Today we got a late start, getting up at 11 AM. We made it back to the Kremlin, this time to see the center of Moscow from the inside. I finally got to take my photos of me over Red Square wearing my fur hat. Too bad there were no tanks rolling through that day. We saw several beautiful orthodox churches, including Saint Basil’s Cathedral. We saw the beautiful Diamond Gallery, with millions of dollars worth of diamonds, gold, and platinum and the former crown jewels of the czars. The Armory consisted of classic Russian weapons, armor, and the carriages of the czars.
For dinner, I finally got to try out some warm borscht, which was delicious, along with some Russian pierogi. Afterwards, we went to the ballet to see “Swan Lake”. It was far better than I had imagined it would be. Quite entertaining and well-acted. Reminded me a lot of “Black Swan” but not nearly as crazy. However, we were so far from the stage that I had to use my camera’s 12x zoom at the end to finally see the actors’ faces. It finished at around 11 PM, but the sun was still out! We were really close to the Arctic Circle, for sure.
We didn’t know where to go for drinks, so we just wandered around central Moscow (with Max furiously navigating) until we found a place. The bar we initially went to had old black and white films playing, but was empty and ridiculously expensive. Given Sunny’s love of serendipity, we went to an Azerbaijani restaurant for drinks that we had passed on our first day in Moscow. They had a drink that tasted like licorice that was quite good.
Unfortunately for Max, their beer tasted like piss. So Max and Sunny bought beers at a stand (no open container laws), hid them from the subway cops, and we headed back to the apartment. The cousins were still up and made food to share with us. Just before I went to sleep, they came over and I showed them tons of pictures of life in LA. They absolutely loved this and I went through all the pictures in my phone. Then they showed me some pictures of life around Moscow which seemed like material for personal YouTube videos anywhere (car videos moving a Lada, playing with animals, et cetera). I hope we keep in touch!