Return of the Tourists

We’d heard the smoke-smog would likely return over the weekend, so The Boy took the opportunity to head for a morning run while the air was still clear. Five miles later – with an endorphin-boosted mood – The Boy was ready to tackle whatever agenda I’d put together.

Good thing, too, since I drug him back to the market after breakfast for some final souvenir shopping!! The Saturday market had more sellers and we were able to pick up some things we hadn’t found during Wednesday’s adventure. {Picture a happy dance here!}

Matyroshka dolls can be found designed in nearly any fashion...

...including the newest addition to my collection!

From there, we hopped onto the Metro for a tour of Moscow’s more interesting and historic stations. We focused on the Dark Blue and Green lines (built between 1935-1938 by Stalin). They are gloriously decorated with local stone, intricate floor patterns, carved stone, columns and more. As our tour noted, these early stations of the Moscow Metro are marked by two distinct factors above all others: the rise of a fanatical cult of personality around the figure of Joseph Stalin, and the Great Patriotic War.

Sokol Station has a single row of arched columns and a double-vault construction. 

The style of Arbatskaya Station  is known as Stalinist Baroque, with over-the-top ornamentation.

Mayakovskaya Station features marble-wrapped stainless steel arches

We hopped off midway through to walk down Tverskaya Street. Tverskaya is the main street running into the heart of the city. This beautiful a wide boulevard that is home to a number of upscale shops, including the former world’s largest McDonalds.

Now, The Boy and I are not McDonald’s eaters and yes, we have watched Supersize Me. However, after a week of eating the same type of food we were ready for something different.

We are the Hayleys and we ate McDonalds. Please don’t judge us. We were on vacation.

Ketchup was $1 per packet!

After lunch, we unsuccessfully searched for Yeliseevskiy Gastronom (Yeliseev’s Food Hall), a famous upscale market. Very frustrating to wander and not find what you’re looking for. We’re pretty sure we must have walked past it once or twice without seeing it…darn that Cyrillic.

Tverskaya Street - looking from Pushkin Square towards the Kremlin (not in sight from this location).

We finally gave up and walked on towards Red Square and the Bolsoi (currently closed for renovations), stopping to rehydrate and cool off at an air-conditioned {thank you, Lord!} Starbucks.

Our $14 refreshment break. Worth it - I would have paid more for the air conditioning!

Our final stop of the day was at the Gulag Museum. This small museum provides an excellent overview of the scope and impact of Stalin’s gulag system. Chalk it up to being dumb Americans (which, by the way, The Boy and I for the most part aren’t), but we didn’t know that the gulag wasn’t a place. Rather, it was a system of labor camps. We left the museum mentally exhausted, yet very glad we’d stopped by.

The Gulag Museum

Map of the relocations nationwide - shocking numbers!

We drug ourselves back to Gamma with extremely tired feet. And, unfortunately as predicted, the heat and smog returned to plague us for yet another restless night. {sigh}