Moscow Part III

Friday night
I think we’ve done the absolutely required things in Moscow, and we’ve moved on to the part where we’re actually on vacation and relaxing instead of exhaustingly rushing about the

Saturday night
My attempt at blogging last night was interrupted by entrance into our hotel room of a disgustingly well-informed Russian girl who told us the history of every single building in Moscow and St. Petersburg, along with directions from the nearest metro stop. I thought I would just fall over asleep in the middle of her narration, but luckily I did not.
Today we: walked about while this Georgian restaurant we wanted to eat in was closed, saw lots of alarming upscale Moscow grocery stores, ate in the alarmingly up-scale restaurant and listened to cool Georgian music, went into the huge and unattractive Church of Christ the Redeemer, rebuilt by the crazed Moscow mayor in record time with robotic icon-painters in time for some anniversary of the city, went to “Victory Park,” where we saw a huge and menacing WWII memorial, lots of cold rain, lots of brides being photographed next to the previous two items, and a little, modernistic chapel with icons of all the more martial saints- Alexander Nevsky, George, Dmitry Donskoy, etc. There was also an icon, right in from on the alter in a place of honor, of Nicolas II and his family, Anastasia and all. Walked around Arbat St., came home, cooked pasta with boiling water from the chai-nik and ate it with canned peas and white beans. Oh, at some point we were in a puzzling Tolstoy museum. Why can’t it snow and not rain?
Leaving tomorrow morning. Greatly looking forward to meeting Margarita, of whom I have heard so much.