A Unique Stroll Through Moscow, Russia

It was a beautiful summer day and Lindsay and I found ourselves wanting to wander through the magnificent city of Moscow, Russia. We had already been there for a few days and had seen the main sights like Red Square, The Kremlin, Etc. We picked up our Lonely Planet guidebook and decided to follow its recommended “city walk” as this is one of our favorite things to do when traveling. We started the walk by crossing over the Moscow River on a beautiful pedestrian bridge in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. We then continued walking along the river enjoying the beautiful old architecture of the surrounding buildings (including some very cool architectural relics from the communist days). We then passed the HUGE statue called “Peter The Great.” This gigantic statue looks like something you would see at Disneyland and it actually seemed quite out of place in Moscow. At over 300 ft tall it is one of the tallest statues in the world and has Peter The Great standing proud amongst a ship. It sits right in the river and is so prominent that it can be seen from numerous locations in Moscow. After staring curiously at this statue we then continued on to one of the most unique places we have ever been called “Fallen Monument Park.” This old park in the heart of Moscow received numerous statues of communist leaders such as Stalin and Lenin when the Soviet Union fell. Many of these statues were removed or vandalized from numerous locations around the city and were dumped off at this park. The result are some magnificent statues of Iconic Soviet leaders and symbols standing eerily amongst the trees and walkways of a quite park. The entire area had a really unique feel and Lindsay and I loved the unique statues we were seeing. On some of the statues you could still see the vandalism that had taken place during the demonstrations leading up to the fall of the soviet union. My favorite statue was a huge iron hammer and sickle (the famous Soviet symbol) that looked like it had been taken off of a building. There were also numerous statues of Lenin and Stalin that we just loved. After relaxing and enjoying this park we continued on through the city. Our feet started killing us so we hoped on the Metro to go to Sparrow Hills which is an urban park situated on a high hill just outside the city. Most of the Metro stations in Moscow are very old (which is part of their charm) but the Vorobyovy Gory metro station we exited was very cool. It was located in the middle of a bridge that spans the Moscow River. The walls of the station are completely made of glass and when you leave you are immediately in an urban forest (Sparrow Hills Park). We wandered through this beautiful park eventually trying to make our way up to the top so that we could see the beautiful panoramic view of Moscow (we had read about this). After about an hour of climbing through the park we made our way to the top and were blown away by the view of Moscow. The hills are right above the river and you could see almost all of the major Moscow sights. I especially enjoyed the view because you could almost see all of the “seven sisters” buildings which are beautiful, and huge, Gothic style buildings that were built by the communist to intimidate. You could also see the very vertical “downtown” area of the city which had numerous skyscrapers and looked very American. The viewpoint had numerous vendors selling souvenirs as well as numerous locals enjoying the view. We just sat on the ledge and enjoyed the view of this incredible city in late evening. Directly across the street (looking the other direction) from the viewpoint was the magnificent Moscow State University which has one of the largest “seven sisters” building. We eventually made our way out of the park and back into the city via the Metro but we will never forget our unique stroll through the incredible city of Moscow, Russia.