Moscow (days and) nights

I met Teresa back at her apartment. She was still in bed. I had just come from the train station from St. Petersburg. I was tired, but didn't want to risk napping for fear of falling asleep for a good portion of the morning. I updated my journal.

Soon, Teresa was out of bed. I showered and we made for the train station. We took an electric commuter train to Segiev Posad. Along the route, people would ply the aisles, selling this and that. They gave their spiels in matter-of-fact voices. I wondered to Teresa what would happen if one of them actually attempted to be entertaining. One fumbled with his sell, and I saw him reading off the back of his product.

The town of Sergiev Posad was small and somewhat unkempt. The monestary gounds were beautiful and peaceful. We wandered around the back of the complex before winding our way back towards the churches. Some were had been converted to stores selling iconography, souvenirs, and watches. In the main church building, a service was taking a place. A man incanted the words while a chorus of women answered. In the dim cavernous space, their voices echoed beautifully. We had been given CDs when we paid our admission fees and I mentioned to Teresa that I hoped that some women's voices had been captured upon it.

Heading back towards the entrance, we passed a gazebo under which a cross spouted water from either end of its arms. People captured the holy water in plastic containers. Some held plastic flasks with the monestary and church embossed on the sides. Nearby, a small chapel contained another cross and a priest sold the plastic flasks. We bought some and proceeded to collect our own water.

We ate in a hotel restaurant not far from the complex. The main dining room was closed for a private function and we were seated in a small room on another side of the building. We ordered a tasty salad, salmon bilini, and a garlic toast that's cut into cubes and deep fried like croutons.

Back in Moscow, we made plans to have dinner at a Georgian restaurant near Teresa's house. Five of us arrived to a group of singers entertaining the restaurant to taped music (Mattias was under the impression they were lip syncing some of the opera tunes). We ordered a number of Georgian specialties including a meat tower. When it arrived, they dimmed the lights and appeared with a metal tray, skewers sticking straight out of it, with a pineapple lantern at the center. The food was delicious. As the music continued, some of the customers danced, but Teresa lamented the lack of Georgian dancing.

After dinner we headed off to a bar near Chistoprudni. Coming out of the metro, the square in front was full of drunken men. Bottles shattered as they were dropped or thrown. Glass littered the street. We walked along the tree-lined median to one of the ponds for which the area is named, then turned down a side street. The bar was located in the courtyard of an office complex. A door lead into a basement. We paid our cover charge, walked past a small bookstore, and then into a cramped space crowded with students.

A band was playing on a small stage. Two girls sang and screamed into a microphone. A young crowd thrashed about. We squeezed to the bar and ordered drinks. The set ended, and people pushed to get out. We found space at a table and sat down.

The next band was older. They played riffs influenced by 60s surf music, but never seemed to play a song. They'd start strong, go for a while, and then stop, without ever singing a note. We sat and listened for a while. A man who looked like a thinner Harry Knowles danced on a chair.

We left the bar and made our way back towards Smolenskaya, stopping off at another bar, Apartment 44. There, the cast of characters looked as if they could have stepped out of a Fellini film (or a Tom Waits song). A woman wore a sailor's cap, looking for people to kiss her. A strong man in a tight shirt and what seemed at times to be silk pants wandered in and out of the room. We had just missed the live music, and a man soon appeared to collect his accordion.

The room was lined with books, and had the air of a cafe. We ordered drinks and sat and talked. H— said it smelled like Europe.

The next morning we got up late. We ate breakfast and lunch at home in quick succession and then took a trolleybus to Park Kulture. We walked over the bridge and Teresa showed me the entrance to the museum in the Megaphone building. We walked through the sculpture park and towards the Red October chocolate factory. We bought an assortment of chocolates at the company store and then wandered around looking for the Gagosian gallery, practically circumambulating the islet before finding it (stumbling along a photoshoot of sorts along the way).

The gallery space was beautiful. Housed inside the old chocolate factory, the building itself was gorgeous, and much of the original tiles and exterior walls had been left untouched. The views of the city were fantastic. We took some pictures and were yelled at. Around us, Russians were taking photos with impunity. We couldn't figure out why we were being singled out.

Leaving the museum, we walked towards the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer and found a small bread shop cafe behind a Chinese restaurant noted as one of the most expensive restaurants in Moscow. The interior was beautifully designed. We sat for tea and desserts and watched the clientele come and go. Teresa said it was like being on the Upper East Side. I had to concur.

We bought a loaf of bread and made our way back home. We bought torpedo melon and caviar and ate a light snack before dinner.

We met up with friends at nine pm, taking the metro to the last stop on the red line. Teresa had mentioned a great Indian restaurant inside the campus of the Friendship University. She said it would also be a great way to see an area more akin to where most Muscovites would live. We ended up walking alongside a highway leading out of the city before we reached the dorms. We walked along the dorms for a while before entering through a set of gates. We walked into the university and then were lost. We asked around a bit, but it was some doing before we found the small doorway that lead into the basement restaurant.

Bollywood films played on tv screens and the restaurant was crowded with Indians. We found a table in a side room and sat down. We ordered as a scene from Dil Se queued up on screen.

The food was delicious. It and the Georigan restaurant had been two of the best meals I have had here. We emptied the dishes and sopped up the last bit of sauce with our nan. We had decided to check out a club called Ikat afterwards, and took cars to the metro station. We transferred to the ring line and emerged at a train station. We wandered through the train station trying to figure out how to get behind it before asking directions. We left the station by one exit and entered it through another and walked along another underground passage before finding our way.

The club had beautiful wallpaper. We paid our cover, checked our clothes and went to the bar. A DJ was playing along one side. The seats were full, but no one was dancing. We ordered drinks at the bar and sat in another room along the back. H— found us a table in the front and we moved towards the DJ. The music became louder and people started to dance. When the headliner came out, more danced, facing the music and the DJ.

As we left we checked out the free bar, which was also nicely laid out, with 60s influenced wallpaper. Above the room we were in was another space where bands played, but it was closed for the night.

We took a car back to house, zooming our way along the ring road. H— rang asking us if we wanted to join them at a Cuban restaurant for a nightcap but we declined. Moscow flew past the windows. Posted by eku at September 21, 2008 4:13 AM