Traumatised cow, the Arbat, Moscow, Russia

            Arbat Street, usually just 'the Arbat', is one of central Moscow's oldest streets, with documentary evidence of it already existing in 1493. Now it's a pedestrianised street about a kilometre long between the Boulevard Ring ~800 m west of the Kremlin to the Garden Ring at Smolenskaya Square, but that route continues on to become the M1 highway to Smolensk, Minsk and Warsaw i.e. this was the main trade route to the west.  It's probably no coincidence that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, one of Stalin's 'Seven Sisters' skyscrapers, is located at the outer end of the Arbat.
With pedestrianisation, vehicle traffic transferred to the near-adjacent New Arbat Avenue, lined by the huge apartment blocks in the background.

As such, the Arbat was originally lined by craftsmen's workshops until becoming the fashionable residence of 18th Century nobility. Following the Great Fire of 1812, the rebuilt street tended to accommodate lesser nobility, artists and academics (some of the latter two also happened to be the former!). Unsurprisingly, these were displaced in the Soviet era, including by senior government officials.

The Arbat retained a retail role throughout all these changes and, partly due to the history of its buildings and such residents as Pushkin, remains popular with tourists.

This cow with a thousand-yard stare stands outside the Mu-Mu café at the corner of Plotnikov Lane; the statue of Soviet-era folk singer/poet Bulat Okudzhava is off the right of the image and he had an apartment in the building beyond the doughnuts kiosk on the right.

Yes, the striped building on the left, at the corner of Spasopeskovskiy Lane, does contain a certain US coffee shop; in researching this caption, I note that it seems to have considerably expanded since I took the photo in 2012.
Oh, and the cow's eyes have been repainted.

Taken in: Russia / Moscow Federal City / Moscow / Arbat (show map)

Taken on: October 21, 2012

Tags:

mu-mu

mу-mу

statue

arbat

street

ул

aрбат

райо́н

moscow

москва

russia

россия

plotnikov

lane

плотников

переулок

spasopeskovskiy

pereulok

спасопесковский

pedestrian

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Sets appears in: • Moscow

Groups appears in: • Russia • squareFormat more » • Sculpture • MOSCOW / МОСКВА • Statues and Sculptures. • MOCKBA • Cow mad • Russia in Photographs • Geotagging: Russia • Moscow moments « less

Camera: Canon EOS 450D, f/7.1, 1/125 sec, 15mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 450D
Lens:	EF-S15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Focal Length:	15mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Partial
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5 (Windows)
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