Moscow 2011

День Победы!
Today is the day! Victory Day! Today is the 66th anniversary of the allied victory of WWII. I didn't wake up in time to see the parade, but if you google "Victory Day Parade" I'm sure that you'll be able to see some amazing videos. Last year was the first year that the Russians invited other allied soldiers to march with them in the parade. I believe the Americans, and the British came, I'm not sure who else was there with them. So today I woke up and met with a small part of our group to go check out what was going on downtown. We hopped on the metro and got off maybe 10 blocks from Red Square. The streets were full of vendors selling Russian and Soviet flags, they also had flags that had "С Днём Победы" (Day of Victory) and "9 мая" (may 9th) written on them, they also had berets adorned with Soviet pins, and the traditional orange and black striped ribbons were everywhere. I hadn't eaten lunch, so a few of us ran into the nearest Макдоналдс (McDonald's) and had myself a Курица бекон Лук (chicken bacon onion) с картофел фри (french fried potatoes). Let me tell you, that was the best McDonalds I ever had. The fast food here is phenomenal! The fries taste like real potatoes, the meat is real meat, the soda uses real sugar, the ketchup uses real tomatoes. It's so good. After lunch we pushed on towards Red Square. Security was tight. There were security checkpoints with metal detectors at every different section. Once inside we were good though. Red Square was closed, apparently you had to have tickets to be there for the parade, and they were probably cleaning up after the parade. Instead we walked around the street that goes around the square. All along the way we passed by Soviet veterans adorned with metals, some more than others. Some I don't know how they were still standing upright they had so many medals. With each one we all kindly said "Спасибо большой" (big thanks/ thank you very much) People were giving them flowers to take pictures with them, so we bought some flowers and took a few pictures with one of them. We continued on past Theater Square and stopped so the birthday girl could get a balloon (the birthday girl was Molly, she turned 20 today [Happy birthday Molly!!]) She got a tiger balloon and named it Мороженое (ice cream) While she stopped and got her balloon we saw some old women yelling at each other, Natalia (the girl with our group from the Ukraine who speaks fluent Russian) told us that one of them who was selling replica newspapers from 1945 was a Stalinist, and the other wasn't.The one who wasn't was yelling at the other saying "The Russian people were never for Stalin! Your name is ____ (I don't remember, it was Stalin's last name also, "Stalin" was his nickname, meaning 'man of steel')." From there we went further and found a small park that we stopped and took a break in. Before we stopped Natalia and I came across a few old veterans to whom we told Спасибо большой and to which they replied Приаздник (holiday) and we shook hands (that was awesome). No matter what your political opinion might be, these men fought and died just as hard as any other soldiers and deserve every ounce of respect as the rest of the veterans of that great war (great as in big). After our break I found a Russian army surplus store (big smile!) while the girls went to the bathroom and got coffee (clearly we had some time to kill) Greg and I were like kids in a candy store (Greg is one of the grad students, he was in the Air Force for 6 years as a pilot, great guy). After that we walked towards St. Basils Cathedral, and saw some girls on the street who were singing, it was really cool. I imagined myself walking down that very street in 1945 after the war, imagining the streets full of people singing and dancing. We stopped in front of St. Basils cathedral for some pictures and then walked along the Moscow river till we got to the Cathedral of Christ the redeemer. Natalia and I were ahead of the group and we jaywalked across the street (something we had become accustomed to in Moscow, laws are kind of loosely enforced here) We were met on the other side by a Russian Полицейски (policeman) who tried to make us each pay a 200 ruble fine. We both said Извините (I'm sorry) and he said, Не извините, 200 рублей (No "I'm sorry", 200 rubles). Natasha said, Sorry, we're not from here (in russian) to which he replied, we all live on this earth we have to follow the rules. We walked away and he followed us for a short while but then discontinued pursuit. Lol. (200 rubles is like 3-5 bucks). After that Natalia and I were on our own because we told the group not to follow our lead. We walked across the bridge and found our way to this little art park across from the statue of Peter (the great?) who was the founder of the Russian Navy. The park had statues of various sorts, and carvings. There were people selling plants and trees. Since it was victory day the park was free, usually it cost 20 rubles (less than a dollar). We then started our long journey to find a metro station, stopping every five minutes or so to look at our metro map and to say "There has to be one around here somewhere! You can't walk that far in Moscow without there being a metro station!!" Well, apparently you can. Because after an hour or so and walking a few miles we found our way back near Red Square and Библиотека им. Ленина (Library (something) Lenin) Phew, as we walked down towards the trains there was one there and we started to walk faster, and Natalia said, "We can make it, go, go!" and so I did, and just as I was about to get on the train, the doors slammed shut right in my face!! We had a good hearty laugh to relieve the stress of walking miles upon end to find the metro, and then we waited for the next metro. We then go on the train and went back to meet the rest of our group at Планета Суши (Planet Sushi) for Molly's Birthday dinner. That was delicious. After dinner we all went over to the overlook that we had visited a few days before on the bus tour to watch the fireworks with about 250,000 other people. I had never been so close to a fireworks display (салют). The first boom sent a shockwave through the crowd and everyone screamed like a bomb had just gone off. It was intense. The firework show only lasted about 12 minutes (nothing like what we're used to) but the emotions in the air were powerful enough to compensate. Fathers held their children on their shoulders, and there were rounds of "Oooh's and Aaah's and Ураааа!! (hooray). My favorite was the drunk guy behind me in a tired but enthusiastic voice "ураааа!" (draining out as he went). After that I went back to my room and fell asleep. Today was indeed a good victory day!

a travel blog by tdurante42489

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