Why, Hello There Mr. Pushkin. May I Buy You a Drink?

After missing the Mayakovsky museum on Saturday, Susan and I decided to do a full day of museums on Sunday. And what better to do than hit both Tretyakov Galleries in one day. A noble feat, I assure you. For you see, the reason there are two Tretyakov museums instead of one is that they ran out of room. After remodeling. And expanding. Multiple times. One even has a cathedral in the middle of the building. Right. In other words, its massive. And now up there with my favorite museums of all time. Perhaps even number one. The first museum includes art from around the 1200s until around the twentieth century. The second museum picks up from there and continues until the present day. So, we will start from there.

We got lat start due to an angry ticket lady who kept screwing up Susan's metro pass until Susan went off at her in Russian (with English curse words mixed in). It is miraculous how quickly your Russian improves when you are upset. Anyways... The first Tretyakov museum is about a 5 minute walk from, you guessed it, the Tretyakov metro. We got lost because, well, I mistook the museum for a very, very pretty mall (I'm serious, its huge), but eventually we found it. After waiting in line forever to put up our coats, we were able to slip on our little plastic booties and head off. Oh, and ladies (ie. Claire and Grace), don't believe the signs about ticket prices. Show your RUSSIAN student ID, don't say a word, and you will get in for a measly 60 rubles instead of the 150 rubles they usually charge.

I decided I would write down the names of my favorite artists and paintings so that I could get prints of them later. About 6 rooms in and I had run out of room to write on my hand. I wandered into one room and found the portrait of Pushkin. I mean, THE portrait. And promptly swooned. I think I scared the people around me with my high pitched squells and flailing. It was what seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time should have been. Anyways, we made our way through the museum, stopping at our favorites and making fun of others. My favorite piece (ever, not just in this museum) is the Princess Tarakanova drowning in her cell. I probably stood in front of it for a half an hour and then, literally, almost cried when I had to leave. Susan's was the painting of Ivan the Terrible holding his dying son which is also in my top 5. Look up some of these paintings online. Oh, and The Unequal Marriage as well. I ran across a full length painting of Pushkin by the seaside on our way out. Susan and I made plans to distract the desjornia and steal it... We were only able to spend about 4 hours in the museum in order to make it to the second one before it closed, but I will definitely be going back.

We decided to stop by Yalki Polki (an inexpensive, traditional Russian restaurant) on our way to the second museum, but it was very crowded. We tried a couple other Russian restaurants on our way, but they too were full. Finally, we gave up and went to McDonalds. Sigh. The world it against us.