After reading “A Gentleman in Moscow” a few years ago the modernist style historic Metropol Hotel in Moscow has been a place I have wanted to see and perhaps enjoy.  That time is now and we are finding the hotel delightful.  The Boyarsky (renamed Savva Restaurant in 2015)with its beautiful ceiling will open back up tomorrow for breakfast!  Meanwhile the Chaliapine Bar beckons.  Our first excursion was to the Bolshoi Theater across the street and a glimpse of Moscow revealed a modern vibrant city.

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Our waiter this morning introduces himself and asks about our journey. Yuriy is a handsome young Russian who loves literature and modern art and gives us recommendations for our stay.  He has lived in South Carolina and NYC and traveled west to visit Hawaii. He says “A Gentleman in Moscow” is not a favorite of Russians and asks why we liked it.

Moscow is the Kremlin and Red Square to me.  To the world it is the seat of government and embodies Russia’s long history of monarchy, tsars, wars, the Soviets and the Russian Orthodox Church. This huge fortress is filled with magnificent onion domed churches and impossibly huge cannons and gardens. I envision Putin looking down at it all from his office.  The history of it overwhelms.  Ivan the Terrible and his triumphs and reforms and local Muscovites burning their own homes to prevent Napoleon’s conquest of the city. It is the site of Lenin’s tomb and the resting place of the Romanovs.  27 million Russians died in WWII and 20 million during the Soviet purges all in a single decade in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  But the Russians persevere and flourish and tell their stories in the Kremlin and Red Square.

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Anya is 26 yrs old. She is a self-employed full time guide in Moscow.  She lives with her husband (IT guy) and young son in an apartment on the outskirts of Moscow and commutes via metro for work daily as do 9 million others in Moscow.  Her parents care for her son in the summer in their apartment also on the edge of Moscow.  Her grandfather built a 4 bedroom dacha outside the city that the family shares in the summer.  She is proud of her city and says Muscovites are living well with good salaries and the unemployment rate here is 1%.  It’s a safe clean city with lots of young people.  She and her husband save for their retirement and health insurance. She has a broad depth of knowledge of Russian art and history and worked one summer in Washington D.C. Her tour of the Tretyakov Gallery which was filled with 18th and 19th Century Russian Art was stellar and would impress my son John.

From the beautiful metro stations to the Tretyakov Gallery, it was a day for art.

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We topped off our Moscow stop with a lovely dinner with an old friend from our hometown, Jennifer,  who was a caregiver for our children in Greeley, studied Russia language at UNC, was in the Peace Corps in Russia and has stayed there for 22 yrs.  Fascinating evening.