Arbat Street and Vozdvizhenka Ulitsa
After more than two months out of the urban rhythm of Moscow, finally I had my opportunity to review it. Last Thursday I had a day off from my job in the kindergarten and besides, earlier that week the mayor had announced the end of some isolating restrictions, specially the QR code control which wouldn’t allow anyone to go out on the streets of Moscow for the pure purpose of wandering and photographing.
Anyway, things changed and freedom has returned partially. I was in need of a visit to the center in order to have my haircut, visit the bank and buy new accessories for my camera. I went to my favorite store and got two new lenses and just as I left the store I headed to Arbat Street, to try some shots with the new lens and naturally to make the content that I needed.
Arbat street is one of the most famous streets of Moscow. The walking boulevard features lots of restaurants and souvenirs shops, so that in normal times it is absolutely ordinary to see a enormous amount of foreigners passing here. Vozdvizhenka Ulitsa is the one that starts in from of one of the towers of the Kremlin, near the National Library of Lenin and goes up till Arbat and New Arbat street.
Not only the photos serve as a way to have a more clear perception of what Moscow looks like, it also might state that despite the pandemic most of what Moscow used to be has been kept just the same. What you will probably notice tho is that restaurants are closed and this way you don’t see the decks with tables and chairs, full of people, stretching out onto the streets. That’s a major change for a boulevard such as Arbat.
Arbat is also known for being a space where lots of artists, from drawers to musicians come to expose their talent and make profit out of it. It is by the way the best place I know to see Russian art being manifested. Just to picture my experiences, more than once I saw here teenagers playing classical music in violins or other young students reciting Russian literature to the crowd.
A friend on my day off texted me and said that 2020 was a horrible year. I can’t see it this way. I can agree that 2020 brought us an unprecedented challenge and that most of us realized how unsustainable our life standards are. Many of us had dreams stolen and broken and it is justifiable to be completely pissed off by that. However, the world hasn’t stopped and everyday, no matter what, we’re asked to make our moves and survive, keep on and stick to the changes that were imposed. One of the greatest virtues of human beings is the capacity to accept the fate of what is gone and restart a new story with total positivity and determination. If we don’t pay for dreaming, that means we are supposed to do it as much as we can. Cling to one and this time give it the structure hat no pandemic will ever damage.