Christmas trees

After a bleak, wet morning it fined up this afternoon, so I took the metro to Teatralnaya station, which is close to the Bolshoi Theatre. I intended to take some late afternoon pictures of Christmas trees.

I was surprised to find police everywhere, several hundred I expect. Truckloads of them. Red Square was closed. It looked like some sort of rally was in preparation in nearby Revolution Square. I might be wrong, but I got the impression it was to be a United Russia gathering (Vladimir Putin's party). There appear to be rallies by groups with differing viewpoints going on around the city, especially in Tverskaya. My bag was searched. The police officers I spoke to, or who spoke to me, were polite enough.

Some of the police at Revolution Square (nice hats)

There are elections in Russia at the moment, the Duma last weekend and the Presidential soon. So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. But most people are just going about their business as usual.

Rally at Pushkin Square

 A little inconvenient for Christmas tree photography as I had to take several detours. Giant Christmas trees have appeared all around the city recently. There's really not much one can say about giant Christmas trees.

Pushkin Square (other side of the road to the rally)

Bolshoi Theatre

Manezhnaya Square

Sparrow Hills

Lubyanka Square. The traffic was completely gridlocked when I wanted to take this and I had to wait ages for a cement truck to get out of the way.

My favourite at Tverskaya Square