Re: Trip to Russia - Day 3 (Bunch of Kiddy Coasters)
Part 4 - Last Day in Moscow
Since I'd "done" the main touristy stuff in the city centre - despite Moscow being enormous, the main sites are pretty concentrated around one area - I decided to take the metro slightly further out to see some other ****, starting with Novodevichy Convent.
It was absolutely pissing down with rain, meaning I ended up buying a cheap, **** umbrella at a ludicrously inflated price. This brings the total number of cheap, **** ty, yet expensive, umbrellas bought and abandoned in foreign lands to approximately 63.
The convent itself was about a 15 minute walk from the metro station, and was actually really nice despite the weather. Actually, because of the weather, there was basically nobody around. The churches are only open when there's a service on, so I didn't go inside anywhere, but it was a nice place to just wander around for a bit. There's a huge cemetery at the back which is full of famous people. I was tempted to hunt down Anton Chekhov, but then realised that I couldn't be arsed, I never liked him anyway, and I wouldn't be able to read the tombstones.
Anyway, some pictures of the convent:
It stopped raining and, as if by magic, the Chinese tour groups arrived, so I made a swift exit back to the metro to head to another historic site: Kolomenskoye.
Kolomenskoye is a huge park, basically one of those outdoor museum type things, with guides dressed in traditional costumes and ****. There's some really old stuff there, but then they've added to it by relocating and reconstructing other stuff around it. The place is enormous, but I was only really interested in seeing the area with the original old stuff in it. Oh, I should just point out that Kolomenskoye and Novodevichy Convent are free to enter and walk around, but you've got to pay to go inside/take yours etc. I wasn't interested in any of that, so just had a wander.
This church and surrounding buildings are UNESCO listed.
The weather had really brightened up by this point, and the whole park was actually really, really nice. There were a few school trips around, but otherwise it was really quiet. Moscow on the whole was quite devoid of tourists once you move away from Red Square, and even there there's nowhere near as many as I would've thought.
Kolomenskoye also had the ubiquitous kiddy amusement area, but it was nicely tucked away from the main area of the park and closer to the metro station and apartment buildings. I knew there was a Big Apple here, and hoped to perhaps "discover" something else, but no.
It was still only lunch time by this point. I toyed with the idea of heading back into town and hitting one of the art galleries or museums, but I knew I'd be going to the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg later, and I'd already been to the Armories Museum in the Kremlin, so decided that that would be enough.
Instead, I chose to mop up the remaining kiddy coasters listed on RCDB. There were only two of them, and both and completely opposite sides of the city, but again I hoped there might be a couple of bonuses to pick up.
The first place was Maryinsky Park, a fairly large riverside park in a residential area. It was actually pretty far from the metro, made even worse by the fact that I went the wrong way at first and added an extra 20 minutes onto the walk. It was interesting to see where people actually live in Moscow, but the park was a DUMP.
It was strange that they'd even bother opening. I saw a woman with her kid leaving just as I arrived, but after that I was literally the only person in there other than the staff, who were just sitting around bored, or just wandering between rides to chat to other people.
Unfortunately, no surprise extra creds, so I had to make do with the Big Apple +1.
So, after taking around an hour to get here, I spent all of five minutes at the "park" before walking back up to the metro to head up to Park Severnoye Tushino, which was at the complete opposite end of Moscow and took close to an hour on the Metro.
Again, this was a riverside park in a residential area, but it was clear that the area was a lot more affluent as it was actually really nice. The park itself was lovely as an actual park, even though the amusement park area, while much bigger than the last one, didn't have a great deal of rides.
I never saw this running, but it looked a bit **** ed up:
There was another one in Saint Petersburg, so we'll get back to it later.
There were a few more people around than at the last place, but it was still really quiet. Let's play Spot the Bored Ride Op:
Did you find her? Yep, there she is!
Here's another one:
I was lucky enough to see the ride op for the 4D Theatre in action.
I don't know why these people were content with just 4D, when there are 5D and 7D cinemas not too far away in Ismaylovski Park.
This ride op was also extremely busy:
Spot the Bored Ride Op in this one?
As expected, there was just the Big Apple coaster here. It was all kind of disappointing having discovered two new bonus creds just the day before.
To make things slightly more interesting though, even the coaster has opportunities to play Spot the Bored Ride Op.
Again, after spending about 10 minutes here, I decided to leave. I decided to head to Gorki Park on the off chance that they'd have reinstated some coasters there. Also, it's kind of iconic, so I thought I'd check it out regardless. There were no coasters unfortunately, which was what I'd expected, but it's a really, really nice city park.
The view from the bridge heading over to the park - at one time there's have been CREDZ to be seen:
The best thing about Gorki Park, however, was that when I was crossing the bridge to get to it, I happened to look over to the other side and saw this:
On the way over to have a closer look, I walked past a park full of soviet sculptures.
The huge statue is more recent though, built in the '90s. The locals apparently hate it since it commemorates Peter the Great, who hated Moscow and moved the capital to Saint Petersburg. It's also been ranked within the top ten world's ugliest buildings. I thought it was **** ing amazing though.
It's hard to get a sense of scale from the pictures, but it was absolutely enormous. It's 315 feet tall, making it the 7th tallest statue in the world, and the tallest in the world outside Asia. To put it in perspective, The Statue of Liberty is 305 feet including the huge pedestal (the actual statue is about 150 feet).
I left the area via a different metro station and a huge statue of Lenin:
I ended up heading back to Red Square as I wanted to see it at night, but took a quick detour to the Bolshoi Theatre and Moscow Art Theatre first.
I'll finish up the Moscow part of this trip report with some pictures of Red Square, and the area just outside it, at night.
And that was my last day in Moscow. I thought the city was amazing, and so completely different to everywhere else in Europe. I'm not going to lie, it was hard work at times - nowhere near as much as, say, mainland China or rural Taiwan, but more so than anywhere else I've been in Europe. It's not so much the language barrier - I never expect people to speak English - but more the fact that so little information is even in English, and even people you'd expect to have a working knowledge (at airport check-in counters, ticket booths for famous tourist attractions etc.) don't at all. Don't get the wrong idea; it's not
difficult if you've got half a brain and aren't one of those people who can't leave the house without people telling you what to do, but it could be a bit of a shock to the system if you're used to spending time in places with a larger tourist industry.
Anyway, next up: Saint Petersburg, which will probably be a few days away as these updates are taking me **** ing ages and I'm already sick of doing it.
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