Moscow - Circus

Okay, where were we? Moscow, eh? I'd just told you about something or other, and then it was going to be on with a description of the circus I went to, but I ran out of time at the internet cafe the other night and then I couldn't access this site at a place I was at yesterday. But I digress. I'm here in Leningrad, er, St. Petersburg, a city steeped in history and culture but, alas, pounded by rain the past few days. Well, not pounded, really, but enough to be highly annoying for a California boy like me.

So I went to the circus in Moscow the other night. Annette and Amanda, with whom I'm traveling but not really spending much time, went the night after, and they didn't like it much owing to the probable animal abuse that it took to get the animals to perform such amazing tricks and maneuvers. Not that I condone such actions, but I was more impressed with the acrobats anyways. There were bears and monkeys (but no bear driving a motorcycle with a goggled-and-scarfed monkey in the sidecar, as I'd envisioned), but the acrobats were really what was best. For some reason, the acrobats were all dressed in 1920s Coney Island getup, like handlebar mustaches for the men and striped body-covering bathing suits for both sexes. They did all sorts of neato flying-through-the-air tricks that had even cynical, jaded ol' me gasping with delight. They made excellent use of a see-saw to catapult members of the troupe way the heck up into the air, where they'd, for instance, land on the shoulders of someone who was already standing on someone else's shoulders, and the top guy would be holding a seat attached to the top of a long pole, and they'd vault the guy up from the see-saw on the ground up into that seat, probably 35 or 40 feet into the air.

I wish I could show you pictures, but I was harshly scolded by my sections babuskhka, or old grandmotherly lady, for taking photos and videos. In my defense, they hadn't said that I *couldn't* take photo (althouth they might have said so and I'd just missed it what with my lack of Russian skills). There were, however, both a video camera and a regular camera, both behind the circle with the line through it, on the back of my admission ticket.

So yes, the circus was cool. Acrobats. Lions, no tigers, and bears! Oh my! And cute little puppies! Doing adorable cute little puppy tricks with a girl dressed like Little Bo Peep. Let's just not think about how they got the puppies to perform those tricks so well.

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