Church with golden domes - it is about to rain
Man cleaning the star on top
Most modern building in the Kremlin
Church at the end of Red Square.
Big building at the Kremlin
The main Kremlin church
Changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier.
A Metro station. They are spotlessly clean and quite beautiful. Also have full security. A terroist attach not to long ago killed about 60 people at this very station.
Farewell dinner one day early
This statue was commissioned by a group of Americans - to be Christopher Columbus. It was done in 1994. They had it done here as it was "cheaper". However once it was done the Russians decided they didn't want it so they changed the head to be Peter the Great.Moscow isn’t what I expected – It is beautiful!
What a surprise. I expected Moscow to be dour, dingy, unfriendly, foreboding, and dangerous. Surprise it isn’t really any of those things – it is actually very beautiful. Oh sure – there are lots of traces of the bad old times but it is actually quite beautiful, modern, and in many ways seems more currently prosperous than Saint Petersburg.
We have another wonderful guide here, her name is Diana. She used to be a school teacher and she very much takes a teaching approach with us. She’s given us lots of helpful tips on such as how to:
• recognize words in this crazy alphabet
• get around on the Metro
• order food in restaurants when you have no clue what it says on the menu
She is also full of information on the if history of Russia and Moscow and what it is like to live here now. She doesn’t seem completely sold on the new form of government and points out that in quite a few ways things were better before. Don’t get me wrong, she is very critical of lots things under Communist rule too.
First of all – this place is huge – population is 17,000,000. Most people live in huge apartment buildings that surround the heart of the city and these go on for a very long way. I had the benefit of seeing the city well as we were flying in and could see the vast clusters of these highrise apartment building that went on forever. While some of these are old and very Soviet looking – quite a lot of them are much newer and are actually rather attractive. As we past them coming in from the airport, Diana pointed out that for the people that live in them things are much more convenient than living in the city center as there are parks, schools, child care, supermarkets, etc. located nearby. Public transportation is plentiful. Despite that traffic is HORRIBLE!!!
We couldn’t believe the drive from the airport. It was only maybe 40 miles to our hotel and it took 2 hours. In the city it is pretty much grid lock most of the time and smells of exhaust fumes. Apparently lots of people just want to drive their cars since they have one. We saw one car that was, believe it or not, gold plated!
It also feels pretty safe here. There don’t appear to be as many potential pick pockets and thugs as I expected. Still a good idea to be vigilant in crowded places of course.
We’ve done quite a bit of sightseeing mostly on foot and my feet know it. Right now I’m sitting on my bed with my legs up and that sure feels good.
Yesterday we walked to Red Square – pretty close to our hotel. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see the square itself completely empty as there is some kind of event going on with tents and booths with kids doing lots of sports and talent competitions.
We have walked past the KGB headquarters repeatedly as it lies between our hotel and Red Square. It consists of several large buildings – office buildings and one apartment building. These of course are heavily guarded.
We’ve also seen several shopping areas. One was particularly ritzy including Cartier. Another we walked through and it is a huge complex that has been around a long time. It is adjacent to Red Square and has many very nice stores, some exclusive and others that are just very nice. There is a large food store that is sort of like Harrods in London with anything you could possibly want to drink or eat (meats, fish, deli, a huge gourmet section, wines, liquor, and on and on.
Apparently 80% of all the wealthy Russians live in Moscow and it shows. This does not appear to be a financially struggling place at least not in the areas we’ve seen. Also – there are some tourists but not nearly the volume we saw in St. Petersburg.
We’ve learned that the population of Russia is declining. The birthrate is only 1.3 children per couple and the average life expectancy for men is only 57. Not sure why it is so low. In past it was blamed on alcoholism and smoking but apparently those are improving. Also learned that during WWII 27,000,000 people lost their lives.
Today we spent most of the day in the Kremlin complex. The public is able to visit about 25% of the Kremlin. It is the seat of the government now and it was at the time of the Czars as well so there are many very old buildings and churches and a few new ones. Of course there is a big security presence and quite a few black cars driving around with tinted windows.
At one of the churches we visited today there were extensive icons on the wall. Diana pointed out that on one of them that showed the instruments of torture in hell, two of the instruments were a hammer and sickle. This was apparently derived from the Old Testament. Interesting hmm?
Also interesting…. During WWII when the Nazis had surrounded Moscow and things looked very bleak, Stalin went to church and prayed for two days. Also interesting, Lenin is preserved in his tomb and is on display. We didn’t go. Diana told us that he had planned to be buried but Stalin decided to have his body preserved. It is apparently still in pretty good shape – for a dead person.
We had dinner tonight with “our group”. Usually the farewell dinner is held the last night but since several of us are going to the Moscow Circus tomorrow night, we had the dinner tonight. It was in a very nice restaurant nearly across the street from our hotel. I’ve really enjoyed everyone in the group – they are a great bunch. See the farewell picture.
What a surprise. I expected Moscow to be dour, dingy, unfriendly, foreboding, and dangerous. Surprise it isn’t really any of those things – it is actually very beautiful. Oh sure – there are lots of traces of the bad old times but it is actually quite beautiful, modern, and in many ways seems more currently prosperous than Saint Petersburg.
We have another wonderful guide here, her name is Diana. She used to be a school teacher and she very much takes a teaching approach with us. She’s given us lots of helpful tips on such as how to:
• recognize words in this crazy alphabet
• get around on the Metro
• order food in restaurants when you have no clue what it says on the menu
She is also full of information on the if history of Russia and Moscow and what it is like to live here now. She doesn’t seem completely sold on the new form of government and points out that in quite a few ways things were better before. Don’t get me wrong, she is very critical of lots things under Communist rule too.
First of all – this place is huge – population is 17,000,000. Most people live in huge apartment buildings that surround the heart of the city and these go on for a very long way. I had the benefit of seeing the city well as we were flying in and could see the vast clusters of these highrise apartment building that went on forever. While some of these are old and very Soviet looking – quite a lot of them are much newer and are actually rather attractive. As we past them coming in from the airport, Diana pointed out that for the people that live in them things are much more convenient than living in the city center as there are parks, schools, child care, supermarkets, etc. located nearby. Public transportation is plentiful. Despite that traffic is HORRIBLE!!!
We couldn’t believe the drive from the airport. It was only maybe 40 miles to our hotel and it took 2 hours. In the city it is pretty much grid lock most of the time and smells of exhaust fumes. Apparently lots of people just want to drive their cars since they have one. We saw one car that was, believe it or not, gold plated!
It also feels pretty safe here. There don’t appear to be as many potential pick pockets and thugs as I expected. Still a good idea to be vigilant in crowded places of course.
We’ve done quite a bit of sightseeing mostly on foot and my feet know it. Right now I’m sitting on my bed with my legs up and that sure feels good.
Yesterday we walked to Red Square – pretty close to our hotel. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see the square itself completely empty as there is some kind of event going on with tents and booths with kids doing lots of sports and talent competitions.
We have walked past the KGB headquarters repeatedly as it lies between our hotel and Red Square. It consists of several large buildings – office buildings and one apartment building. These of course are heavily guarded.
We’ve also seen several shopping areas. One was particularly ritzy including Cartier. Another we walked through and it is a huge complex that has been around a long time. It is adjacent to Red Square and has many very nice stores, some exclusive and others that are just very nice. There is a large food store that is sort of like Harrods in London with anything you could possibly want to drink or eat (meats, fish, deli, a huge gourmet section, wines, liquor, and on and on.
Apparently 80% of all the wealthy Russians live in Moscow and it shows. This does not appear to be a financially struggling place at least not in the areas we’ve seen. Also – there are some tourists but not nearly the volume we saw in St. Petersburg.
We’ve learned that the population of Russia is declining. The birthrate is only 1.3 children per couple and the average life expectancy for men is only 57. Not sure why it is so low. In past it was blamed on alcoholism and smoking but apparently those are improving. Also learned that during WWII 27,000,000 people lost their lives.
Today we spent most of the day in the Kremlin complex. The public is able to visit about 25% of the Kremlin. It is the seat of the government now and it was at the time of the Czars as well so there are many very old buildings and churches and a few new ones. Of course there is a big security presence and quite a few black cars driving around with tinted windows.
At one of the churches we visited today there were extensive icons on the wall. Diana pointed out that on one of them that showed the instruments of torture in hell, two of the instruments were a hammer and sickle. This was apparently derived from the Old Testament. Interesting hmm?
Also interesting…. During WWII when the Nazis had surrounded Moscow and things looked very bleak, Stalin went to church and prayed for two days. Also interesting, Lenin is preserved in his tomb and is on display. We didn’t go. Diana told us that he had planned to be buried but Stalin decided to have his body preserved. It is apparently still in pretty good shape – for a dead person.
We had dinner tonight with “our group”. Usually the farewell dinner is held the last night but since several of us are going to the Moscow Circus tomorrow night, we had the dinner tonight. It was in a very nice restaurant nearly across the street from our hotel. I’ve really enjoyed everyone in the group – they are a great bunch. See the farewell picture.
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