Susan's Shanghai Blog

Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 49

On one of the last nights, one of the other IBMers and I got tickets to the Russian National Dance Show called "Kostroma", which was performed by the Russian National Ballet Company 'Kostroma'. The program says that it offers a compelling insight into the traditions, culture, and history of Russia. It included various dances and over 300 different costumes. We weren't supposed to take pictures I don't think, but I did take a few throughout the show.

The show was actually held in the Cosmos hotel, which, interestingly enough, has a statue of Charles de Gaulle in front. The statue was erected by the Russians in honor of the French architect who designed the building. The ribbon-cutting ceremony of the monument was held on Victory Day, 9 May 2005. The President of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the President of France Jacques Chirac were present.

The Monument to the Conquerors of Space was erected in 1964 to celebrate achievements of the Soviet people in space exploration. It depicts a starting rocket that rises on its contrail. The monument is 350 feet tall, has 77� incline, and is made of titanium. The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is located inside the base of the monument. The grand opening of the monument took place on October 4, 1964, on the day of the 7th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch. The main part of the monument is a giant obelisk topped by a rocket and resembling in shape the exhaust plume of the rocket.

Now the pictures of the show ... I won't really provide commentary, since I can't really tell you what any of these dances or traditions are.

The Russian White House is a government building on the Krasnopresnenskaya embankment. Construction started in 1965 and ended in 1981 (WOW!!!). Originally called The House of Soviets, it was designed by the architects Dmitry Chechulin and P. Shteller. Originally, it was used by the Supreme Soviet of Russia and then as the seat of the Russian parliament after the end of the Soviet Union. The White House now houses the Russian government. An inscription at the base of the tower reads, "House of the Government of the Russian Federation."

Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoi Boulevard was the only circus in Moscow between 1926 and 1971 and still remains the most popular one.

I think this is the statue of Yuri Nikulin, who was a well-known Soviet and Russian actor and clown who starred in many popular films. This was near the restaurant we went to our final night in Moscow. The team of people are Jun Guo Ku (standing), then Fernando Ewald (sitting up in the back seat), Jan Bajerski (front seat left side) and Kris Kobylinski (front seat right side, waving), and me in the back (the only girl). Then in the 3rd picture is Anton Litvinov, who was the local Russian team member who went to dinner with us.

One weekend a few of us also went out to Kolomenskoye, which is a former royal estate that overlooks the Moscow River. The first structure we came across was the Savior Gates and the Strelets Guardhouses. The gates were built in 1670 along with the walls of the Tsar's court. The guardhouses were added in 1680. According to the sign that was there, in 1814 the gate was dismanteled and only restored in 2007.

There was a woman just inside the gate, I assume giving information on the estate to the Russian-speaking visitors. Nice outfit :-)

There was a lovely church there, the Church of Our Lady of Kazan, dating from the 17th century.

Then another set of gates

This household outbuilding was built early 18th centry and belonged to the country palace of Tsar Peter I (Peter the Great). It was one of the few wooden buildings that survived the Moscow fire of 1812 (when Moscow was burned to keep Napolean from taking over the city). It was moved here in the mid 1920's.

The Ascension church dates from 1532 and was built in white stone to commemorate the long-awaited birth of an heir to the throne, the future Ivan the Terrible. Being the first stone church of tent-like variety, the uncanonical "White Column" (as it is sometimes referred to) marked a stunning break from the Byzantine tradition.

The view of the river and the Moscow skyline.

Wooden church of St. George is from the seventeenth century, and looked kinda cool. The only way to look inside was to buy a museum ticket with all of the information in Russian, so we passed.

As we were heading over to the sand sculptures, there was a honey market, so of course, we had to walk thorough. Those of us who are used to seeing honey as a nice, gooey yellow-good sticky liquid would be confused and curious. The honey comes in these big tubs, and it is basically a white paste. They had hundreds of stalls and each stall normally had 6-10 buckets of different kinds of honey. We kinda mosey-d through until we had one person who called to us in English, so of course we went over, tested a couple, and bought a little bit. They take a little tupperware kind of plastic container, scoop out some paste, and then weigh it. I only picked up a little, enough for a couple days of honey sandwiches!

Now, the reason we went to Kolomenskoye Estate in the first place, a sand sculpture exhibition. The very first week I was in Moscow, I was reading The Moscow News and there was an article on a sand sculpture exhibit. Thi was the 5th year of this, and this year included artists from Russia, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. This years' theme was "The Great History of Russia" and all of the sculpture depicted Russian battles and historical greats. All of the signs were in Russian, so you can see them but I can't tell you much about them.