A very bougie entry!

[sabotabby]

I 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.

Comments

[uberbitsch.livejournal.com]

I start getting twitchy after two or three days without news.

[sabotabby]

I got twitchy after one day. But like all withdrawal, it passes a bit.

(And then I found out that there's an ongoing blockade at a First Nations reserve and half the people I know have been travelling there to take part and I got annoyed that all the great political shit happens while I'm away.)

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

I spent three weeks alone pet-sitting at my aunt and uncle's over the holidays in 2003. They didn't have cable, the internet and I was too lazy to buy the newspaper. I took me two days to find out that Saddam Hussein had been captured. When I saw his picture on the newspaper, I thought it was some kind of christmas picture.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

haha. When I saw the pictures of him I was like "OMG, they captured Santa Claus? Those bastards!"

[sabotabby]

I think the beard suits him, really.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

Awww. So pretty!

Welcome back.

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

I'm sooooo jealous, those pictures of the Bolshoi are beautiful. I'm sure if you had checked out Pravda, you would have gotten all the accurate news you needed. lol.

By the way, does Pravda even exist anymore or did it survive?

[sabotabby]

Pravda still exists; there's also at least one other major Communist newspaper. The press remains heavily censored, mind you.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

На Известия не правда, на Правда не известия.

"In Izvestia ("the news") there is no truth, in Pravda ("the truth") there is no news."

[sabotabby]

Love it.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

That's a very nifty jacket.

[sabotabby]

I'm fond of it.