Travel Notes

Biking the capital

Moscow has launched an urban bike rental program, similar to Paris’ Velib program and those in other cities. The program was inaugurated in June with 30 bicycle rental stations around central Moscow, mostly along the boulevard ring.

Red bicycles with comfortable seats and low frames can be rented for as little as 30 minutes. Users must register at the official website velobike.ru and deposit money into an online account. The cost includes a fee for accessing the network (100 rubles per day, 250 rubles per week, etc.) as well as payment for each individual trip over 30 minutes (the first 30 minutes are free). The website maps available bicycles and stations around the city.

In the future, the city hopes to expand the network beyond the city center to Park Pobedy in the west and Moscow State University in the southwest, areas favored by riders.

In its sudden interest in bicyclists, Moscow (a city where commuting by bike is still a death-defying feat) is also promising to equip buses and trolleys with bicycle racks. However, bicycles are forbidden on the city’s increasingly crowded metro.

New New Holland

New Holland, the historical section of St. Petersburg created by Peter the Great to house various shipbuilding and naval facilities for his new city, will be totally redeveloped starting this fall, when the island will close to visitors.

Up until 2004, New Holland, then owned by the Baltic Fleet, had been closed for decades. But its mysterious contours, visible across the Moika River, captured locals’ imagination until it was eventually given to the city and made publicly accessible. After several projects to remake the triangular island into something useful, the American architectural firm Work AC won the right to transform the area into an art and urban cultural space, with facilities for concerts, exhibitions, and offices.

The project is being bankrolled by oligarch Roman Abramovich and has irked many Petersburgers, despite programs over the last three summers to turn it into a “hipster paradise” with chaise lounges, cooking classes, and trendy cafes and bars. Developers have promised to reopen the island in 2017 and claim that its historic eighteenth-century buildings will be preserved.

Triumphant Opening

Moscow has reopened the legendary Triumfalnaya Square, closed for years after demonstrators began holding regular protests there on the 31st of each month.*

Authorities said the metal fences around the square had been put up because of an archeological project. In late 2010 archeologists at the Moscow Cultural Department said they found remnants of a seventeenth-century residential neighborhood, including coins and fragments of tiles.

In the Soviet era, the capital’s poets regularly came to the square to recite poems, a tradition started when a monument to Vladimir Mayakovsky was unveiled there in the 1950s. The gatherings were often dispersed by police, who would tell young people to go read their poetry at home.

Days after the square reopened, commuters began using it as a parking lot, so city hall had to block it off again — this time with giant stone flower beds.

New Mariinka

St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater unveiled its new stage this spring, to largely positive reviews. The opening showcased the new building’s modern interiors and acoustics in a grand gala that coincided with the birthday of the theater’s director, Valery Gergiev.

Conservative city dwellers denoun­ced the building’s “gray box” exterior and called the Novaya Mariinka “Petersburg’s Quasimodo.” Yet critics praised the theater’s vast spaces for being full of light and offering spectacular views of the city. The subdued, clean lines of the auditorium differ markedly from the main stage’s elaborate molding and chandeliers.

The grand opening, which many said aimed to outdo that of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, capped eight years of expensive and scandal-tainted construction. The building reportedly cost the federal budget R22 billion.

The new facility is large enough to allow work on three productions simultaneously, while the theater’s troupe finally has access to decently-sized dressing rooms.

Gergiev, who personally selected the Canadian architectural firm behind the project, shrugged off all criticism. “I think not of architectural critics, but of Glinka, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky,” he said.

This summer Mariinsky-2 will be premiering Rodion Shchedrin’s new opera Левша (Leftie) based on Nikolai Leskov’s famous tale. It will also stage many classics as part of the Stars of the White Nights summer festival.

* Demonstrations are held on every month with a 31st, in honor of Article 31 of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees Russians the right to gather and demonstrate peacefully.