As you can see, Moscow is located in the Western part of Russia (Eastern Europe), which makes it very easy to travel from and boy have we traveled! Lots more adventures to come, in and out of Russia.
I wanted to give you a better idea of what Christmas and winter is like here in Moscow as some of you may only expect the worse! It really can be quite beautiful and festive here! Our first Christmas and winter here in Moscow has been wonderful. Lots of meals and drinks shared with our new Canadian and non-Canadian friends! We were supposed to go on a "Troika" adventure this past weekend, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to lack of snow! The adventure takes place in the forest about a 1.5 hour car ride outside of Moscow where we would go on a three-horse drawn sleigh ride followed by a shashlik (like shish kebab) picnic in the forest with folklore music and then departure to our datcha (normally the word for a summer house or cottage) for an overnight stay. If we manage to reschedule for another time I'll add the photos to this post later.
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| The top banner says "happiness in the new year" and the bottom sign is what they say for "Happy New Year" greetings |
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| They love lights here and this is a huge Christmas ornament near Red Square that changes colours. |
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| This is the "Goom" (ГУМ) located in Red Square - an upscale shopping centre. |
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| Skating on Red Square |
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| Red Square with "Goom"on right |
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| Booths on Red Square selling souvenirs and food |
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| "Ded Moroz" and "Snegarochka" - means Grandfather frost and his maiden sidekick! lol The Russian version of North America's Santa Claus and his elves. You'll see several different versions of these two - especially near Red Square where you can pay to have your photo taken with them. |
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| These gorgeous, hand-painted wood carvings of Ded Moroz and other figures are sold at markets everywhere. I received one for Christmas! Don't you just love them Maureen??? | | | | | | | |
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| My Christmas Ded Moroz, a music box and nutcracker wine bottle holder |
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| Craig and I NYE |
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| The NYE dress |
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| NYE fireworks from the British "flat" we were invited to - fireworks by Red Square |
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| A few of the ladies - left to right - me, Ria (The Netherlands), Leni (Finland) and Elisa (USA - my English teaching partner here) |
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| Carl's (British Attaché) own fireworks outside their apartment |
Gorky Park skating area
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| Huge skating area at Gorky Park. It goes on and on, this is just a small part... we have tried THREE times to skate here, but haven't yet. It's amazing how fast these structures go up because none of that is there in the summer. The day I took these pictures I was just walking around with my neighbour, Shirly and it would have been THE perfect day to skate there because, as you can see, it wasn't busy. This was before it got too warm and the ice melted, but now it's -20, so we will try again! |
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| This is a walkway built around the skating area for people to observe the skaters. Those people you see on the walkway are workers painstakingly cleaning the walkway of snow. |
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| We finally made it skating in Gorky Park! |
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| Only -13, but with windchill, -21. Entrance gate behind me. It's a great skating area we can walk to, but today we took a taxi. |
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| Posing like a Russian! I love it! |
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| He was grabbing me "you know where" in this shot! lol |
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| hee hee - darn gate |
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| Craig practicing his lounging (as we will be doing one week from today) on the "Ostrov" - Island |
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| Two pandas skating at Gorky Park |
Park Pobedy - Victory Park
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| Shirly (in the middle - you can tell because she's the Canadian smiling) at the ice sculpture park at Park Pobedy (Russian: Парк Победы - Victory Park). In the summer this is a peaceful park, but with the ice sculptures it was jammed packed with families - thus the reason why there's other people in this photo because it was very busy! |
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| I think this is one of the "Seven Sisters"buildings in ice. |
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| It was a very hazy day when Shirly and I were out seeing the ice sculptures |
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| A replica of the Bolshoi Theatre |
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| Tsar Bell of ice |
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| Tsar Bell of bronze within the Kremlin grounds. There was a fire as the bell was being constructed and fearing damage, workers poured water on it causing it to crack and for this huge slab to break off. |
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| In the ice park people were going around in these vehicles that were like Flinstone vehicles because the people inside are walking...bizarre! |
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Some of the Canadian gang at our place for a big turkey dinner on the 30th December
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