Moscow – First Day

A rather lazy 8 hour train ride from St. Petersburg to Moscow.  Initially we discovered that we were in the midst of a 4 day national holiday and all flights and trains were booked solid.  With a bit of patience, Jenya found some seats on a train at the last minute.  Yesa and Lena picked us up at the train station at 10PM, bringing us to our Moscow apartment.  Again, very nice, but with WiFi!  Getting caught up on the news and emails. 

Today was Kremlin Day.  A short subway ride to Red Square.  Moscow’s subway system is unique in that after the fall of Communism the Russians converted their subway stations into world class museums!  They are spotlessly clean and full of valuable artwork.  Take that New York!

What we typically saw in the 70’s of the Kremlin was the bloated Poliburo on the top of the wall watching row after row of missiles and artillery roll by in the huge Red Square.  In actuality the Soviets used wide angle lenses.  The Red Square is really not that big, maybe half the of the plaza in front of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and on one end of the Square is St. Basil’s Church; the other end is a museum.  Not really that imposing in real life! But neither was Communism we discovered.

This the the Kremlin with Lenin’s Tomb on the left, the Kremlin (“fortress” in Russian) in one form or another has been around for 700 years.

St. Basil’s Church is the quintessential Russian Orthodox cathedral. Officially known as Cathedral of Intercession of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, Temple of Basil the Blessed.  It is actually 10 mini-cathedrals all built together during the 16th century.

The Russians too, have a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  This is during a Changing of the Guard.  This commemorates the soldiers who died fighting the Nazis during WWII.  Note: The Soviet Union lost almost 9 million military and over 13 million civilians in WWII.

Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin

In front of Lenin’s tomb in Red Square.  Our guides, Dasha and Lina, thought is odd that we wanted our picture taken here, but Gloria and I posed in front of Ho Chi Minh’s tomb in Hanoi, so we thought we would go two for two for Communist Dictators.

Gloria posing with Dasha and Lina in GUM department store on Kremlin Square.