Mingling with the greats

Despite being in the capital, today we decided to take a break from gold and marble and wonderful artwork (perhaps reinforcing further the status of art philistines). In practice this meant we had the difficult job of avoiding large buildings, museums and churches, and instead headed South of the river, to try and escape the major tourist crowds and see Moscow outside of the Kremlin.

After dropping in on what must be one of the most extensively staffed supermarkets we've ever seen (so much so one member of staff was cleaning the intrinsic workings of the scales) we found the parks.

Despite an extensive amount of, again highly staffed, building work (and possibly arguments with the architects) going on the in the area, we found the park of fallen heroes (the graveyard of statues of soviet leaders) only to find them obscured by wire fencing.

So to Peter the Great it was, but he was also unreachable due to building work, so third time lucky we headed to Gorky park and enjoyed relaxing in green space, enjoying the fountains and generally having a good time. Deciding against hiring roller skates (anyone who has witnessed Rhys ice skating will understand why, anyone who hasn't think bambi on ice with more fear in his eyes and you're not far off), we tracked down lunch in an amazing cafeteria styled place with incredible interiors.

And a another somewhat great, sat on the Moscow Metro and who do we find opposite us but Paula Radcliffe. Now either it was actually or a poor woman on the metro thought we were completely mad staring at her. The latter is probably true either way (we did notice she avoided sitting opposite us after we changed trains) but hey it's not every day you find a recognisable face on a foreign underground.

The late afternoon was spent enjoying the views across the city, searching out a more touristy area for a look, not to mention...train ticket collection and stocking up at the supermarket!!! That's right this time tomorrow we should be on the train bound for Mongolia with four days on rails ahead of us. But before then there's lots to be doing in Moscow.

Peter the Great & a Sculpture

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Gorky Park Fountains

Views across the City