Tretyakov

After two full days of sightseeing, I asked Randy how he wanted to end his marathon sightseeing weekend. When he replied the Tretyakov Gallery I inwardly sighed.  We had just finished a lovely picnic in the yard behind Tolstoy’s House and I was on a sightseeing high.

While I have nothing against art museums I am usually just as happy not in them.   I have tried to be a person who loves museum and a person who gets art.  I have forced myself to go to every museum in every city I have been to.  I have forced myself to go to the Met in NY, the British Museum and the Tate in London, the Prado in Barcelona and many more.  I don’t list these to show what a horribly cultured person I am. I list these to shamefully admit that I raced through each and every one and would have rather spent most of my time in the gift shop.  My boredom had nothing to do with the actual museums which were all lovely. I just am not and have never been a museum person.

I never thought I would find an art museum, let alone in Russia, that I would enjoy in its entirety.  The Tretyakov Galley has two large floors of paintings and I went into it thinking maybe we would cover a quarter of a floor and I would complain that [fill in the blank- my feet hurt, Adam was hungry,  I was hungry, Adam was tired, I was tired]. Isn’t Randy a lucky man 🙂

We ended up walking just about every inch of both floors and I fully intend to go back.  Each and every room was beautifully arranged and contained the most beautiful, interesting and colorful paintings I have ever seen.