September the 13th, 2010: Last day of the tour: Moscow

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Last day of the tour: Moscow on September the 13^th

We got up early that morning as we were to leave on the bus for a tour of the Kremlin at 9:00. As I was pulling up my sox, I noticed large red patches on each legs right below where my sox tops hit. My legs were also swollen but this “rash” didn’t hurt or itch. I was kind of concerned since I had never seen anything like it before, and I didn’t know if was an allergy, or some kind of bug irritation, or what. I decided I would check it out with the ship doctor which meant, I had to wake up Polina to translate for me. Polina looked at my legs and said she actually had seen this condition before. The doctor said it was circulation problems and that I was to take aspirin and stay off my feet. She also rubbed the area with some cream and gave me a prescription to get at a pharmacy. I wasn’t too keen on ingesting any Russian medicine I had no clue what it was so, I ignored that advice.



We went on to the tour and I tried to sit everywhere I could. We had made “friends” with an Indian Dr. and his wife from Ames, Iowa and he overheard Valerie and I talking about my “rash” while we waited in the ticket line. I felt better when he told me it would go away by itself but to try and elevate my feet as much as I could. When we I got here and could goggle what it might be, I found I had what is called golfer’s vasculitis brought on by heat and walking all day and was not exactly related to circulation. It did indeed go away by it’s self.

THE KREMLIN

All the previous tsars, Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev and all who have previously lived inside the Kremlin walls, we were sure, were looking down in horror at all the common people from all over the world, wandering basically freely around the Kremlin grounds. We only saw one guard who got sort of uncomfortable watching one of our group walking too close while taking pictures of the palace where the Russian Presidents currently live. A White House guard would have been just as alert.



Around the triangular shaped tall red walls are twenty towers of different sizes. Inside the walls are 4 palaces, 3 cathedrals, the Senate building and many huge buildings housing govt. offices. The tour guide talked about the various buildings and we then walked to the very center of the Kremlin to see a group of churches.

It was really strange from our western viewpoint to see 3 Russian Orthodox Cathedrals and two churches side by side around a smallish open courtyard. Each cathedral it seems has its own function. First on our left was the Archangel Cathedral (1505-08) which is the burial place of heads of the Russian Orthodox Church, Great Princes and some Tsars. Next in the corner, , was The Annunciation Cathedral (1484-89) that was used for worship, weddings, baptisms etc. by the Great Moscow Princes and the Tsars. Next was a small Church of the deposition of the Robe of the Holy Virgin (1484-85), which was used for worship by Moscow Metropolitans and later the Patriarchs.

On our right was The Assumption Cathedral (1475-79) used for the coronation of all the Tsars and Emperors. It was surprisingly small, nothing at all like Westminster Abby. Hard to tell how many it could hold as there are no seats in a Russian Orthodox Church—everyone stands for the whole service. The French looted this Cathedral in 1812 and took over 295 kg of gold and 5 tons of silver. It was closed in 1918. We were allowed to tour inside and take pictures. It remains a museum even though it was returned to the church in 1989.

Completing the square, was the Patriarch’s Palace and the Twelve Apostles’ Church and then the bell tower of Ivan the Great. All of these places were topped by multiple onion domes. For more information see:www.moscow.info/kremlin/index.aspx.



Two other items were on the tour–The Tsar cannon and the Tsar Bell. The cannon which is the largest and oldest in the world at 39 tons was cast in 1586 and is pointed directly at the building where the apartments of the current and former heads of Russia lived. It is 5 meters long and never used. The base is surrounded by cannon balls also never fired.



The Tsar Bell was cast in a huge deep hole dug in the Kremlin in 1735 but, the timbers built around the hole to extract the bell burned to the ground when it was being caste. The bell was so heavy, at 202 tons, that it couldn’t be extracted from the mold until 1836. When it was finally brought up out of the hole it cracked and a large piece fell off. Now it just sits on a pedestal next to where it was cast as it is too heavy to put in any tower.



Even though we had originally thought to stay in the City after this tour, we decided to head back to the ship on the bus instead. We really had seen more than we had expected and we needed to get packed to leave the next day. I also wanted to get my feet elevated to help get the swelling in my legs down.



The next morning while we were still at breakfast, our taxi to the airport arrived. The taxi, arranged by the tour company, was an hour earlier then the time we were told. We hastened to get our stuff together and he drove us about an hour north to the modern Moscow airport for our flight back to Helsinki. We transferred planes and then caught a Finair flight on to Vilnius, Lithuania where we were met by a woman from the University who took us to our apartment.




Our 11 day trip was from St. Petersburg to Moscow. What isn’t on this map is the village of Myshkin just north of Uglich . We didn’t go out of the water as my red “line” shows—paintbrush just didn’t want to make a line a curve.

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