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Published: March 1st 2006
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For our last day we decided that it was best to head back to Red Square to see it during the day. A major letdown if one has already seen it at night. If any of you ever go to Moscow, be sure to see Red Square during the night first. This will preserve the magic. Throughout the stay, we made frequent use of the Moscow Metro, which is a site by itself. Parts of it are reminiscent to the glory days of the Union; others go back to an era that seems almost pre-communist imperialist. The subway was the people mover for the masses; high ranking government officials have "police lights" on their cars. These were abundant all over the city, creating the impression that half the population drives an unmarked police car. An interesting fact is that these cars were perhaps the only ones in the city that did not function as taxis. Everything from an ambulance to a garbage truck to a private vehicle can be flagged down and used as a taxi. If you need to get
somewhere off the metro line quick, an idling police car is your best bet. The last stop in Red Square
was Lenin’s Mausoleum. After clarifying with a few historically inept students that the Lenin we were going to see was Vladimir and not John, the difficulty of explaining why we were seeing him emerged. I am personally ashamed to admit that the following statement emerged from the lips of a high school graduate: “wow, there was a revolution?” Worse, this came on the 4th day of our being in the country. But then again, there has to be a reason why communications is offered as a degree (no undo offense to those that choose to study communications even though they are capable of other things). After we got our chance to walk passed Lenin, I can look back and say that it was interesting. Seeing the guy who started it all was pretty cool. He looked like he had been dead for a while, and I am not sure he will be kept ‘viewable’ for much longer. After viewing the dead, we hopped on the metro to check out the museum of the battle commemorating Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the harsh defeat he suffered. In a way, the museum was about much more than the one invasion. It exemplified
the entire Russian psyche. Russia lost every battle that it fought with Napoleon, ended up abandoning Moscow , torching the city in retreat, but won the war because the French army was left with an ‘empty’ conquest. The museum had a nice collection of paintings and a great panoramic. The best part was that due to the size of the group, the tour was given in English! I could understand it! After heading back to downtown, we were given a few hours to gather together some souvenirs and meet back at our hostel. Moscow is no shopper’s paradise. The price of goods was high compared to Eastern European countries, and the selection was just ok. I left without acquiring any items. A key aspect pointing to the fact that Russia was not really geared toward mass movement of civilians was going to a secondary train station in Moscow (there are many of them) for our overnight ride up to St. Petersburg. When going through the station, nice and early because we were a large group, those of us that didn’t read Russian had difficulty finding the way to the tracks. We finally ended up waiting in line behind our student
guides, at a café, which we didn’t think was smart because the train was leaving soon. Turns out, we were just waiting for some people to get out of the way so that we could go into the café and thru the side door in order to get to our train. Yep, it looked like a side door one would use to take the garbage out. Sure enough, it was the way to the platform. Lucky for us we had our Russian speaking students; I never would have found the train without them.
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