Travel Notes

Park Place

Sergei Sobyanin, the new mayor of Moscow, wrapped up his first year on the job with an initiative to update and modernize the capital's parks.

This year's opening of a renovated Gorky Park received mainly positive reviews. Until recently, Muscovites rarely visited Gorky Park, not the least reason being because of the entrance fee charged during the summer.

The park, redeveloped by a group funded by the billionaire Roman Abramovich, aims to attract up to nine million visitors per year, having eliminated shabby kiosks and restoring the original pavilions from the 1920s. While the centrally located green zone on the Moscow River lost its amusement rides, the Soviet-inspired signs to not walk on the grass are gone. One can now lounge on the lawns with a laptop (although the free WiFi does not yet work smoothly).

Yet Mayor Sobyanin's plans to redevelop other parks and forests in Moscow were not met with similar enthusiasm. Environmentalists especially fear that the pledge to make them modern masks a simple desire to cut down trees and build shops and restaurants.

Lubyanka Toons

Moscow's famed Polytechnical Mu­seum, which will undergo extensive reconstruction next year, has launched a Museum of Animation. Located on the third floor of the historic building (which looms near Lubyanka), the museum will open with two exhibitions, one chronicling Russia's animation industry over the past century, the other presenting a retrospective of the work of Garri Bardin.

The museum provides tours in Russian, English and French. Visitors will be able to see equipment used to make animated films, and read about the creation of the better-known series and features, including Krokodil Gena and the claymation film Last Year's Snow Was Falling.

Decade of hotels

The InterContinental hotel chain has announced plans to open 100 hotels in Russia over the next eight years, including, in 2014, the largest Holiday Inn in Europe, a Moscow property with 1,000 rooms.

Hyatt meanwhile announced that it will open two hotels in Vladivostok: one overlooking the Golden Horn Bay and one the Amursky Gulf. The luxury InterContinental Moscow Tverskaya is scheduled to open in November. Prices during holiday season start at R18,400 per night (about $600).

Tarkovsky's Nest

Moscow announced its intention to reconstruct the wooden building inhabited by the famous Tarkovsky family, which was knocked down three years ago.

Famous filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky grew up in the house, located just south of the center, with his father, the poet Arseny Tarkovsky. The Moscow government has repeatedly promised to rebuild the house, but plans were derailed by the financial crisis.

The Tarkovsky center will house the director's archive, a library, and a small movie theater. The old house was located in a factory neighborhood south of the city center, at First Schipkovsky pereulok, #26.

Russian Christmas... In Ireland?

Ballyfin, an award winning and newly opened five-star hotel at the foot of the Sileve Bloom Mountains, just 80 minutes from Dublin airport, offers 600 acres of parkland, a lake, ancient woods, follies, grottoes, beautiful buildings and gardens. And from January 5-8, 2012, they will be hosting a Russian Christmas celebration. For more info, visit ballyfin.com