Moscow 2 - assorted architecture and art

I enjoyed my walks from the hotel to the metro and then to the university. Aside from the Christmas decorations I mentioned in my last about my January trip 10 months ago, I enjoyed the architectural motifs, the murals, the statues, and other works of art around the area. Here are some of the pictures I took that fit in that category:

Moscow State University's admin building. It's worth googling to see some amazing shots!

The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed - I was interested to learn that St. Basil's is only one of the domes here, and not even the largest.

Kazan Cathedral, also on the Red Square

This building is undergoing construction, so they put a screen up on it and at night this was projected on/through it. During the daylight I never knew this was the building I was passing.

A mural of Napoleon's defeat in the subway station

I stood staring at this building for a long time, noticing at every moment yet another decoration engraved on its surface. Doesn't look like much from this size - click to enlarge.

I appreciate the significance of a mural of people being watched under a magnifying lens in Moscow.

The church by the hotel

Of course there are many stalls and stores willing to sell things to tourists on the Red Square (capitalism!) and I was quite taken in by this display. Faberge eggs have long been a favorite in my family going back generations.

Moscow's Christmas in January

My side-gig these days is as a short term consultant for the World Bank to assist the Eurasian Center for Food Security in Moscow, Russia. The World Bank and ECFS hire researchers to produce case studies about food security in Eastern Europe/Western Asia. I came out in Nov 2016 to help the first cohort of case study authors learn how to adapt their case studies so they could be used by teachers and demonstrate to interested faculty and students at Moscow State University how to teach with case studies. I gave a couple presentations that were very well received, but didn't hear anything else about it for a long time. 

In 2019 the World Bank asked if I would grab a colleague (Jim Gentry!) to run a week-long all-day intensive training program for professors in the area to learn how to teach using case studies. It was a wonderful experience, and it occurred to me this week (for reasons that will become clear in a future post) that I never blogged about that wonderful experience.

So I spent the last week of January in Moscow! Russia celebrates Christmas later than we do, on January 7 (blame the Gregorian/Julian calendar switch). That meant the Christmas decorations were still up when we were there. Here are some pictures and videos of Christmas in Moscow:

Hello, Mockba

When I landed in Berlin nearly 20 years ago, I kept noticing what felt like these big differences between US roads and German roads - the cobblestones, the cars parked on the sidewalk, and of course everything European about the road was different.

Now, familiar with European road signs, I land in Moscow and am struck by similar/familiar everything looks. I can follow the road signs, so I could theoretically drive here if someone would hand me directions. Even though many of the letters are wildly different, I can figure out the names of some businesses and what they sell (ресторан is a restaurant; аптека is an apothecary = pharmacy; банк = bank).

 Course, it's easier to identify some businesses than others:
 

Partly that's my development and experience, but it's also amazing how much convergence there has been over 20 years. I bet you 20 years ago Moscow at night did not look like "random western European city." Today I see all sorts of US and European brands that I'm confident were not here in 1996. On the other hand, the reason I'm describing a city as a set of brand names is just because I arrived at night and the neon signs are most all I can see and identify. 

I may have a different idea seeing the city in the daytime, but that's at least my first impression.