Korolyov, named after Sergei Korolyov, the renowned Soviet spacecraft engineer, is referred to as naukograd - which can be roughly translated as 'scienceville.' It's located about 20 minutes away from Moscow, and there's a very convenient bus service available from the VDNKh subway station.
The primary reason I went to Korolyov was that we'd just returned from Turkey then - and I really, really hated to be back. Normally, when I'm feeling this way, I like to spend some time pretending I'm just a tourist here: all the shit that I feel I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life in turns into something very temporary as soon as I switch into the tourist mode; I regain curiousity; I'm capable of seeing things again and finding them wondrous enough to enjoy. Sometimes this happy state lasts several weeks, sometimes - only a few days; I suspect it depends on how much energy I have to drag myself around, looking for the stuff I haven't seen yet or recently. (Another way to describe it: this is my way of being in denial.)
While in Korolyov, I was planning to visit Marina Tsvetayeva's dacha museum in Bolshevo, formerly a village, now part of Korolyov: this was a justification of the trip for the more alert part of me, the one that doesn't buy any of this 'tourist' escapism bullshit, but doesn't really mind cooperating, playing along.
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Korolyov felt so-not-like-Moscow: small and sleepy, rather green.
It felt so very anachronistic - especially when I ran into a store selling moskovskiye tovary, Moscow goods. (Those who lived outside Moscow in the Soviet times, but did have a way to slip in every now and then, would know the feeling I'm talking about.)
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It felt like a different planet, too: only two old women knew where Tsvetayeva's museum was - and a few young ones that I asked for directions looked like they had no idea who Tsvetayeva was... (The museum turned out to have been closed since 2000.)
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A bus stop at the edge of town, called Zhiliye Doma - "Residential Buildings"...
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As I was taking this picture of the shoe-box garages in front of a "residential building," a man and a woman approached me and asked why I was photographing their garage... I think it turned me speechless for a while, and I felt like a spy, too, very uncomfortable. My reply was truly idiotic: I told them I found the garages beautiful (I just didn't have the guts to tell them the truth, to admit that the garages were hideous, beautifully hideous). The couple looked at me just like anyone else would in this situation - poor crazy pregnant girl, probably spent too much time in the sun; the woman said she thought the garages were ugly as hell, and they walked on home.
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It's sad that the Tsvetaeva museum was closed. Was there any reason given?
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