Moscow City Day 2009

Over the first weekend of each September Moscow celebrates the birth of the city  with parades, open air concerts, even a waiter race.  The city is usually crowded, lots of security, especially when entering key areas (Lubyanka Square, Red Square, etc) where there were bag checks and metal detectors, and there was also a lot of drinking and celebrating going on!  So I guess because all of these reason a lot od the natives you live centrally escape the city, but this being our first year we were keen to see the city during the celebrations.

With a lot of central streets closed to traffic we wandered across Lubyanka square got a couple of photos of us with the Lubyanka in the background (usually the Militsia are not too keen on this). We followed the crowds down Teatralny and saw a couple of rounds of the waiter’s races, which was interesting as they had to race around a circuit with a tray full of drinks whilst pretty much constantly being photographed. The maze of security shepherding the people in certain directions seemed to work well, even though it was a pain to have your bag checked so often.

After walking around for quite a while we decided to do the touristy boat ride for a bit of a rest and to preview if it was worthwhile for any visitors we might have in the future to do.  It was pretty good actually, and excellent value, especially as the weather was fantastic (as always on Moscow day, but more about that later). The route of the hour long trip was from Luzhkov bridge down the Vodootvodny Canal to the Peter the Great Statue, along the River Moskva, past the Cathedral of Christ our Saviour and the Kremlin to the other end of the Vodootvodny Canal back the start. I think the boat trip is worth the money, it was pretty cheap and  gives you an interesting view of the Kremlin etc.

Photos are shown below but you can see the set on Flickr here.

Related posts:

1. Moscow – the first month or so It has been about 6 weeks since we moved here...
2. First Moscow Visit – Part 2: Falling for the City We arrived at our hotel early in the morning at...
3. Where have I been? – Part 1 – Last Few days in Moscow Well it has been a while mainly because I have...
4. Breaking the Ice on the Moskva Whilst Lou and did a boat cruise on the River...
5. First Moscow Visit – Part 3: Quiet reflections We are on the flight on the way home now...

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm. It is filed under Blog, Life, Photography and tagged with Boat, Kremlin, Lubyanka, Moscow, Moscow Day, Photography, River Moskva, Russia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.