We arrived in Moscow on Christmas Eve to extreme Christmas
decorations by way of light displays all over the city. These people do it
RIGHT. Probably because they only get about 5 hours of daylight in the
winter.**** We had a short walking tour of lights on our way to Café Pushkin, a
super fancy pants Russian food extravaganza.
We dined in the Library, had the caviar, the
Moscow Mule, and the Empress Maria, and did not question when the chicken was
served in a guillotine.*****
On Christmas Day we did a walking tour of the
center of the city. We saw beautiful onion domed churches, impressive
architecture, and the Kremlin and St. Basil’s from afar. There was a big New
Year’s event getting set up in Red Square that day so we couldn’t visit quite
yet. The neighboring sights definitely made up for it.
We also toured The Armory of the Kremlin and
visited treasures from the tsars including the fabulous Faberge eggs. No
pictures were allowed inside****** but I can assure you they were even better
than 10th grade history class has led you to believe. They also
had gold, jewels, silver, gowns, carriages, crowns, and other tsar
essentials.
We ended the day with “The Nutcracker” at the
Bolshoi, or at least as close as we could get. The Bolshoi Theatre’s Nutcracker
production opened the night after we left, but there was a production of
Tchaikovsky’s opera, “Iolanta,” being performed. For Christmas, or more likely
the tourists, they substituted the opera’s overture with “The Nutcracker” Suite
and that was good enough for Franny and GiGi. The theater was beautiful inside
and out and it could almost make you forget how bananas the actual opera was.*******
The next day we finally got to Red Square! Worth
it!
And St. Basil’s Cathedral!! Super even more
worth it!
We lunched in the GUM
Department Store right off of Red Square that continued the theme of Christmas
decorations on steroids.
We ended the day with a tour of some of Moscow’s
finest subway stations. We had heard that they were like underground
museums******** and booked a tour where we subway hopped to some of the most
spectacular ones. Specifically, many of the stations built during Stalin’s time
had elaborate decorations and themes throughout. The idea was that there should
be palaces available to all of the people like the tsars had had during their
rule.********* There were stations decorated with brass statues, marble
statues, and ceiling mosaics. One looked like a church, another like a palace, and
another like an art deco wonderland. They were really beautiful and now that we
are back in London, I’m ashamed to be riding around from one dumpy station to
the next.
Our last day in Moscow was touring the Cathedral
Square of the Kremlin and soaking in remaining Red Square views. The various
cathedrals were all used by the tsars for different ceremonies and events. They
have been beautifully preserved as museums. As with the other parts of the
Kremlin, no pictures were allowed inside. **********
All in all, we 5 (me, Dad, AT, Franny, and GiGi)
had a wonderful time. It was unseasonably warm (in the 30s!) and beautifully
lit. I would happily go back to see St. Basil’s and those Faberge eggs again,
especially since this trip was so blissfully blood disorder-free.
Dosvedanya, Moscow! Happy 2020!***********
-KT
*Yes. The only person who got a point this trip
was Dad. AT and I are selfless human beings who do nothing but give. You’re
welcome, Mr. 106.
**I also now own her lifelong collection of free
“Lancome gift with purchase” moisturizers and her incredibly stubborn need to
prove she is right. I am certain that neither supply will ever run out.
***Because it’s cold and it’s Christmas and
haven’t you already been there and it's far.
****I did not pack my happy lamp for this trip
but am very excited to get back home to it.
*****Beef Stroganoff not pictured. Enjoy this
one from a different meal.
******Though this is not a rule I have always
obeyed, Russia did not seem like the right country to test for a picture you
could google if you really cared.
*******ALMOST. I have OPINIONS.
Iolanta and The
Nutcracker were both written at the same time and premiered within a
few weeks of each other. The Nutcracker was famously panned
when it premiered but for some reason people liked the opera. As I’m sure
you’re unaware, the story is not-so-briefly this: a king is raising his blind
daughter, Iolanta, so that she doesn’t know she is blind. Everyone in her
acquaintance has been instructed to not bring it up and anyone that does will
be killed. This has been going on for 20ish? years. Naturally, Iolanta is
betrothed to a duke no one has ever met who doesn’t know she is blind. A doctor
is brought in but says she cannot be cured unless she first finds out she is
blind and the King doesn’t want to tell her because that will make her sad.
That same day, the betrothed (who loves another, #obvs) and his BFF arrive to
this random castle in the forest (that I guess is unmarked because they don’t
know where they are or that it’s the home of his fiancé that he’s never met)
and meet Iolanta. Or at least the BFF does right after he sings an aria about
desperately wanting to fall madly in love. And he falls madly in love. And then
discovers she’s blind. And then discovers she doesn’t know she’s blind. And
then he tells her she’s blind and that there is such a thing as seeing. And she
is confused. — Intermission— The King learns everyone has met and is going to
kill the BFF but is also like, cool, Iolanta can be cured now that she knows.
Except she doesn’t want to be cured and that is suddenly necessary for the
cure. So the King says he won’t kill the BFF if her blindness is cured so now
she wants to be cured and so she is cured. And then the entire cast, including
20 additional chorus members who have not ever been on stage until this moment,
sing a rather lengthy chorus of thanks be to god.
I felt there were some key components missing to
this story that could have been covered in missing arias. I have listed them
here for my own pleasure:
·
The chorus of maidens that
wait on Iolanta sing about how hard it is to never casually mention words like
“see” and “light” and “vision” and “day” and “sun.” Perhaps this could even be
a joke song where they almost say the word in front of her but then have to
justify it with some clever Russian pun.
·
The doctor could sing about
this magical cure for blindness he has discovered that seems to involve no
medicine and is based purely on the desire to get better.
·
People with other ailments
could sing about the hypocrisy of blindness being cured by wanting to see OR
children could all wish for ponies and we could discover there is a real pony
epidemic in this town OR someone could point out how they have lived happily
with an ailment even though they’re aware they have it.
·
Speaking of the town, why
are 30-40 people living in this unmarked castle and why doesn’t the betrothed
have at least some vague knowledge of where it might be? I could use a song
about that.
·
Someone could make a joke
in a song about the BFF so desperately wanting to be in love and then
immediately meeting a girl who cannot see and falling in love with her at first
sight and how he wanted it badly enough so it happened for him. Just like this
fancy new blindness cure.
·
Iolanta, upon learning that
blindness is a thing and she has it, should get at least 3 minutes of a song
where she is super pissed off that everyone she has ever known has been lying
to her for her entire life.
·
The chorus of 20 people
that has been on stage from the beginning should sing a song of introduction
for the chorus of 20 other people that randomly showed up for the last 5
minutes.
Whoa. Right?? Bananas. Also bananas if you made
it this far. I hope you got a snack, at least.
Honestly, this is just 10
minutes of brainstorming. Please let me know if we are ever rebooting Iolanta
for today’s times and I will make myself available for edits.
********Thank you, Kim! Super worth it!!
*********Communism continues to be an excellent
hypothetical concept.
**********They were at least as pretty as the
subway stations, I promise.
***********#tokyo2020, that is. Thank goodness
it's an Olympic year again.
