Winter at the Park

The sign in front of Gorky Park this winter says "Winter at the Park," and so far, we've been taking advantage of it.  We have been there three times this winter, mostly because Moscow hasn't had much snow and some of the places we had planned to visit, like the snow village at Luzhniki, were closed due to clement weather.

I crack myself up.

Anyway, Jeremy and I left the girls with the nanny last week so we could go ice skating on the really cool rink at Gorky.  We saw a lot of neat things, including speed-skating, bobbing and weaving grandpa pushing a baby in a pram (our own skating prowess didn't permit us to get photos of this), and this congo line.

We went back a couple days later with the girls.  Natasha was delighted to see Santa, and not scared at all.  Where was that bravery during our Ded Moroz photo op, I'd like to know?

We walked through a field of snowmen.

We watched a performance by these Yakut people.

And played their spear-fishing game.

And checked out the sad reindeer who were herded in and out of a tiny little trailer.

And played with the ice sculptures of the Smeshariki, the title characters from a popular Russian cartoon.