Russia- Summer 2018 in photos

After much deliberation (as usual), we decided to go to Russia- Moscow & St. Petersburg, in the summer of 2018.

Russia wasn’t, as I expected, cold and grey. It was in fact really bright (think 10 pm sunsets in Moscow, 1 am in St. Petersburg), colourful, and bustling with tourists, especially due to the upcoming FIFA World Cup, which was to be hosted in Moscow.

This post is meant to be a sort of photo journal of my strongest memories from the trip. It isn’t a travel guide or such. (If you’re into suggestions and information, a good place to visit would be my mother’s Facebook page, Journeys Imagined, where she thoroughly documents all our trips.)

Day One

  A walk around the red square at twilight

Day Two

The Kremlin, The Bolshoi Theatre, St. Basil’s Cathedral, Ivan the Great Bell Tower

Inside the Cathedral

Change of guards at the Kremlin

The Bolshoi Theatre

Ivan the Terrible’s Bell Tower inside the Kremlin complex

Day Three

A quiet day spent in a wood on the outskirts of Moscow, with friends

Day Four

Ismailov flea market & a boat ride on the Moskva

The next day we flew up north to St. Petersburg

Day Five

St. Isaac’s Cathedral

Day Six

The Hermitage Museum, lunch at Kazan Mangal- a Georgian restaurant, Kazan Cathedral, Church of the Saviour on Blood, walking along the canal & grocery shopping on Nevsky Prospekt

Hermitage was beautiful and extremely opulent, which led to us getting rather satiated after visiting only a few rooms.

Lunch at Kazan Mangal (“Mangal” means barbecue in Georgian)

Kazan Cathedral & Nevsky Prospekt, the main street in St. Petersburg. The photo of Nevsky was taken at around  9 pm.

Church of the Saviour on Blood

Day Seven

Peterhof Palace

Day eight

Peter & Paul Fortress & museums within the complex

My favourite within the complex, the Museum of Cosmonautics & Rocket Technology

Yuri Gagarin memorabilia

“Earth is the cradle of reason, but you cannot live in a cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (a Soviet rocket scientist)

Recreation of Valentin Glushko’s office

The Museum of Space Exploration housed an amazing amount of history, including recreations of the offices of several Soviet rocket scientists, newspapers announcing the first successful human spaceflight, vintage photos, rocket parts, Yuri Gagarin memorabilia and more.

The following day we took another flight back to Moscow.

Day Nine

The same evening, we went to a friend’s country house for dinner

Day Ten

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, The Gallery of 19th & 20th Century European & American Art, Gorky Park.

Pushkin & the Gallery of 19th & 20th Century European & American Art had a simply overwhelming collection of famous artwork, including Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Rodin, Renoir, Gaugin, Picasso, Degas, Matisse, Rembrandt, even a sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci, & tonnes more. I’ve obviously not included all here, but you can see more of it on my instagram, under the highlight “exhibitions etc”.

Cezanne- Peaches & Pears

Gaugin- What, Are You Jealous?

Degas’s famous ballerinas

Van Gogh- Prisoners Exercising

Renoir

Matisse

Monet

Picasso

Paul Helleu

On our last day in Russia we visited the traditional ceramic factory in the village of Gzhel, where we were given a tour and shown the process. We even attended a pottery painting workshop.

Final sights from Moscow

Lenin’s Mausoleum