Go skiing in Izmailovo Park
Living in Moscow, I never cease to be amazed at the paradoxes of the weather. If last year it was not possible to go skiing due to the lack of snow, then this year it was due to the low temperature -20-25?C. Only in the last weekend did January please us with good days, which we decided to take advantage of.
Of all the places where you can ski in Moscow, we settled on Izmailovsky Park, as it is the closest to our area. There are no mountains in Izmailovsky, so you can only cross-country ski. If you want to ski from the mountains, then you need to go somewhere to Uzkoye, Kolomenskoye, etc. There are many such places in Moscow, no less than those intended for regular skiing.
Ski rental opening hours in Izmailovsky Park on weekends: from 12:00 to 22:00, and on weekdays - from 14:00 to 22:00. Having reached the Partizanskaya metro station, from the only exit you need to go right across the road. Izmailovsky Park itself will already be there. At the very entrance there is a plan of the entire park, where the objects located here are marked. Number 3 was listed as “Inventory Rental Point” (in the photo below the red dot marks the actual rental location).
Logically assuming that there was a ski rental there, glad that it was not far, we headed there. But, having reached the indicated place, there was no ski base there, and there were no skiers in the area. After walking forward for about 5 minutes, wandering around the area, we finally saw people skiing. And soon the ski rental itself was discovered. The ski base is located not far from the pond, which is designated on the plan as the Round Pond; we once rode catamarans here in the summer.
The ski rental in Izmailovsky Park turned out to be a small one-story building, in front of which the grandmother handed out skis in a small shed. The process of obtaining skis was not so simple. As usual, I paid the money to the cashier, took my skis and boots and went. At the Izmailovsky box office, in my opinion, this process was somehow complicated.
First you need to go through the main building, where the dressing rooms and ski boot distribution are located, and exit through the opposite door to the ticket office. Here we pay for ski rental at a rate of 100 rubles/hour, plus a deposit for one pair of skis - 1000 rubles. Passports and other documents are not accepted as collateral.
After payment, with the tickets received from the cashier, go to the main building, where you receive ski boots. Well, you get it - this is ideal, but in reality my size (42) was not available. There is a crowd of people before the collection, some like us are waiting to receive them, some are already handing over their shoes, and others haven’t even paid yet and are unknowingly standing in line. We, as people, have a logic: if there is a queue, then you must definitely take a place in it, just in case, and only then find out what and how.
After waiting about 15 minutes and, in the end, lying in wait for a man who was handing over my size, we received the long-awaited ski boots. My friend was lucky, she has size 37, and there were no problems with the boots. Having handed over our everyday shoes to the cloakroom and paid 10 rubles for it, we went out to receive our skis. Here we were lucky again - we took the last two pairs. Those behind us had to wait another 5 minutes until someone handed over their skis.
The area of Izmailovsky Park is 1621 hectares, so there is plenty of room for skiing here. True, we didn’t go deep into the forest, we rode around the pond. I haven’t skied for a whole year, I had to remember how it’s done, skating and all that stuff. Once I even fell out of the blue. But skiing is like swimming, once you learn it, you won’t forget it again. The muscles, of course, will quickly get tired from being unaccustomed to it, but you will continue to ride.
In addition to skiing, Izmailovsky Park also has a skating rink and skate rentals for winter entertainment. They are issued in the same building as ski boots, prices are in the photo above. You can also go sledding here. We wanted to, but the horse’s working day ended right before our arrival.
Izmailovsky Park is a good place where you can relax to your heart’s content (actively relax), one might say even more - relax your soul. I liked how we spent this weekend. Sometimes you need to get out of the concrete jungle, push yourself, you can’t still sit at home at the computer.