Today began my 4 day mini-vacation, as I am doomed by international conferences. The music library will be open again on Monday and I will be back to the grind, but my first stop today was the park/village at Kolomenskoe. According to my guidebook, which I would not take as the absolute truth considering it also states that Russians are not great walkers, the village has been around since at least the 1300s and that by the 1500s it was a "favourite country estate of the tsars." The park is truly beautiful, and in my opinion, even nicer than Tsaritsyno. It is less grand, but the grounds are almost fairytale like. There is a beautiful orchard and in the middle a lovely statue, surrounded by flowers, all of which I appear to be allergic to if my nose is any indication.
There are several churches on the grounds and they are beautiful as well, although I have yet to go in any of them as I do not want to be hypocritical or disrespectful. I will just admire the architecture from the outside. The large white one in the picture below was built in 1532 and the one with the blue domes was built in the 1600s. This park is also very quiet and there are lots of places to sit along the bank of the Moskva river and eat ice-cream or drink mead, or possibly both. They keep bees at the park and make mead from their honey, so it is readily available. It is a little different from the mead that we sometimes have at the medieval fairs as it is slightly carbonated and has a heavier taste. In Russian it is called medovukha (медовуха) and it comes in three different strengths - without alcohol, with some alcohol, and with more alcohol. It is very tasty in all three varieties.
I went shoe shopping (again) today and was unsuccessful. I wanted to buy a cheap pair of tennis shoes - something like Keds - but all of the shoes here are really expensive and I've discovered that flats are more than heels! Russian women and their heels have a special relationship I think. Why else would women willing torture themselves by walking down Moscow streets, which are very hard on shoes, wearing 5 inch heels? I actually overheard a conversation in a shoe store today where one woman asked her friend if the 5 inch platform heels that she was trying on were comfortable. The woman trying the shoes on replied that they were pretty comfortable. Really!? How is that possible?
Not only are the heels high, but they are sometimes very colorful - pink, aqua, purple, blue, yellow. Every color of the rainbow, in almost a 1980s style. In fact, and especially since I walked by an advertisement for an upcoming "Twisted Sister" concert, the entire place reminds me of the 1980s. People here are not afraid to wear bright colors and pointy-toed shoes. Blue eye shadow - not a problem - do you have it in "electric blue?" In general though, particularly among the women, there appears to be a playfulness in dress that the grunge of the 1990s made unpopular in the U.S. I don't know if Moscow has gone through its grunge stage already and they are back to embracing the neon and flash of the 1980s, or if maybe they never were truly able to embrace the 1980s and are making up for lost time. At any rate, the flash and modernity of the city makes for an interesting contrast with the quietness and subtle grandeur of parks like Kolomenskoe.
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