many historic houses are restored and include period furnature. Everything in this house was owned by and used by the Tolstoy family — Mom, Dad, and 8 kids. Besides the novelty of knowing that Tolstoy’s back-side was actually in such-and-such a chair, the house itself wasn’t that enlightening. However, Sletvana’s knowledge was extensive, as usual. We learned a lot about this gentle Russian hippy. They wanted 100 Rubles for the right to take pictures. That’s less than $1.50, but I obhected on principle so there are no pictures of the house.
New Moscow
Here’s a bonus pic of “New Moscow”. About 10 years ago, Russian leaders decided Moscow was going to become the financial capitol of the world. So they built a bunch of ultra-modern sky scrapers. Then they found out that it isn’t so easy to be the financial capital of the world. Today, some of the skyscrapers stand unfinished. Our dinner yesterday was in New Moscow.