Good bye Lenin!

For the last week I have been in Russia once again. The whole trip had a significant déja-vu feel as essentially it involved the same people and places as it did last time. The Red Square and Kremlin are still impressive the second time around but at the risk of sounding a bit blasé: been there - done that. Even the weather greeted me like an old friend as the familiar rains poured down once more on Saturday. Fortunately I had allowed myself one extra day at the end of my stay and on Sunday the Indian Summer showed itself, even if it was shy. It gave me the opportunity for ticking off some of the boxes left on my what-to-see-when-in-Moscow list.

First up was the New Tretyakov gallery, the big brother to the other Tretyakov gallery I had visited last time. The New Tretyakov houses 20th century Russian art and in all fairness was far more to my liking than the icons and classic Russian paintings on display at its sibling. Particularly the avant garde paintings of artists such as Aristarkh Lentulov or Kazimir Malevich were in my opinion highly worth seeing. The collection of socialist art, full of propagandist glorification of peasants and labourers, was also quite interesting. Unfortunately about half of the museum was closed for renovations but since I had already been marvelling around for close to two hours by the time I reached those sections, I could not really be too disappointed.

Just outside the museum is another little gem: the Sculpture Park. Once apparently known as the "Park of Fallen Heroes", it is home to a collection of statues that in Soviet times adorned the city's squares and monuments. After the fall of communism the countless busts of Lenin, Stalin and the likes were relocated to this park where they now share the limelight with a more colourful collection of somewhat random sculptures. Especially powerful -particularly due to its juxtaposition to a life sized figure of Stalin- was an installation composed of dozens of sculpted faces packed behind barbed wire, thus remembering the victims of Stalin's labour camps.


After this trip my Moscow-to-do list has gotten another bit shorter. Of course there is always plenty left but frankly, I hope next time they'll send me to St. Petersburg instead!

All pictures