A few days ago I took a walk. I started off east from our apartment, popped in a computer store to look at laptops (I'm afraid James' is on its last legs), then wandered past a pond (more like a large dirty puddle that a few people were staring into expectantly, of what I'm not sure), and into an old apartment subdivision. The buildings of the subdivision were blocky and drab, but the surroundings were beautiful. More trees than I've seen since Plum and Cabbage whisked me away to Подольск that weekend. People were out walking their dogs and pushing their kids in strollers (the weekend walk in the park is a strong tradition here), it was a beautiful corner of the city. I emerged close to the ring road and crossed it via the переход, a long underpass that usually has stalls selling music, sunglasses, baked goods, magazines, lingerie, mp3 players, etc. Sometimes there's a 6-lane (or 8-lane, nobody seems to know) road to cross and no переход, in which case, as Plum says, you had to be born on the right side of the street.

I walked along the ring road a little ways, past clothing boutiques and themed coffee houses, and took a right on Цетной Бульвар. A бульвар (bul'var) seems to be a long stretch of road with a park in the middle and blini/ice cream stands at intervals, where businesspeople spend their lunchbreaks and friends go to hang out and drink beer (at all hours of the day...it might as well be Sprite here). Цетной empties out a few blocks north of the Kremlin in an old, pedestrian part of the city. A lot of the buildings there look like they could be in Vienna (they have the same sorts of sculptured flourishes and pastel colors), except they're about 3 times too big.

I walked down towards the Kremlin, the shops getting posher with every block, and ended up near where Baked Beans and I stood and watched the Victory Day parade. I passed the Duma (the federal legislature, a building that's immense and completely inscrutable save for a little plaque out front), and took a right on Большая Никитская, a beautiful street lined with coffee houses, florists' shops (classy artistic ones, not the 24-hour apology-boquet kiosks around Новослободская), and onion-domed churches. I stuck my head in the Bol'shoy theater, but I think it's under construction and out of commission for a little while longer.

I have to go meet my exam class at Кофе Хауз (that's Coffee House, spelled phonetically...kind of like the Russian Starbucks), but that was pretty much the end of my walk. Down another бульвар, past an outdoor Christian rock concert (I had no idea what was going on until someone handed me a pamphlet and I sounded out the Cyrillic and found some words that were vaguely like Jesus Christ), into the Pushkinskaya metro, and home.


Yesterday morning, there was a message on my facebook wall that said "rhubarb, have a great week. tretyakovka was fun."