June 1, 2017 Moscow:
Lenin’s Mausoleum, Pushkin 19th & 20th Europe & American Paintings and
the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum
The first item on our “To-Do” list was the Lenin
Mausoleum. The Trip Advisor travel forum
has many posts warning you NOT to bring any cameras, phones, bags, etc. because
these items are not allowed. The posts
also warned to be there early because the lines are very long, and you may not
get in because the mausoleum is only open from 10:00-13:00. We arrived just before 10:00 and the line
wasn’t very long and it started moving shortly after we arrived. People had cameras, bags, phones etc. and
they let us go through the metal detectors.
It was no big deal. The guard at
the metal detector smiled MORE than anyone else we’ve seen in Moscow. Just another note, there are guards and metal
detectors everywhere: Metro stations, shopping malls, museums, churches, etc.;
there are also uniformed men all over the place. Along the Kremlin wall are the graves of
notable Russians, and I took a few photos.
When you enter the mausoleum it is dark so going down the stairs is
tricky as it takes time for your eyes to adjust. You keep moving around Lenin and then up the
stairs and out. I don’t think we were in
there more than two minutes, and going down and up the stairs was probably
halve the time. After visiting Lenin we
went to the Cathedral of St. Basil which is on Red Square. It is the iconic building that I think
everyone can recognize. We didn’t go
inside, we’ll see the inside of enough churches. As we were walking out of the square we
noticed a crowd with TV cameras and reporters at the Historical Museum, so we
stopped to see what was going on. Two
guys came out and one said something and then the cut a ribbon and released
some balloons. We assume that they were
opening a new exhibition. After the
little ceremony they opened the doors and we moved with the crowd to enter, but
they only let the press inside. The stern
looks on the attendants faces was enough to freeze your blood. Our hotel, the Savoy is close to Red Square,
so we went back for a short break.
We took a bus to the Pushkin Museum to see three of the four
1001 paintings they have. Moscow has a
great subway system, but we like to take buses if we can because you get to see
more. The bus dropped us off right in
front of the museum. I knew from
checking the museum’s web site that one of the four paintings would not be on
display. The museum also has one
painting on another list we have: “Paintings That Changed the World”. The Pushkin has two buildings, our paintings
were in the collection of 19th & 20th Century
Paintings of Europe and America. I got a
little anxious as we went through the first floor of the gallery because we
didn’t find any of our paintings.
Thankfully all three were in one of the last rooms on the second floor. We then went to the Pushkin Fine Arts
building. They have a great collection
of Flemish and Dutch paintings. They
also have many, many copies of famous sculptures. After the museums it was the bus back to the
hotel so Sue could find us another place to eat. I think this takes more work than tracking
down paintings. We went to a place
called Odessa Mama that was about a 15minute walk from the hotel. It was great, I’m sure we were by far the oldest
people there. They told us we would have
to wait about 20 minutes for a table, but I hadn’t even finished paying for our
beer before they came to take us to our table.
Sue went off with the hostess while I waited for my change and then I
wandered around until I found her. For a
starter we had herring with little boiled potatoes. This is probably heresy, but the herring in
Moscow is better than Amsterdam’s. Sue
had chicken with cheese, spinach and noodles and I had the pork kvass, and of
course more beer. It was all great. That was it for our first full day in Moscow.
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