Moscow: For you: in Suva's words

That's the hostel and the mates - L to R:
Suva, Forgot his name,The Israeli sisters, Andrea,
Emily and Mee .
Picture was taken by Jose :P 

Juan. No Jose. No Juan. Actually he is Juan. But all latinos are Jose. So we will call him Jose. Truly speaking, there's no story. And the story is not about them. Juan and Andrea are a Colombian couple who were staying in the same hostel as us [Moscow style hostel] in MOSCU. And there were others - the Polish girl Emily - such a drunkard - works in the IT and was all full of praise about the infy-guys being so smart, the Israeli sisters whom Anasuya (post two straight shots of the yum spicy vodka so generously contributed by Emily) castigated for the Israeli immigration not letting us into Jerusalem from Jordan last year on our Indian passport without a pre-processed visa. This was our first night in Moscow.

That was the Church I was inquiring Luisa about :P St. Basil's 

And what was Moscow.

The Hostel is run by Luisa and she speaks rudimentary english - not so much as to answer Anasuya when she enthusiastically asked her - "Where is that church in Moscow with the colorful domes like the one which is there in Saint Petersburg?". Now that's a complicated question. Just think of such a question somebody asks you in Russian in the streets of Moscow. Thankfully no one did. And just like the guide books predicted, the folks in the streets hardly ever smiled at the strangers - as if an invisible covering of self-restraint has been put on them. Except for the one drunk guy I met while strolling along the Neva in St Petes who was pleased to learn that I am from India and congratulate me in almost everything. But we are in Moscow now reading off the hostel-bookers' print-out and frantically punching the numbers to get into the fortress like building that hosts the small apartment-cum-hostel. Even our 'world phone' could not connect us to the hostel people. As we perspired at the prospect of getting stranded (and more at the fact that we are getting delayed - there being no room for adjustment in our tight schedule), Luisa saw the struggling-us from the window.

That was the window in our
room I was in love with

We had a private room that was nice and A was particularly enamored by the long window and its drapes. So much that she won't listen to me when I told her that in-room low light photos would come out shaky. We (actually she) started getting ready even before we had the room - there being a spatial separation between the excretary and ablutionary regimens - things were moving faster in the hostel. [My geek note - this is the gain you get from using two servers instead of one and forming two queues, though the servers have half the service rate. Note that the arrivals to 'these' queues, in the morning, are not Markovian, rather deterministic.]

We threw ourselves into the city as soon as we could - the city that replaced the Nizhny Novgorod as the centre of the Rus empire and has been as symbolic as any city in the world. Not quite.

We had to first shop for a nice pair of shoes for A - the second time in our journey - so that she could comfortably do what we need to do in our trips - walk miles.

Kudos to the Japanese Tourists :)

Good that the quest was not eternal and our hostel was only 15 minutes walk to the Kremlin. Through the huge streets flanked by equally tall old buildings. Some having the hammer-sickle murals with some egalitarian message, others had fine painting just ordaining the outer walls. And then through a dark subway with shops selling pastries and souvenirs, out into the open burstling with the summer tourists, and then under the fountain, Kremlin. So red. A had planned to wear red as we would walk in the red square. But I was wearing pink - perhaps consistent with my flirtations with ideas anathematic to Stalinist purists.

Always trust Japanese tourists.
They know exactly what picture you want them to take. And of course, be nice, and reciprocate.

The Eternal lovers at the Kremlin Wall

The change of guards - the stones with names of the soviet republics - Lenin's Mausoleum - the symbols of an empire in a different time, all mark Kremlin. And inside there's another period. The period of the Tsars. The splendor of the riches. The gravity of the Sobors. The embalmed dead.

As we wallowed on the green grass just outside the red walls enjoying our ice-creams, they were kissing, standing on the ramparts. When the whole world gets torn down by our greed, just a kiss is what will remain.

Tretyakov and Suva

I have actually cheated. We hadn't been to Kremlin. Not on the first day. We went to the Tretyakov gallery. Tatyana [not any of the St Petersburg hotel receptionists,
but the lady who used to stay in Linda's place in the Bay area] had recommended it. Good that she did, because it blew us away. With the audio-guide as we went from one painting to another, listening to the stories about them or their creators, another world, parallel to the Paris based impressionists' emerged. The packeted pancakes saved from a previous day's breakfast or the simple fare at the buffet in the museum's cafeteria actually complemented the heavy dose of art.

Sunday evening at Gorky Park

The afternoon ramble in the Gorky park was so reminiscent of our time in Parque del buen retiro in Madrid.
A always complains that the British should have built some parks in Kolkata. I say they never loved the city maybe.

The Kazakh who tamed Suva :P

Circus was my idea. And hell of an idea it was. The Nikulin circus shows the greatness you can achieve when you put your heart and mind together to build something. Every item on platter was so exquisitely served with the matching live orchestra, a theme, a story, that you would beleive that the tricks are just sides. Not perhaps when doing the moon-walking [not the MJ one :-)] on a slanted taut rope without the balancing pole, the artist faltered, recovered and then completed his mission. Without a net below to catch him alive if he fell. Even the orchestra stopped for minutes as did your hearts. And there was the lady [I am sure she is a Kazak] who could make tigers and leopards act in a play.

We went to Kremlin the next day - after we had the nice bliny (Russian pancakes) with sour-cream left on the table by Luisa who had left for work. And after A had her dose of husband-made-latte and facebook.

We did not take the boat-ride in the Moscow river. We were tight in our Rubles. Neither did we see so many of the museums, the splendid cathedrals and the magnificent markets. We hardly had time. But there is always time to take a stroll along the boulevard in Pushkinskaya - me thinking about Pushkin's beautiful wife and A still dazed by the pistachio creme brulee and sweet hospitality shown to two backpackers at an avant-garde restaurant.We even made Luisa worried. The taxi, to take us to airport was waiting for us. She had forgotten to discount the traffic delay. For 30 minutes, we had moved only half a kilometre. I was so tensed that I fell asleep. The next thing I remember was when we had reached airport. We did have about an hour to spare.