Does this look like a grocery store?
Are you wondering what’s special in a grocery store that am writing a blog post about it? Eliseevsky store at 14, Tverskaya Street in Moscow is one of the oldest stores in the city. It was built as part of a historical building and opened to the public in 1901. It’s actually named “Gastronomia Eliseevsky“.
Can you imagine the work involved in constructing such a store more than 110 years ago?
Christmas in Russia and about 15 other countries is celebrated every year on January 7th rather than December 25th. The Russians start their year with around 10 vacation days which begin with the New Year celebrations and culminate in the Christmas festivities.
The primary reason for this is the fact that the Russian orthodox church follows the Julian calendar which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.
Red Square is considered as one of the most important landmarks in Moscow as it includes a varied set of monuments including Kremlin (the official residence of the Russian president), St. Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s Mausoleum, Kazan Cathedral, Gum Store and the State Historical Museum among others.
It is said that Putin generally works in Kremlin but stays on the outskirts of Moscow. Legend has it that Lenin’s body is still embalmed and kept at the mausoleum. Whether tourists or even Russians believe this or not is another matter altogether.
One evening, when a few of my office colleagues asked me if I am interested to make a visit to the square, I was quite excited at the opportunity. Little did I know that it would be about -15 degrees that night. It was so cold that I was starting to feel my hands getting frost bitten. The Starbucks coffee I was holding became cold in no time ;). Nonetheless, the experience was fantastic.
St. Basil’s Cathedral (the garlic shaped domes of different colours look amazing, don’t they?)
Kremlin
Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure (Центральный парк культуры и отдыха имени Горького) is one of Moscow’s Central parks located next to the Moskva river and spans an area of about 300 acres. It’s the perfect place to see the way Russians spend their free time. The park gets its name from the famous Soviet writer, Maxim Gorky.
While at an earlier point of time, the park had various rides including roller-coasters, today it is more of an eco-friendly park which also has an ice-skating rink and wi-fi.
I had come to the park with the intention of taking the Radisson Cruise on the tranquil waters of the Moskva river. Since I missed it by a few minutes, I decided to take a walk along the river itself. And mind you, while it does look sunny, the temperatures were still hovering around -5 degrees.
With all the snow round, Gorky Park looked really beautiful.
The Moscow Metro (Московский метрополитен) is the 6th largest metro system in the world and also one of the most busiest. It has 198 stations and has a route length of about 330 km making it one of the most ambitious projects in Russia. Along with having some of the deepest stations in the world like Park Pobedy at 243 feet and many lines and stations under construction, the Moscow Metro is a constantly evolving architectural marvel.
And to add to that, it is also a tourist attraction as can be seen from some of the metro stations I visited. They have such lovely architecture that you feel you are entering a museum. Many of these stations have been built in the 1950s. Can you even imagine the expenditure incurred to make them during those times?
Our first stop is the Arbatskaya (Арба́тская) station on the dark blue line.
The Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Пло́щадь Револю́ции) station on the dark blue line is full of bronze statues of men, women, soldiers, farmers, atheletes, school children etc. It is named after the Revolution Square in Tverskoy District.
