228: Tretyakov and the Moscow Metro, from the 1000 places to see before you die book

The book aptly described exactly what I got at the Tretyakov Museum- 150,000 Russian works of art from the 11-20^th centuries. To be fair in the painting sections- I can account for only 2 paintings that were in the 20^th century…the rest were a lot of  oils of csars and csarinas and their host of related mates, an odd collection of paintings from Sicily and Uzbekhistan and the odd bust of marble dotted around the place. Apparently there is a new part of the museum hosting the Kadinskys and Chagalls which would have been great….only problem is I couldn’t find anyone that spoke English and thus couldn’t find this despite walking around the block several times. And no photos.

So i hit some food- order by picture in this country largely- but the cappuccino was pretty spectacular.

So then back to the Metro to hit the next sight. Now, Im not really sure why the Metro is in here. True- its undoubtedly one of Stalin’s greatest achievements. Its heated unlike London. It isn’t friendly to tourists having all the information in cryllic and announcements as to names of the stations only in Russian and poor if not non existant branding when you arrive at the station, such that you are forced to clutch your 12 by 5cm tourist map and vainly point in the dim light hoping someone can help you. In the end I realized the secret….walk to the security guy who inverably is standing by a map, point to the station you wanted to go to and gesture on your fingers as to how many stops you needed to take to get to it (they have some rather confusing interchanges) and then get the hand directions as to left, right, left, left to get to the right platform. 

So I went to the first one in the book- the Komsomolskaya station which did duly feature “an enormous hall with Baroque details and ceiling mosaics depicting Russian military triumphs.” Only problem was as I was moving into position to take a photo of the military triumph some Russian bore that I hadn’t managed to shake on the steps coming up kept on trying to talk to me while his friend then came around the other side and squeezed my bottom. 

Great. 

In my haste to escape them I bolted through the doors and thus could only photograph the baroque ceiling…and the outside.

Next day I went back to photograph the wall art at that stop- a nice scene of peasants working hard!!  

After that a few random stops to see stuff, albeit the book 1000 places to see before you die recommends the Mayakovskaya and the Novosloboskaya stations. Sadly due to lack of energy to go out in rush hour, then lack of a desire to go out in the cold to get to the tube station….I saw neither.

However I did stop at a couple of cool ones on the way to my flight which are photographed below

 

Of course, there are 180 plus stations and some of them look remarkably normal- like the below.

 Would I put it in the 1000 places to see before you die book. Id probably do Moscow and St Petersburg metros as one entry- as the latter are quite interesting as well. Would I fly around the world to see them…definitely not, but if I was in Moscow I might well knock around the central line for a bit getting out and seeing them then stepping back on the next train, or doing the red line in St Petersburg- over, say a taxi.

It is no doubt an engineering feat (London hasn’t managed to heat its tube trains yet), detracted by the lack of English speakers to help you read the cryllic as to where you are, and the Tretyakov sadly with all its paintings unexplained and all heavy oils just wasn't my thing.

So on balance, its a no!