Our last day in Moscow then travelling to St Petersburg
Yesterday was our last day in Moscow. We have enjoyed very much visiting this city over the last 5 days. Moscow is a vibrant place where just over 12.5 million people calls this city their home, although its population raises to over 20 million in summer time if one includes the tourists which visit Moscow every year.
On our last day we decided to do a late check out and enjoy the breakfast at the hotel and only do one visit to a museum, prior to departing this great city this evening on route to St Petersburg. The weather today as all the days we have spent in Moscow was fabulous, the sun was shining and it was rather warm, a great day to walk.
On the way to our chosen activity, a visit to a museum, we discovered another church. This time it was not a Russian Orthodox one, but rather a mosque, which also represents the diversity which one can see in today’s Russia. Many of the people from the former USSR countries are Muslim. We also saw one of the large stadiums which was used for the 1980s Olympic Games, held in Moscow in that year.
Our chosen museum today was the All-Russia Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art, which is in relative terms a new museum, as it opened to visitors on July 21, 1981. This mansion – or rather a series of ornate buildings, has an interesting history. Alexander Ivanovich Tolstoy glorified in the patriotic war of 1812 and foreign campaigns of the Russian army, inherited this mansion in 1796. In formation at the entrance of the mansion indicated that this building was severely damaged in the 1812 fire, and was not restored for a long time, and was then sold to the Holy Synod to house the Moscow Seminary in 1834. The building was nationalized in 1918 and transferred to the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. After the Great Patriotic War (WWII) it housed the Presidium of the Supreme Council and the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. In 1920-1930 delegates coming to the congresses of the Supreme Council stayed in this house, hence the name of the street – Delegatskaya.
This museum has a number of permanent exhibits as well as temporary ones. It has a focus on fashion across the years, as well as a representation of folk art and dresses.
We were lucky to have the curator o a temporary exhibition called “My Pushkin”. The curator told us that Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. This exhibition brought together the work of many contemporary Russian artists, and their own interpretations of Pushkin. A very interesting and fitting way for us to complete our visit to Moscow.
Another great day in Russia.