A Day in Moscow

This morning, Elizabeth taught me how to make syrniki, or sweet cheese fritters, for breakfast. She learned the recipe from her Russian in-laws, and as a fellow cooking lover, she was excited to share it with me.

Elizabeth Cooking Syrniki

First, you open a block of soft cheese reminiscent of a cream cheese/cottage cheese combo. Add two eggs to the mixture, and a rough amount of sugar. Add enough flour to form a workable dough (enough so that it doesn't stick too badly to your hands) and form the dough into pancake shapes. Fry in oil. We used olive, but most any will do.

Syrniki Frying

When the bottoms are golden brown, flip them over.

Tara Cooking Serniki (Cheese Pancakes)

When that side is done, take them out…

…and then eat them right away with sour cream or runny jam or honey! YUM!

Syrniki with Sour Cream and Apricot Syrup

After breakfast, Elizabeth had to go to work, and she invited us to come along. So, we all left the apartment together (the photo below shows the pretty pattern of light shining through holes in the top of the elevator) and headed towards the metro.

Elevator Lights

About a half an hour later, we emerged on the other side of Moscow, and walked to an upscale office building. Elizabeth teaches English to some of the employees working in it.

We met Alyona.

Alyona

She and Max helped Tyler with some more route planning, giving us the idea to see Russia's Golden Ring, a series of ancient towns northeast of Moscow, all of which played a significant role in the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Alyona, Max & Tyler

There was Olga, who taught us about samovars. She's from the town of Tula, which boasts a famous samovar museum.

Olga & Alyona

And then we met Alex, who we were astonished to learn has been reading our posts since we were in Romania!

Alex

Everyone was so nice. We had a great time hanging out, having conversations in English, and answering lots of curious questions about our trip!

Thanks so much for a fun class, you guys!

After enjoying cappuccinos in the employee lounge after the official lesson time was over, we took the elevator back to the lobby. On the way, Tyler grabbed the recorder, eager to save a memory of the muzak. This was definitely not our our list of things to do in Russia!

Swanky Elevator

---

Yesterday, I fell in love with a painting on wall calendar at Elizabeth's apartment. I was excited to learn that I could see it in person, right here in the city! So, our next stop of the day was Elizabeth's favorite place in Moscow: the Tretyakov Gallery.

Elizabeth attempted to get us the Russian discount (foreigners pay at least twice as much as Russians do for tourist attractions!), but the stodgy ticket sellers saw through her normally perfect Russian accent. She, like me, has a knack for languages and a tendency to parrot whatever accents she hears (which we have to be careful with so it doesn't sound like we're mocking people). I think speaking English with us has temporarily marred her Russian!

In any case, we shelled out the 300 rubles (about $10 USD) per person, left our backpack in the coat check area, and walked in. Inside, we were very disappointed to discover that photography was strictly forbidden. Thankfully, as usual, Tyler was able to snap a few when the eagle-eyed docents weren't looking.

We had to edit these quite a bit to make them presentable, so just know that they aren't 100% completely accurate representations. It would be hard to do them justice anyway.

This one shows the Moscow Kremlin…

Procession at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin (Beaudry KP)

And this fascinating (to me!) work shows the arrival of a sorcerer at a peasant wedding in the dark of night.

Arrival of the Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding (Vasily Maksimov)

I would love to be a guest at that wedding reception, as well as at this tea party!

The Tea Party (Vladimir Makovsky)

As we walked through the museum, paintings flowed from one to the next in roughly chronological order. I really enjoyed the more modern pieces, like this bright winter scene of which we failed to catch the name or artist.

Unknown Russian Painting

My very favorite part of our museum excursion was discovering a new favorite painter. Zinaida Serebryakova's poignant images of everyday life really struck a chord with me. The painting I had been drawn to on Elizabeth's calendar was her self-portrait!

She also had an everyday breakfast scene featuring her children, as well as this striking piece called "Bleaching the Cloth". It was huge, with vivid colors, and heavy emphasis on the women's sturdy feet and legs. I asked Tyler to take this photo so I could remember it:

Bleaching the Cloth (Zinaida Serebryakova)

After we were done at the museum, I purchased a few postcards of my favorite paintings and we took the metro back to Elizabeth's apartment. Instead of working, we spent the rest of the evening reading. It was a really nice change of pace!

Culture Shock! Russia

Thank you for having us, Elizabeth!