A very bougie entry!
May. 1st, 2006 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI couldn't read the news in Russia. Twice, I managed to find the Moscow Times, but generally, I couldn't even do my usual scanning-of-headlines-while-walking-down-the-street. I wanted a bit of a vacation from political activism anyway, but it was a bit disconcerting.
When I left, it seemed like the U.S. was on the verge of launching a nuclear war with Iran. It's nice to come back to photos of massive demonstrations and news of an almost-general strike by illegal immigrants instead of that.
Anyway, this entry has nothing to do with politics, really. I just thought it needed mentioning.
Tuesday, April 18
We woke up early and went to Dom Knigi [The House of Books, which used to be the Soviet bookstore]. Their English collection was basically the bestseller rack at Chapters, but their Russian collection looked amazing. There was one cheesy-looking book that appeared to be a novelization of a film about Nestor Makhno, which was frustrating given the dearth of English-language books about him. Yet another reason to learn Russian, I guess.
Then we went to the New Tretyakov Gallery. Anya was underwhelmed, but I liked it. There was a whole room of Stalin paintings, in which he's mostly sitting around in meetings. Only Stalin would think, "Hey, I'm in a boring meeting. Someone should paint me sitting here and looking attentive."
We grabbed dinner with Tanya at the cute little Margarita café (named after Bulgakov's book, located across from Patriarch's Ponds, and sporting a mural of the author on the front door). And then it was Bolshoi time! The main Bolshoi theatre is closed for renovations, but the smaller New Stage is still open.
Teh pretty.
We had third-row seats to La Sylphide, which is one of those boy-meets-fairy ballets. Anyway, cool, although ballet is not generally my thing. We got tickets to go see Eugene Onegin at the Kremlin on Saturday.
We finished off the night at Tanya's favourite café. There was some sort of chocolatey-coffee-alcoholic thing that made me swoon. Yay!
The bougiest picture of me ever taken.
When I left, it seemed like the U.S. was on the verge of launching a nuclear war with Iran. It's nice to come back to photos of massive demonstrations and news of an almost-general strike by illegal immigrants instead of that.
Anyway, this entry has nothing to do with politics, really. I just thought it needed mentioning.
Tuesday, April 18
We woke up early and went to Dom Knigi [The House of Books, which used to be the Soviet bookstore]. Their English collection was basically the bestseller rack at Chapters, but their Russian collection looked amazing. There was one cheesy-looking book that appeared to be a novelization of a film about Nestor Makhno, which was frustrating given the dearth of English-language books about him. Yet another reason to learn Russian, I guess.
Then we went to the New Tretyakov Gallery. Anya was underwhelmed, but I liked it. There was a whole room of Stalin paintings, in which he's mostly sitting around in meetings. Only Stalin would think, "Hey, I'm in a boring meeting. Someone should paint me sitting here and looking attentive."
We grabbed dinner with Tanya at the cute little Margarita café (named after Bulgakov's book, located across from Patriarch's Ponds, and sporting a mural of the author on the front door). And then it was Bolshoi time! The main Bolshoi theatre is closed for renovations, but the smaller New Stage is still open.
Teh pretty.
We had third-row seats to La Sylphide, which is one of those boy-meets-fairy ballets. Anyway, cool, although ballet is not generally my thing. We got tickets to go see Eugene Onegin at the Kremlin on Saturday.
We finished off the night at Tanya's favourite café. There was some sort of chocolatey-coffee-alcoholic thing that made me swoon. Yay!
The bougiest picture of me ever taken.
