Moscow – Second Day

Lena and Dasha couldn’t join us for the second day, so with Greg’s budding Russian and a subway map, off we went to explore the city.  We first went to the Cathedral-of-the-Christ we visited yesterday.  It wasn’t open and we wanted to return to see the inside.  An interesting history here.

It was the biggest and most opulent Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.  When Lenin enforced Communism, he had it destroyed to build a huge outdoor swimming pool for the “workers”.  However, due to the swimming pool’s size, the amount of evaporation was so great that the humidity was effecting close-by art museums.  So he had the swimming pool torn down.  Plans were then laid to build a monument to Communism four times higher then the Cathedral, but that was never built.

So, when Communism died in 1991, a whole new Cathedral was built even better then the original.  So, rather then seeing one built 4-500 years ago, this one is only 15 years old.  No pictures were allowed inside, but the outside is stunning.

These brass castings were on all outside walls.

A detail of the massive carved wooden doors

Finally ,to end our stay in Moscow, we took the subway out to the Former Soviet Union’s Technology/Exhibition Park.  This is where the best of Communism was displayed.  Sculptures commemorating their space program, many sculptures celebrating the unification of the 14 Countries, their technology and pride.  Now it ranges somewhere between nostalgia, an embarrassment, and a laughing stock. A couple of pictures.

This the the greatest of the monuments to Communism with Lenin’s statue still in front.  Now it has little stores inside selling cheap electronics and even cheaper souvenirs.  A audio loop of a clown laughing comes from the inside.

This is a HUGE sculpture on a HUGE building commemorating the Hammer and Sickle held aloft by a man and woman. (See the people in front for a perspective)

After dark, on the way back to our apartment through Red Square.