Having 'done' Red
Square yesterday, we weren't entirely sure what to do with ourselves
today, so we opted for a relatively relaxed option – checking out
Pushkin Square, which was a pretty short walk from the hostel. So,
after another delicious pancake breakfast, we headed away from the
hostel in the opposite direction to usual.
After quick stops at
an ATM to get some more roubles and for Zoe to launch a coin into a
fountain while making a wish (a habit she has recently acquired –
the coins she finds herself, mostly 10 kopeks each, the equivalent of
about 0.01p) we stopped at a kids' playground for a while. The girls
have stubbornly refused to grow out of begging to explore every
playground they come across, no matter how age-inappropriate they
might be, and given that they spend an awful lot of their time being
dragged from pillar to post by parents who've refused to grow out of
wanting to visit every new country they see, we feel it's only fair
to indulge them as regularly as we can.
We then walked up a
very pleasant linear park between two busy roads until we reached
another playground... After dragging the girls away from this one, we
found ourselves in an area populated by small Christmas-market-style
wooden huts. The huts were all set up for selling fish, so we assumed
that this was a local fish market. There was even a tank containing
several sturgeon, a few catfish and what looked like a type of
mullet.
We were getting
hungry by then, so in the interests of furthering the girls' cultural
education, we visited the McDonald's across the road – apparently
the first and largest in Russia. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, so we
got takeaway and returned to the park, which was thoughtfully set up
with tables and chairs.
Temporarily sated,
we then explored an unusual installation nearby – a maze of enormous
coloured pencils, many of which bore plaques relating to types of
fish (what the connection was between coloured pencils and fish we're
still unsure). Crossing the road into Pushkin Square proper, we at
least partially solved the mystery of all of these fish-related
goings on. Apparently tomorrow is the first day of some sort of
'Russian Fish Week', and Pushkin Square itself had a large stage on
which concerts and the like were due to take place.
Several of the huts'
inhabitants were firing up grills but we were in a hurry to move on,
so we returned to McD's for some lunch and then headed down towards
central Moscow, eventually ending up outside the Bolshoi Theatre and
then passing the headquarters of the State Duma (the lower house of
the Russian Federal Assembly). As we got back onto familiar ground,
we entered a large building that Kate and I had earlier assumed was a
bank but turned out to be a very large and impressive toy store. The
girls descended on the Lego section, which had a couple of
colour-coded boards that you could fill in with blocks - a bit like
painting-by-numbers. Kate joined Zoe in working on a picture of a dog
and quickly became obsessed, continuing long after the girls had gone
off to pay with Barbies and racing cars.
We then headed down
to the upmarket supermarket downstairs to grab some supplies for
tomorrow, when we will be undertaking the first leg of the
trans-Siberian railway.
No comments:
Post a Comment