The immortal Gorky Park has had a complete makeover in 2011 and gone are the garish rides, the rollercoasters, the shoot-the-target-win-the-toy stands and also the entrance fee. The idea is to bring

Gorky Park

The immortal Gorky Park has had a complete makeover in 2011 and gone are the garish rides, the rollercoasters, the shoot-the-target-win-the-toy stands and also the entrance fee. The idea is to bring the park back to its roots of being a people's place, a place to picnic or jog, enjoy an ice-cream and have a bike ride and rid it of its recent reputation of being a 'poor man's Disneyland'. During the winter Gorky Park is one of the most spectacular places to ice skate in the world, let alone Moscow. There are kilometres of specially prepared tracks so you can skate instead of walk along the river embankments, as well as dedicated ice dancing areas and ice hockey rinks. What's more the park also has a number of great cafes and restaurants where you can cosy up and enjoy a nice glass of mulled wine.

Izmailovsky Park

Izmailovo is the largest of Moscow's parks and is even said to be the largest park in Europe. It's got everything you could want inside - great shashliki (shish kebabs), a ferris wheel, lakes for boating on, an island (which you can take a boat trip to), all kinds of rollercoasters, live music and acres of forest and park land. Before you enter the park you can't miss the kitsch Izmailovo market, where all kinds of dodgy traders sell every kind of Russian souvenir you may ever want, plus pirate versions of the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Admission free.

Lefortovo Park

This area, in the east of the city, lodged all foreigners living in Moscow up from Tsar Ivan the Terrible till the 19^th century. This so-called Nemetskaya Sloboda, Foreign Suburb / Quarter, was located far outside the outer city walls. It was from here that Tsar Peter the Great made his first foreign ‘expat’ friends from western countries, and not only from Germany (Nemets means German). He built his own private army, that later became his elite troops, and started to practice ‘wars’ with modern methods. The area still houses important military academies, hospitals and other facilities residing in former palaces. Nowadays you can see ordinary citizens strolling in the park near the Yauza river and eating - what else? - shashliki in the sun. The suburb is also famous for the Lefortovo prison the KGB used during communist times.

Park Pobedy

Constructed in honour of Russia’s victory in the Great Patriotic War (World War II), park pobedy (victory) offers powerful reminders of Russia’s suffering during the war as well as providing views over the skyscrapers of Moscow. The entrance to the park is marked by a long promenade surrounded by fountains, which leads up to a 142 metre high obelisk covered in representations of scenes from the war. Behind the obelisk there’s also a war memorial museum and further on down the hill an exhibition of tanks, war planes and other heavy weaponry. Beyond that the park stretches on into forest and down towards a tributary of the Moscow river.

Sokolniki

One of Moscow's oldest parks is named after the falcon hunts conducted by the Tsars (a sokol is a falcon). Today it's a popular ice skating venue and the home of Moscow's only year round ice museum. In the warmer months, amusement rides are found here, including a ferris wheel from which there is a great view. The park is also the home ground of hockey team HC Spartak Moscow.

Entrance is free.

Hermitage Garden

While not the largest of Moscow's gardens, the Hermitage is a delightful green space in the city's centre. You can find here the Hermitage Theatre, Chaikhona no.1 restaurant with its deck of cushions and even a pigeon and dove nesting box (with very fat and fluffy birds). Well cared for, there are several charming seating areas and beautiful cherry blossoms in the Spring.

Kolomenskoye Museum Estate

Sprawling Kolomenskoye is a favourite with kids, mums and dads, old grandmothers and young hipsters alike. The gentle sloping hills covered with trees look down towards the river and the remnants of Kolomenskoye's past life as a Royal Estate can be identified in the scattering of different museums like the beekeeping house, the wooden village and the many churches. It's also UNESCO listed except the huge kitsch wooden remake of Alexei's palace which was built in recent years in homage to the fabulous medieval palace that once stood here. Got Tsar fever? Take a troika ride. Or if you want more modern amusements queue up to take a tumble down the hill and on inflatable ring or check out the ice rink.

Kremlin

The street plan of central Moscow forms an impressively ordered pattern of concentric circles, clearly marking the city's development outwards over the centuries. In the middle of this great Catherine wheel is the Kremlin, the fortified hill which formed the heart of the ancient city, and which to this day houses the political HQ of the planet's largest nation. Within the world-famous red walls nestles a collection of buildings of various architectural styles, ranging from ancient Russian ecclesiastical, through Romanov imperial classicism, to 1960s Soviet modernism. While much is out of bounds to tourists, being part of the Government and Presidential estate, there are easily enough treasures open to the public to make the citadel an essential conquest. Unlike Napoleon, who stayed here after his forces took Moscow in 1812, you will need a ticket to enter. There are a number of ticket booths, the most important being located in Alexandrinsky Sad (on the west side of the Kremlin), which in itself is a great people watching place. Having bought your tickets, leave any large bags in the cloakroom located near the ticket office, under the gate. A 'Kremlin Territory' ticket gets you into the site itself, along with all of the cathedrals and the more ancient buildings. To visit the Armoury (where all the sparkly diamonds, jewels and so on are stored) you must buy a separate - and considerably more expensive - ticket, which will have an entrance time on it. Note that some buildings - in particular Ivan's belfy - sometimes host special exhibitions entrance for which you must pay extra. The tickets for special exhibitions can be bought at the entrance to the buildings in which they are held.

History of Red Square

	Red Square began life as a slum, a shanty town of wooden huts clustered beneath the Kremlin walls that housed a collection of peddlers, criminals and drunks whose status left them outside the official boundaries of the medieval city. It was cleared on the orders of Ivan III at the end of the 1400's, but remained the province of the mob, the site of public executions, and rabble rousing, until much later. The square's name has nothing to do with communism or with the color of many of its buildings. In fact it derives from the word 'krasnyi', which once meant 'beautiful', and has only come to mean 'red' in contemporary Russian. The name became official in the middle of the 17^th century - previously it had been Trinity Square, due to the Trinity Cathedral, the predecessor of St. Basil's. Popularly, it was also known as 'Fire Square', reflecting the number of times medieval Moscow burned. During the Mongol and Tartar invasions, it was the site of fierce fighting, and right up until the end of the 17^th century cannon stood ready to defend the square. Red Square came into its own in the 20^th Century, when it was most famous as the site of official military parades demonstrating to the world the might of the Soviet armed forces. Two of these will be remembered forever. The first was the parade of 7 November 1941, when columns of young cadets marched through the square and straight on to the frontline, which by that point was less than 50km from Moscow. The second was the victory parade on 24 June 1945, when two hundred Nazi standards were thrown in front of the mausoleum and trampled by mounted Soviet commanders in celebration. The year 2000 saw the return of troops to Red Square, with a parade to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War Two. Since Perestroika, however, the emphasis has moved away from official pomp, and Red Square has been used increasingly for rock concerts, big classical music performances and a whole range of large-scale events from fashion shows to festivals of circus art. Moscow met the millennium here with a huge firework display and street party. Today it's hard to think of a place that is more beloved of Muscovites and visitors to the city. The varied beauty of the architecture and the magical atmosphere belie the square's often brutal and bloody history, but the combination makes Red Square a truly fascinating place that you'll want to come back to again and again.
The Kremlin Wall

Under communism, Red Square also came to serve as a cemetery. Immediately after the Bolsheviks took control of Moscow in 1917, two identical tombs were built beneath the Kremlin wall to hold the remains of 240 casualties of the October Revolution. The Russian Orthodox Church was against the plan, but it made no difference. Red Square became a necropolis. It became a tradition to bury Soviet heroes by the Kremlin walls. The Post Office and Telegraph Commissar V. Podbelskiy was one of the first, along with Inessa Armand and American journalist John Reid. Space beneath the walls soon ran out, and from 1925 VIPs were buried within the wall itself. More than 100 people are now interred there, including Charles Rutenberg, the first General Secretary of the US Communist Party, Maksim Gorky,Yuri Gagarin, and a host of marshals and ministers. The first granite bust was put here in 1919 after the death of one of the Revolution's main leaders, Iakov Sverdlov. He was soon to be followed by Frunz, Dzerzhinsky, Kalinin, Zhdanov etc. After sharing the Mausoleum with Lenin for a few yeas, Stalin's body was moved to this area as well. The last man to be buried beneath the blue spruces was Yuri Chernenko, General Secretary for less than a year, who became the twelfth of the "Party Apostles" here.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-28