Moscow is a huge city. And I do mean huge, in terms of both population and physical size. I read on Wikipedia (so it must be true!) that Moscow is the northern-most city in the world with over 10 million people. In fact, it has about twelve million official residents and, by some estimates, another 3 million unofficial ones. That's 15 million. 15,000,000. It also has a land area of over 400 sq. miles, making it a little more than 1/3 the size of the state of Rhode Island. Or, for you Euro-philes out there, about half the area of Luxembourg.

And so I had to prove that, amidst all of this hustle and bustle, there are some green spaces. Like the one above, at Chistye Prudy (lit. Clean Ponds).


In need of a chance to stretch my legs, I decided to walk home from Chistye Prudy, following the Boulevard Ring. Like most European cities of a certain age, Moscow is constructed on a series of rings. For the most part, these follow the paths of defunct city walls. In Moscow, the inner of these two follows a the site of walls that were taken town in the 18th century, having lost their value after being replaced by a large set of earthworks where now the outer Garden Ring courses. The boulevards themselves became permanent features during the reconstruction after the city was destroyed by fire in 1812.

The picture above was taken facing downhill on Sretenskii bul'var, in the direction of Tsvetnoi bul'var.

A little further along, you eventually come back around to Tverskaia, the major thoroughfare of central Moscow. In the square where they meet, a fountain, which at that time of the afternoon happened to be well lit.















Did I mention that the square is named after everyone's favorite Russian poet? I couldn't resist taking this picture of the pigeon roosting on the head of Aleksandr Sergeevich, milyi.