Sunday, September 12th, 2010--MOSCOW

---

MOSCOW Sunday September 12^th

At the meeting one day with Polina for all in group 8, she discussed the optional tours available for Moscow, for an additional, we thought rather spendy fee, of course. Valerie and I had decided that besides the tours included in the cruise, we could do much of Moscow on our own using the subway system and then linking up with the bus tour to get back to the ship. If necessary, we felt we would just take a taxi as there was no shuttle to and from town to the metro system like there was in St. Pete.


The bus tour that morning took us along the New Maiden Convent walls with it’s many church domes and then a tour of Red Square. We started the tour on the outside of one of the Kremlin walls where they have a very nicely done “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier”. We then walked through an arched gate and into Red Square coming into the square exactly opposite St. Basil’s Cathedral.

I never realized that the Kremlin is a walled fort. It was first built by Slavs in 1090 on a hill where two rivers came together and then much later, after it had been sacked and burned several times, they moated the third side. Red square is just a paved space outside the Kremlin walls. It started out as the site of wooden huts and as a place for criminals and other folk not allowed into the Kremlin. A decreed was ordered in 1400's by Peter the Great to clear the area around the Kremlin for military defense, which then left an open area between the Kremlin gates and the merchant area.

It is not at all as large as we expected it to be. It is about 3 football fields long and 1 ½ a field wide. Not at all like Tiananmen Square in Beijing. A church, a street, and then The Gum is on one long side, St Basil’s at the end with a street on one side, the Kremlin wall with Lenin's tomb tucked against it the other long side, and the arch/gate we had just walked through. Not sure where the tanks would have gone through!!! We suspect they rolled down the street by The Gum and then continued down the square and exited along St. Basil’s church—otherwise, I guess they could go round and round making it look like more tanks then they really had!!!


We were left “free” by the tour guide inside The GUM–as it was raining by that time. We always thought it was pronounced like “chewing gum” but, they pronounce it to rhyme with doom. Valerie and I then wandered around trying to imagine the place with no goods nor food to sell. GUM is an arcade type mall with individual shops on the three floors. It is now absolutely stocked with the latest from Versace, Boss, Louis Vuitton, and other top of the line designers.


Valerie and I really liked a wine shop that reminded us of Harrod’s in London. Teas and coffees and exquisite bakery goods along with more varieties of wines and liquor for sale than I have ever seen. We then found a café on the top floor to people watch and had our morning “tea”. We were also killing some time waiting for the next tour of the Kremlin armory. You had to purchase tickets one hour prior to the tour time and supposedly they let people inside only 4 times a day, but when we finally entered there wasn’t a real “group” at all—maybe in the summer it is necessary to control the crowds that way. The Armory is not to be missed yet wasn’t included on the cruise tour. We just happened to read about it in a guide book.


The armory is where all the jewels, crowns and scepters, church vestments and altar stuff, hand painted sets of dishes and tableware, Faberge eggs, gifts to the Tsars etc. are housed. Much like the tower of London, it also included full medieval suits of armor and guns, swords, dresses of the Tsarinas, carriages, thrones all the way back in time. All heavily encrusted with jewels, gold, silver, and pearls etc. We were not allowed to take pictures inside. If you go to this website you can see some of what we saw by taking a”virtual tour” www.kreml.ru/en/virtual/exposition/. After we left the Armory we decided to tackle the subway system.


We learned that, being short of money when the Soviet system was young, Lenin authorized the sale of many art works from the Hermitage and other Palaces to the west to fund the government. He did this in secret and many of the works that had belonged to Russia are now in Western Museums.



The Moscow metro system is second only to the subway system in Tokyo in the number of daily passengers. 10 million people use it on week days and it has 170 stations. It was started in the 1930's by Stalin and he considered the stations to be the “people’s palaces”. There is a legend that says that when the engineers had plotted out the system they brought the plans to Stalin knowing that “something” was missing. Stalin looked over the plans and set his coffee cup in the center of the plan, leaving a brown ring. Today, the inner ring is brown and connects all the lines going out from the center. It is on this ring that the most elaborate stations are.

Each metro stop has a theme and is completely different from the other. They are done mostly in marble; red, black, green, and white and each embellished with art that includes bas‑reliefs, friezes, marble and bronze statues, stained‑glass windows and ceiling and wall mosaics made with glass, marble and granite. Exquisite crystal chandeliers hang in many of them. The themes include military victories, political figures, sports figures, the glory of the Socialist system etc. We visited 5 of the stations before calling it a day. For more of this art go to www.beeflowers.com/moscowmetro/ for some absolutely stunning photos.

Stalin was also involved in having multi-story skyscrapers built in a similar style in Moscow. The State University of Moscow, 2 hotels, 1 apartment building, and 3 govt. office buildings were built between 1947 and 1953 and all are lite at night. An 8^th “sister was commissioned but never completed. To see the distinctive style and the various architects see: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow).


We had purchased tickets for a performance of what we thought were to be Russian folk dances. Since we had been “free” from the tour for the whole afternoon, we joined our group via subway at the Cosmos Hotel for the performance. Instead, of what we had expected, it was a Los Vegas/Rockets style presentation of sort of folk dances. Costuming and scenery was great and the male dances did perform what we consider traditional dancing but, in all it was disappointing. We were then bused back to the ship where ate dinner, by now 10:30 pm, and then crashed.

---