On the last night of the parallel sessions at ICHEP, a group of us went out for dinner. We were under the leadership of one of our Russian BaBar colleagues, Dmitriy, who wanted to do something a little “touristy” and go to a tram restaurant – a restaurant on rails. However, our party of 11 proved too much for the small tram, so instead we went to the Arbat district near Red Square and “ate at restaurant there”:http://steve.cooleysekula.net/photos/Moscow/img017.jpeg.html. After dinner, many of us wanted to see “Red Square at night”:http://steve.cooleysekula.net/photos/Moscow/img024.jpeg.html. We entered through the gate facing out toward Arbat, near the *Revolyutsii* Metro station.
Standing in Red Square on a cool Russian night in summer was, perhaps, one of the most humbling experiences of my life. It occurred to me rather quickly that this broad expanse of cobblestones on which I was walking was also home to the treads of “mobile ICBM launchers”:http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/16.jpg, parading in front of party officials reviewing from the “Savior Gate Tower”:http://steve.cooleysekula.net/photos/Moscow/img034.jpeg.html.
The next day, Sunday, was a day off from the sessions. Three of us – Joe, Hiro, and I – made our way to “ulitsa Arbat”:http://steve.cooleysekula.net/photos/Moscow/img043.jpeg.html for some shopping, cafes, and a walking tour of architectural highlights. We earned some blisters, zigging and zagging through small side streets lined with old stone apartment buildings. We all agreed that until that walk, Moscow felt very alien to us. Suddenly, we were away from crowds of tourists and shopping Muscovites, along quiet streets and standing near “old churches”:http://steve.cooleysekula.net/photos/Moscow/img050.jpeg.html. That night, we ate dinner at *Tiflis*, a Georgian restaurant south of the Arbat district. The food was delicious, the waiter serious and stern, and the conversation alternating between light and deep. We made it home late that night, full of good food and a little dreamy from the Vodka.
