29 April 2008 By John Wendle / Staff Writer The blue shadows of sharks circled ominously round and round the child. Then the toddler reached out and banged her hand on the glass. Her dad smiled.
On another recent day, the doctors at a local trauma center asked, “How the hell did you get bitten by a shark in Kitai-Gorod?,” when a staff member from the Sea Aquarium at Chistiye Prudy came in, bleeding from bite wounds on his arm. “They thought he was drunk,” said Mikhail Berezin, the director and founder of the aquarium.
The aquarium, which is the only one of its kind in Moscow, began as a one-room fish store in the basement of the art deco building near the pond at Chistiye Prudy in 1998. Since then, it has grown into a very popular, four-room weekend institution for families, experts and hobbyists alike.
“I don’t advertise, because then there would be traffic jams up and down the Boulevard Ring,” Berezin said.
If the crowds packing his venue are any indication, this is not an idle boast.
“This is our first visit, but we’re really glad we came,” said a woman carrying her grandson past a display of bright red-and-white-spotted crystal red shrimp.
Even though it was the boy’s first time at the aquarium, he had already chosen the ray-shaped skate in a large bare tank in the main room as his favorite.
The aquarium’s location is given away only by an unobtrusive blue sign, almost lost against the building, which is covered in bas-relief animals. Down a short stairway, visitors are greeted by a eerie moray eel hanging motionless from a crevice in the coral wall of its tank.
The aquarium’s small size leads to some interesting contrasts. The cashier’s desk sits above a touch tank filled with sea urchins, sea cucumbers and starfish. In the main room, one wall is a large glass tank with bulging goldfish swimming slowly through the water. The tank is pierced by two holes, behind which sit the women in the accounting office.

themoscowtimes.com