Улица Старый Арбат (Old Arbat Street)

I am a little behind again as we spent the half week at Vasiliy's Dacha (aka cabin) where there was no wifi and very limited internet service for my phone.  I also just noticed that the video from Sophia's birthday was backwards and have now fixed it...

Last Monday, Sveta, Max, Vera, Sophia and I decided to go for a little walk down Old Arbat Street.  It is about a kilometre long and a pedestrian only street.  It is one of the oldest streets in Moscow and is currently home to many artists and souvenir stores.  These stores used to be all out on the street but the street was getting to clogged with people and sellers so the government decided to move them all inside. It is now a very nice place to walk and without rubbing shoulder to shoulder with people (thankfully as it has been incredibly hot here still as temperatures are staying above 30 most days).

 Sophia at the start of our walk.  We decided to have a little snack at a semi-outdoor cafe before we set off which was a good thing as you never really know when you will eat around here (you never know, you could be stuck in traffic for 3-4 hours).  The large letters behind Sophia's head say 'Old Street' as there is also a New Arbat Street which runs parallel to this one but a block or so away.

 I can only imagine what this place must have been like in it's glory!  The clothes, the parties, the carriages, it would have been amazing to see.  At least now it looks all cleaned up and restored to some of it's old glory.

 Sophia seemed to decide, again, when and where she should pose for pictures.  Apparently this light post was a great choice!

 After our walk down Arbat, Vera, Max, Sophia and I headed off to take the metro back to Vera's apartment.  Sophia had been asking to go and was very exctied (Sveta needed to drive the car back so we would have a way to get back to Aksakovo later in the day).  The metro stations here are almost like museums.  Many of them have beautiful artwork below ground and a few of them look really nice on the surface too.  Here we are at Smolenskaya Station...

 The very looooooooooooooooooong escalator down to the trains.  Some of these are insanely long and very steep.  We had to make sure someone was always in front of Sophia just in case she lost her balance.  There is also very specific etiquette on these.  If you are standing still, stay to the right side as there will always be someone who is in a rush to get on a train, even though the come very frequently, as in one train every minute and 30 seconds! Literally, there are clocks below that say when the previous train left and during the day they come every 1:30-2:00 minutes.

 Sophia's first metro ride.  Despite the look on her face here, she loved it and was very excited to be on the train.  We seriously could have taken the trains all across the city and she wouldn't have cared!

 This is the inside of one of the train stations (I can't remember which as we had to change trains once).   Pretty nice and very clean!

 The walls are all line with mosaics like this one.  It's kind of tricky to stop and look at them as there are so many people (and it wasn't even rush hour) and you kind of just go with the waves of people...

 The centre aisle in the station.  It even had chandeliers!!!

 Outside the train station near Vera's apartment with one of the 7 Stalin Era buildings in the back ground.

Vera's apartment, from the outside.  Hers is on the 3rd floor, right behind the tops of the trees.  You can actually reach the trees from her balcony and pick the fruit that is on them...