Broiling in Baikonur...

My trek to MTS yesterday came up fruitless, as the young woman who was helping me noted that she could only activate my roaming for the period of my residence in Moscow, i.e., for one day. I made my exit and called LJ friend auto194419, with whom I had established contact earlier.

Some time later, we met at the TGI Friday's on Tverskaya and chatted over a couple of BLT sandwiches about life, the universe, and a number of common interests. Eugene is an interesting chap, and I hope to meet with him again, someday.

I did quite a bit of walking yesterday, pausing only after 9 pm at a restaurant called Якитория (Yakitoria) for a light sushi dinner.

The fairy godmother department working this launch campaign did its magic and instead of having to be out on the street at some ungodly hour this morning, we assembled - after a quick breakfast - at 7 am for the trip to the airport. The rest of the day has been pretty routine, if you consider flying to a space port in Kazakhstan "routine."

More later, maybe. There's a bunch of details to take care of.

Cheers...

Borodino panorama...

I mentioned the Borodino panorama once before in my LJ, and my attempt to go visit on a day it was closed. Well, after visiting the горбушка on Wednesday, I found myself not far from the Парк Победы (Park Pobedy, or "Victory Park") metro station, and decided to try my luck again. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'd last visited this place a long time ago, and was particularly interested in seeing one particular painting that had elicited a huge emotional response in me when first I saw it.

The centerpiece of the building is a panorama of the Battle of Borodino - an important battle for the Russians in the war against Napoleon - executed by one Franz Alekseevich Rubo. As the name implies, the panorama is a 360° illustration that one views from a central location at the top of a spiral staircase. Here is a detail of a portion of the panorama:



The view is eerily realistic - aided by some clever transitions from three-dimensional props close to your vantage point (e.g., the dirt and broken cart in the foreground of the image) to the painting on the wall - to the point where you think you can actually smell smoke, except of course there is no din of battle, no cries from the wounded, no animal sounds, no rumble of artillery. In fact, the area commands a kind of library-like silence among onlookers. There was a group already assembled when I climbed the staircase, and those members who did wander to take photos did so on tiptoe.

Downstairs, there are exhibits of military art and of artifacts from the era of the battle both "upstream" and "downstream" of the panorama. The detail of some of the artwork is quite remarkable. Here is a close-up of one painting depicting Russian guards running down French cavalry:



Walking through the museum, I kept my eyes peeled for the painting that had had such an effect on me, oh, so long ago. I didn't see it. I approached one of the staff members - a woman of approximately my age - and introduced myself, adding that I had first been to the panorama many years ago, and was wondering about one particular painting.

As I began to formulate the words to describe the painting, the woman asked, "That wouldn't be The Living Bridge, would it?" As soon as she said the title, I knew it was the painting I was seeking. Nevertheless, being the geek that I am, I quickly described the painting and the woman nodded.

"That's the one," she said. "It's been many years since that painting has been exhibited here," she continued, "it was removed because it actually is 'off-topic' in a museum devoted to the Battle of Borodino." (Apparently, an incident from an earlier action against the Persians is depicted in The Living Bridge, whose title in Russian is Живой мост.)

Of course, knowing the title of a painting (as well as the painter, who was Rubo) makes it pretty easy - generally speaking - to find an image of said painting on the Web. The Living Bridge is no exception:



It's funny how, in my memory, the focus of the picture - the pile of infantry in the ravine - seems to have dominated the canvas more. You cannot see it in the image above, but the detail in the painting is such that you can read the expressions on the faces of the poor grunts in the ravine. Perhaps someday, I will have an opportunity to see this oil again.

Cheers...