After climbing Mount Elbrus and visiting Sochi and Abkhazia, my last few days in Russia were spent in Moscow, visiting the capital’s main attractions. My red eye flight from Adler landed in the early morning hours, and I again took the convenient Aeroexpress train into the center of the city. It was far too early to check into the hotel, but the staff stored my bags while I went for a walk. First I walked back to Red Square and around the Kremlin. Most of the square was blocked off for an event, which meant that Lenin’s tomb and the Kremlin Wall Necropolis were closed.
Just upriver from the Kremlin is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The original church on this site was dynamited by the Soviets to make way for the massive Palace of the Soviets. After the concrete foundations were poured, WWII broke out and steel was redirected to wartime uses. Later, the foundation was converted into the Moscow Pool, the world’s largest open-air swimming pool. In the waning days of the Soviet Union, permission was granted to reconstruct the cathedral in even grander style, and this is the structure that stands today.
Adjacent to the Kremlin on the east side of Red Square is the GUM department store. During the Soviet Era, this store was the only one in Russia to have no shortage of Western goods, though only the rich could afford to shop here. Today, it is a luxury shopping mall.
During my visit to Moscow, I made a point of visiting all Seven of the “Seven Sisters” – Stalinist skyscrapers built to establish Moscow as one of the world’s great cities. Some are residential, like the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building, others serve as Government offices or hotels.
The largest and grandest of the skyscrapers is the main building of Moscow State University. Until the 1970s, it contained classrooms, offices, and dormitories for the University’s entire population. Some facilities have been relocated as the campus has grown, but the building still serves its original function. Until 1990, it was the tallest building in Europe at 787 ft (240m).
On the east side of Moscow there are three train stations arranged around Komsomolskaya Square, each named for the final destinations of the trains leaving from there – Leningrad (northwest), Kazan (west), and Yaroslavl (northeast). Two more Stalinist skyscrapers are nearby – the Hilton Hotel Leningradskaya and the Red Gates Administrative building.
I spent half a day at VDNKh, a massive exhibition in the northern part of the city. Its name in English translates to “Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy,” and it lives up to that name. The main avenue has buildings for each of the Soviet Republics, designed in their respective architectural styles. In the next section, there are pavilions for every conceivable profession or scientific discipline. Obvious stars of the Soviet economy – aviation, agriculture, and atomic energy – are up front, but the side streets include disciplines like horse breeding and hydrometeorology. Moscow’s bike rental system makes it easy to explore the massive exhibition center and attached park.
Near the front gate of VDNKh is the real reason I made the trip out – Vera Mukhina’s Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. This statue of an industrial worker and a peasant woman was originally built for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, but was moved to this plinth after that exhibition’s conclusion. It is one of the most prominent examples of Socialist Realism in art, and appears in art history textbooks around the world.
I wish I could have explored Moscow even more. The capital has a long list of attractions that I wasn’t able to visit during my short stay. But it was time to check out of my small hotel room and catch a train back to the airport. The flight back involved an overnight stop in Helsinki, then a further stop in Paris before returning home.
