RTW East to West: Gorky Park and Moscow Day Celebration...

Saturday was a good day (and night) in Moscow. We started the day by meeting up with Dmitry's friend Julia who was going to give us a tour of Gorky Park, Moscow Centre and later the fireworks celebration at the university. Dmitry had some commitments so was going to be tied up all day. He was to meet us later at the fireworks show. Saturday is a special day for Moscow as the city is celebrating its 867th birthday. There are events, concerts, parades, etc. all throughout the city each year on the first Saturday in September. We saw the set-up for one of the events in Red Square on Friday and it was massive.

We connected with Julia and her son at a predetermined subway station and soon joined her friend Ira and her two daughters. We then walked the short distance to Gorky Park - a very impressive park indeed. Think Central Park in New York, but Russian style. The park is massive - about 300 acres and averages 250,000 visitors on a typical weekend day. Since this was Moscow day and there was additional animation I am guessing there were more than that visiting on this Saturday. It was a fun relaxing afternoon - we covered a good amount of distance walking around. For me it was good to be walking since we spend so much time in the saddles of the bikes - Ken, not so much. He has been bothered by a foot problem the entire trip stemming from a barefoot volleyball session several months ago. He was pretty much limping around the whole day (and night).

We grabbed an espresso, said goodbye to Ira and her daughters and started walking towards Red Square. The streets were packed with people heading to the various celebration areas. I think they said there were 15 locations around Miscow that would be shooting off fireworks simultaneously at 10pm. We were going to kill some time in the centre and then cab it to the University to watch the fireworks. Dmitry suggested to us that location would be the best as the Moscow City skyline is the backdrop for the fireworks.

We were joined by Julia's friend Stas and the 5 of us walked around the city centre area (to Ken's delight) for several hours enjoying the live music venues and street animation taking place in the various pockets. Around 9pm it time to head to the fireworks. The show was impressive as it was basically a 20 minute finale - not the two or three at a time then finale at the end US style. They just blow off everything they have for 20 minutes straight. It was pretty cool to watch.

After the show we decided to go hit a 24 hour pool hall to shoot some pool and drink piva (Russian for beer). Before we new it it was 6am and the sun was coming up. We cabbed it the 45 minutes back to Dmitry's and got to bed at 7am - our new record. Not real smart as we planned to ride to St. Petersburg on Sunday morning - a 750 km distance. It was worth it as Julia and Stas were incredible hosts and showed us a great time - just another example of the amazing people we have met in a Russia.

We got up at 11am, loaded the bikes and said goodby to our good friend and host Dmitry. He put us up in his home for three nights and we will be forever grateful for his hospitality and assistance getting Ken's shock repaired. It is always sad leaving the cities where we meet new people. We get such a short time getting to know them and want to be able to stay and get to know them even better. But the road awaits and there is much more to see. Thank you so much Dmitry, Julia and Stas - you are all fantastic people. I hope to see you again some day soon.

I'm looking forward to visiting St. Petersburg - another iconic Russian city. I just wish I was better rested for the ride to get there.

Gorky Park.