Maslenitsa Continued

Farewell, Maslenitsa. Farewell to medovyka and dancing Misha bears. Farewell to hot air balloons, snowmen, and candied roosters. You shalt be dearly missed. Maslenitsa is officially over. Not more excuses to eat massive amounts of blini or burn straw dolls. But, it was fun while it lasted.

Last Saturday (the last of February), everyone parted ways to do their own version of Maslenitsa – a group went to Suzdal for one of their organized excursions and everyone else just slept. But I refuse to be deterred! Still in my “I am a strong, independent woman” phase (which is really just an excuse not to sound pathetic), I decided to take a section of the city and do everything that could be done. Thus, I woke up early and headed out west of the Red Square. After thinking I was lost, but prevailing thanks to my lovely guidebook, I went to the pretty, yellow church with the freakishly imposing interior where Pushkin got married. They were in the middle of some type of service, so I backed away slowly and walked around the little park right outside. There is a large statue of the happy newlyweds looking anything but happy. While the church was not nearly as cool as I hoped, it made me giggly nonetheless. Pushkin, swoon...

Directly across the street from the Church of the Great Ascension is the Gorky-House Museum. Long listed as one of the top 20 places to see in Moscow, the building housed Gorky for the last five years of his life and acted as a writers' club of-sorts during the 1930s. The architecture is quite amazing (it was built in Style Moderne with an enormous marble staircase in its center), it did not live up to its reputation. Nevertheless, it was “bez platno” (free), which makes its worth going to.

To finish off the little cluster of historical funness, I went to Alexei Tolstoy's house, located directly behind the Gorky House-Museum. The lesser-known family member of Leo Tolstoy, Alexei Tolstoy was a historical writer (with the likes of Peter I to his credit) and Deputy of the Supreme Soviet. The director of the house-museum was delighted at my visit (apparently, not many people go to the museum) and gave me a personal tour of the house – in Russian. And, wait for it – I understood most of it. (cue choir music) Yeah, I did. It was cool. And, being the only visitor, rules and red tape did not seem to apply to me. Which was also cool. The museum would have been quite disappointing without my little tour, but the desjornia knew all kinds of cool facts which made it interesting. Plus, there was lots of little puppets scattered around priceless, historical objects, which was quite entertaining. “Why yes, this is the first manuscript of Peter the First. And yes, that is Pinochle sitting on top of it. We haven't finished the whale yet, so the book will have to do for now...” Apparently, due to the lack of visitors, the museum also doubles as a children's theater of sorts. Now that is capitalism.

I still had hours before I was supposed to meet Jason's group in Kolomenskoe for a Maslenitsa party, so I picked a direction and starting walking. On the way, I passed the Moscow Operetta where The Count of Monte Cristo is playing (yes, entirely in Russian), a cool little church, the Archilogical Museum, and some other places before I ran into the Central Exhibition Hall and, thus, Red Square. All roads lead to the Red Square? Why yes, yes they do. I watched a changing of the guards outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; ate ice cream and my perquisite blini at the Menage (an overpriced, underground mall),;went to Red Square and had a look in some of the churches; went to the Maslenitsa party; visited the State Historical Museum; and listened to a guy dressed in Medieval clothing play the accordion (they seem to be a fan of accordions here...). And all of this before 2 o'clock. Oh yes, I am really that good.

Eventually, I made my way to Kolomenskoe where Jason decided to not go to the Maslenitsa party (ok, so he was sick, but still – Jason, I am going to start dragging you our of your room). Tsk tsk. While the main celebration in on Sunday (the official first day of spring), there are festivals all weekend. I met up with the GRINT group and we were shown around Kolomenskoe by a lady dressed like a Medieval noblewoman (I think I am sensing a theme...). I love Kolomenskoe. It is the former residence of Peter the Great and former site of the wooden palace that used to be called by many as the 8th wonder of the world. Only a couple of churches and building remain, and the rest of grounds is a park so large it stretches down to the Moscow River. I would show you pictures, but my camera is ornery and doesn't like to work. Sigh.

After our little tour of Kolomenskoe with much talk about beards being stored in celery (hehe – don't ask), we were treated to an interactive theater of sorts. It was a blast. Now, generally, I am not a fan of organized excursions, but this was pretty awesome. We walk into the museum (wearing our approved, plastic museum shoes, of course) and get taken into this room up the stairs. On the way, we are handed a giant straw doll. We walk into the room and are immediately greeted by a group of women, dressed in (you guessed it) more medieval costumes and singing Russian folk music. Oh, and don't forget the guy in laderhosens with his accordion. The ladies grab us with out straw doll and pull us into a dance, singing all the while. I will try to see if I can find the songs online, because it was really very beautiful.

After our dance, we are greeted by our “hostess” (another noblewoman) and led to tables. The hostess begins by explaining to us the history of Maslenitsa (in Russian) which our guide brokenly translates. The other women occasionally break out in song and serve us massive amounts of blini and tea. At random intervals, they grabbed one or two of us from the table and made us do something. I was an evil stepsister and then a smitten young girl. Of course, we were supposed to act our parts, which led me to literally throwing myself on my “love” (who happened to be Russian and, thus, completely freaked out). But the best part, by far, was the dancing Misha bear. One of the guys was pulled aside, handed a bear costume to put on and told to dance. He just happened to know the Russian dance (the one where you cross your arms, crouch down and throw your legs out – very difficult), which he then proceeded to do, to the delight of our hostess and her servants turned gypsies. They were quite enamored with him. Eventually, we were led outside and bid adieu.

On my way home, I get a call from Francesca who wants to go see a movie. As I am completely hyped from the trip to Kolomenskoe, I agree and we literally run the length of Arbat for fear of being late (not a good idea for my poor knee). We get to the theater, find out that nothing is playing in English and all the Russian movies look like crap (imagine a Russian version of Dumb and Dumber). So instead, we decide to walk around on Arbat (which looks like Vegas in many ways) where I am mistaken for a prostitute two times within 5 minutes. But that is besides the point...

As generally happens when I don't know what to do, we head into Dom Knigi – the biggest book store in Moscow – and peruse their selection until it closed. We head back to the university with no movies but way too many books than can be considered healthy (they were cheap! What did you expect me to do?).

And then there was spring...