Happy Birthday, Moscow!

This weekend was the annual celebration of "С днём города, Москва!" or "City Days", if you will. I don't know if it's the legitimate "birthday" of this great city, but it's certainly quite a party. All major points of interests become gathering points for large crowds of people, everyone wanting to join in the festivities.


One of the things that I love about Russia is that great holidays are celebrated in great ways. It's not enough just to drape bunting & flags about the city, and paper the kiosks with posters congratulating Moscow on her foundation. No! There must be festivals, concerts, face-painting, ballons, toys, crazy hats, costumes, food, and fireworks!

Take a look at some of the sites we observed outside of Красная Площадь -Red Square - when we were passing through.

My friends & I were out & about to celebrate another birthday - the first quarter-century mark for Luke. We'd collaborated to put together a list of "25 Things to do Before Turning 25", and it was quite extensive! We had him doing everything from collecting signatures from random passers-by, to eating specific foods, to posing with monuments all over the city. Here's a random sampling of some of his performance assessments:

Naturally, those of us who were along for the celebration couldn't pass up the opportunity to join him in the hilarity of the list. See for yourself:

I've never really taken advantage of the City Days celebrations in the past. As much as I love the festive atmosphere, I don't do thronging crowds all that well. Fortunately, I was so caught up in the celebration of Luke's 25th that I didn't let the masses of Muscovites overwhelm me.

The whole process of completing the List took much longer than we thought...it was nearly 9 p.m. by the time we returned to my flat for cake & ice cream. Most of us were thoroughly worn out, but I don't think any of us would have had it any other way.