I once wrote a post about Tsaritsyn park or rather, about our walk in it. In Moscow, I like it most of all, because there is a real forest there, but at the same time everything is very civilized, in a European way. Something reminds azienki park in Warsaw, which is also very nice.
In that article, I mentioned that I had often been there as a child, when there were ruins and a completely abandoned place. So I rummaged in old photos and found a couple of pieces where I am still very young and green, and I am just in this very park, you can feel nostalgic with me 🙂
Tsaritsyno in desolation
It was not always civilized. All my childhood I lived very close to Tsaritsyno and I remember those times when not a single building was restored, and the park itself was in complete desolation. They went to barbecues, went skiing and cycling (it was banned 5 years ago), Tolkienists and other kinds of informals hung out there. There were no paved paths, bridges, guards, fences, flower beds, lanterns, etc. Just a forest and ruined buildings.
A very long time ago, 80s
A very long time ago, 80s
I remember we climbed the ruins. I will never forget how we came up with the idea that somewhere in one of the buildings the lost library of Ivan the Terrible was hiding and were looking for it. I've been to almost every building on the roof. The most terrible thing was to climb into the Great Catherine Palace, since it was most destroyed, there was practically nothing left inside. In Maly, if my memory serves me, there were even stairs inside. And according to my recollections, the Bread House was one of the first to restore, and they did it for a very, very long time. Now I looked at Wikipedia, they started already in 1987. So, when we got there (and it was fenced off), either the builders or the watchmen saw us and chased us. And we, scrambling from them, jumped from the second or third floor into the sand. What an adventure 🙂
Our time is about 2006
Our time is about 2006
P.S. There are very few old photographs, but there are. In the past, not everyone had a point-and-shoot / DSLR / mirrorless / smartphone, and therefore photographing was something more than it is now. The whole process: take a picture on film, checking the parameters 10 times (after all, there are only 36 frames), and then also develop.
