Christmas in Moscow!

I’ve wanted to go to Moscow for a while. AT and I went to St. Petersburg, Russia, almost 10 years ago but I’ve still wanted to eventually get to Moscow.* For this, I credit whatever high school history teacher I had for world history because I have a very clear mental picture of Rasputin, I have always been concerned about meeting and caring for a hemophiliac, and I have always wanted to see St. Basil’s Cathedral and Faberge eggs. But we never went because the timing wasn’t right or it was going to be too cold.

Which is exactly how we ended up in Moscow in December.

Last year, AT and I inherited my mom’s fur coats- Franny and GiGi** (seen below with a good luck dog). We joked that they should get to go on an elaborate trip together and Moscow for Christmas seemed like the perfect option. They should even get to see “The Nutcracker” on Christmas Day, while they were at it. The irony is that Mom would have never approved of this trip.*** But she knows that we know that and still would go anyway, and I think she’d have been happy for Franny and GiGi in the end. They had a wonderful time.

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 10^th 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.