Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SIGHTS
ARBAT, MY ARBAT
Arbat, my Arbat, you are my calling. You are my happiness and my misfortune.
Bulat Okudzhava
For Moscow's beloved bard Bulat Okudzhava, the Arbat was not only his home, it
was his inspiration. Although he spent his university years in Georgia dabbling in
harmless verse, it was only upon his return to Moscow - and to his cherished Arbat -
that his poetry adopted the free-thinking character for which it is known.
He gradually made the transition from poet to songwriter, stating, 'Once I had the
desire to accompany one of my satirical verses with music. I only knew three chords;
now, 27 years later, I know seven chords, then I knew three'. While Bulat and his
friends enjoyed his songs, composers, singers and guitarists did not, resenting the
fact that somebody with no musical training was writing songs. The ill feeling sub-
sided when a well-known poet announced that '…these are not songs. This is just an-
other way of presenting poetry'.
And so a new form of art was born. The 1960s were heady times, in Moscow as else-
where, and Okudzhava inspired a whole movement of liberal-thinking poets to take
their ideas to the streets. Vladimir Vysotsky and others - some political, others not -
followed in Okudzhava's footsteps, their iconoclastic lyrics and simple melodies draw-
ing enthusiastic crowds all around Moscow.
The Arbat today, crowded with tacky souvenir shops and overpriced cafes, bears
little resemblance to the hallowed haunt of Okudzhava's youth. But its memory lives
on in the bards and buskers, painters and poets who still perform for strolling crowds
on summer evenings.
MUSEUM
SHILOV GALLERY
11am-7pm Tue-Sun,
noon-9pm Thu; Biblioteka imeni Lenina)
'What is a portrait? You have to attain not only an absolute physical likeness…but you need
to express the inner world of the particular person you are painting.' So Alexander Shilov
described his life work as contemporary Russia's most celebrated portrait painter in an inter-
