This is the entrance to Gorky Park. Probably the main one, granted, but there are dozens of ways in. My park at home where I play tennis every weekend has more of a ‘hole in the hedge’ kind of thing. Slightly understated, modestly humble but more importantly, Stalin never intended to drive 300 tanks into Northway Gardens. Well, he probably did intend to send his tanks into every corner of every nation eventually but alas (??) he died. And I still miss him today.

Gorky Park is a wonder. I remember the eponymous movie, taken from the book, about a dark, seedy murder in the cold war. Alexi Sayle was in it, as a baddy Russian. All baddies in all Cold War movies were Russian. It was the law. But the reality is that now, it is a truly amazing place, filled to overflowing with art. And, of course, its fucking massive. And, of course, there’s virtually no signs in English so you don’t have a clue what most of the buildings do or hold. So you have to guess. Corpses from Stalin’s rule in one (really big building, obviously), torture chamber for the KGB in all the others, the Cabbage Museum, etc, etc.

The one exception is ‘Garage’, the new modernist gallery put up by Abramovich’s second ex-wife, Dasha Zukhova, she of the gorgeous face and wonderful dental work. So we went there. And NOT just because over-55s get in free. But because we love modern art. And the building is just wow, and the space is just achingly cool and minimalist and bare brick and pipework and the cafe is where you NEED to be… but the art’s gone. WHAT??? Yes, sorry, we’ve cleared out the old shit and are getting ready for the next, summer exhibition. So the 43 million square feet of gallery space is currently empty. Other than one installation called ‘atom’ outside. Its free. Which took about 14 seconds to analyse, enjoy and get bored with. Iss an atom; innit. Worth 50 Rubles of anyone’s money, that one. But its free.

There’s also an area given over to monuments from the Soviet era. Basically, statues of Lenin and Stalin, suitably vandalised, to remind us Russians of ‘the dark days’. A kind of communist retrospective. And every work is magnificent, everyone depicted there has serious bucketloads of blood on their hands and its actually quite wonderful.

This morning we ‘did’ the Kremlin. But you’re not allowed to. I got a bollocking for taking a photo in the Armoury. Not that its still an armoury, with like nukes sitting round and planes with ‘next stop Syrian civilians’ written on them. Its the armoury museum. And you’re allowed in there. Because you’ve bought a ticket. But you can’t go any farther. If you want to buy a ticket for another selective building you can. What you can’t do is wander round and murder people. Or even wander round not murdering people. And to be honest the only Russians you’d really want to murder are the hotel staff who are horrendously unhelpful, and the restaurant staff who try to ‘upgrade’ everything you order without telling you, and… all the other Russians you meet.

But Moscow is fantastic. I love it, love it, love it.

Happy Friday

A xxxx