As soon as we landed at Sheremetyevo (SVO) we were off and running. We ran to catch the aeroexpress train that runs between SVO and Moscow. Once we got to Moscow we took the metro and switched to a regional line to head out to the country house. The Moscow Metro is efficient and has some of the most beautiful stations. It has 12 lines including one circular line that connects 9 main lines together.
Country House
It’s common in Russia for families to have their main home and also a second separate house further out in the country. These are called ‘dachas’ and Andrey has only good memories at the time he spent at their country house. At the country house, we enjoyed the fresh air, went for a run, rode bikes through the woods to a nearby lake, and stopped for ice cream. Then we visited with grandma and grandpa, picked some fresh cucumbers from their garden, and grandma prepared homemade borscht for us.
Tigran’s Birthday
After a couple nights in the country, we took two trains and a taxi to see Tigran who was celebrating his birthday at the old estate of Count Alexey Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin. According to wikipedia, he was once the Grand Chancellor of Russia in the 1700s. As history has it, Bestuzhev lost the chancellorship and suffered banishment to his estate at Goretovo (April 1759), where he remained till the accession of Catherine II (June 1762). Now, we were here to party. Tigran and his friends put on a play called The Bald Soprano, that Andrey translated in real time for me, what a sweetheart. There was food, drinks, sauna, a rousing game of Mafia, some dancing, and laughter. Good times.
Oleg’s Wedding
The main reason we came to Moscow! Oleg, Andrey’s childhood friend, married Elnura and held a beautiful reception near a park.
Moscow
In our days in Moscow, we took a ferry along the Moscow River with Andrey’s friend Pavel, visited Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and went inside the Kremlin. The name for Red Square came about because the Russian word красная (krasnaya), which now means “red,” originally meant “beautiful”.
We had lunch with Oleg and Elnura a few days after their wedding. Then later, we met up with Tigran and some friends for a few games of ping pong in a local park nearby.
The Bolshoi Theatre
One Evening in Moscow we went to The Bolshoi Theatre to see the ballet, Giselle, with Andrey and his parents. We sat in Box 5. It was absolutely wonderful. What a lovely evening!
Saint Petersburg
We took an overnight train to Saint Petersburg, along the railway the Tzars once used, and visited The Winter Palace and Hermitage. The Winter Palace was built from 1754 and 1762 for Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. Also, Elizabeth died before it’s completion and the first live here was Catherine the Great and her successors. It’s enormous and grand and everything you would think a palace would be!
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