From Москва, With Love

доброе утро! Somehow, in some fairytale imagination of a way, I've ended up in Russia on a family vacation. I admit that I landed here with a pretty blank slate of expectations. Sure, my high school education at the very least briefed me about the Soviet years, and I've had a longstanding love affair with Russian literature (Nabakov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy), and the first composition I ever truly fell in love with was Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (secret revealed: Swan Lake was also the first real piece I learned to play on the piano; sub-secret: I studied piano for years). But, despite a personal affinity for Russian arts, I knew very little about modern day Russia. I had little expectation or much anecdotal experience to go off of (and, truthfully, the bits and pieces that had been shared with me in anticipation of this trip did the exact opposite of encouraging or exciting me). Just a few days into my trip, I've become rather enamored with this place, and I'm perhaps even flirting with the idea of actually learning a new language (number six?) so that I can read some of my favorite writers in the way they had intended to be read. I want to get back behind a baby-grand with a row of satiny blacks-and-whites. And, damn, do I want to learn how to walk in a pair of stilettos (because I struggled with these on the way from dinner at Pushkin) on a cobblestone street, (not that I am trying to indulge any spy fantasies, or anything).

The city of Moscow is so colorful (this has been, perhaps, the most surprising thing to me - in terms of architectural landscape). The mid-century metro stations are works of art, and the boulevards are expansive, and the parks are lush and overflowing with greenery, and the jewels in the Kremlin are the most glittery I've ever seen in the world... (more glittery than a pair of Miu Miu FW11 heels. Really.) If you have a wanderlist, add it; now.
















Next up, St. Petersburg! Here we come!