Stary Arbat (Старый Арбат)

Stary Arbat is one of the most famous streets in Moscow. It's pedestrian only and is heavy on the tourism side as it has many vendors on the street and there are souvenir stores as well as some restaurants and an American staple.

Just a view down the street.

I didn't want to keep you waiting too long, but yes, Starbucks is on Stary Arbat! There's a few of them around and it's not too expensive really. You can get a venti coffee for 105 roubles (current FX rate is around 33 RR = 1 USD) or a venti frappucino for 210 roubles.

This is a photo made taken with my right hand, sorry, it was a Sunday and I didn't feel like shaving. Behind me is Alexander Pushkin and his wife - not them, but a statue. There's a statue of Pushkin, a street, and a square named after him in almost every Russian city I think. He lived on Stary Arbat at some point in his shortened life. He is a famous poet / author - I haven't read any of his work yet, but it is available in English if you are interested.

I zoomed in a bit on this statue to show you his sideburns - he almost looks like Wolverine from X-Men with these. I've seen some portraits of him as well - always the sideburns. At least he didn't wear one of those wigs which were so popular in the old days.

Victory Park

I took a trip to Victory Park this weekend as it was sunny and relatively warm (high 40's / low 50's) - the first nice days I've seen in Russia outside of my vacation I took here last June. It was refreshing to have a day out for a nice stroll. There were lots of people rollerblading and I may have to invest in a pair as it could be something fun to do on the weekends here if this weather becomes common on the weekends.

Victory Park is a memorial to winning World War II (I hope so - there was lots of stuff for it). There's an outdoor museum with lots of military equipment which was fascinating for me to go through. It's also got great walking / jogging / rollerblading paths and should have some nice tree cover and places to sit and have an outdoor beer as it warms up a bit more here.

I've included a lot of pictures below - since I went by myself I was the primary camera man, hence the close-ups of me!

The metro sign on the wall - Park Pobedy - means Victory Park

Some art at the metro stop celebrating the end of WWII in 1945 I suppose.

Walking into the grounds of Victory Park. This is some memorial - it's tall, my guess is the Russian's liked the Washington Monument and thought that they could use something similar in Moscow. There's some fountains along this walkway on the right but they weren't yet working.

Close up of the tall memorial from above - there's amazing detail the whole way up that.

I don't remember, just an old tank. You can see my hair is getting quite gray - I started cutting it myself, usually with no clip on the clippers. With my horrible Russian language skills I thought it best to cut my own hair. Now I'm trying to grow it back and it's not as brown as I once remembered.

Some anti-aircraft cannons, they look intimidating.

I thought the eyes on this were pretty funny.

A MIG 29. FYI - the MIG 28 which is the enemy fighter in Top Gun is FICTIONAL! - yeah, I couldn't believe it myself even after reading wikipedia.

These must be the soldiers that sealed the deal on WWII, not sure, but it was getting some camera attention so I thought I'd snap a few pictures as well.

Sure kids, go play on the tank! Parenting at it's finest right here.