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Day 159
Moscow is the capital and largest city in Russia, it has the largest metropolitan area in Europe and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world (7th largest) with a population of 17 million people.
After a good buffet breakfast at the hotel we got the metro into the centre of the city for some sight seeing. As soon as we stepped out of the metro station we saw the red tall walls of the Kremlin. We walked towards the gardens in front of the Kremlin where we came across the eternal flame of the unknown soldier and saw the changing of the guard.
We then noticed a long queue forming in the square and realized that it was everyone waiting to visit the mausoleum of Lenin. This is what we had come to visit first so we joined the queue just as it started to rain. As soon as we joined the end of the queue touts came over offering to take us to the front of the queue, for a payment of course! We declined as we need to spend our money wisely here as Moscow is known as the most expensive city
in the world!
It took us approximately 1 hour to get to the front of the queue. It was very annoying all the people that jumped the queue in front of us, it seems that the Russians don't like queuing. To jump the queue you could either pay a tout or be brave and just walk along the grass to the front. The whole situation seemed very corrupt, the touts would chat to the guards and were obviously offering backhanders to help people jump the queue.
After a security check we followed the crowd passed some burial sights before entering Vladimir Lenin's mausoleum. Chairman Lenin died in 1924 and was embalmed so his body could be preserved as he was an important soviet figure. Lenin's body lay in a glass coffin in the centre of a dark room with a light shining on his face. We were quickly ushered through the mausoleum and remained silent thought.
We exited the mausoleum onto the famous red square (which is not actually red!) here we we got our first full view of St Basil's Cathedral. This building is the international icon for Moscow and the most recognized building in Russia.
It was surprising how small St Basil's cathedral was as when you see the building on photographs or TV it looks gigantic when in actual fact it is rather modest in size.
The cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and built between 1555 and 1561. Inside the cathedral there are many small chapels with ancient murals on the walls and ceilings inside the domes. We spent time looking inside the cathedral and taking pictures of the building before going back out into the rain.
The GUM department store stands opposite the Kremlin on Red Square. It is a very fancy old building full of designer shops, unfortunately we did not shop here we just walked through to get out of the rain.
After some lunch we got tickets to enter the Kremlin, a fortified complex, housing many important, historic buildings and is the residence of the Russian president. We were lucky to be able to enter today as we have found out that President Barack Obama is due to visit here tomorrow, we thought security looked tight! We spent a couple of hours viewing cathedral square and some of the buildings inside the Kremlin.
In
the afternoon we used the metro to go to Komsomolyskaya where we hoped to purchase our train tickets to St Petersburg for tomorrow night. It is quite difficult navigating your way around the underground tunnels as all the signs are inn Cyrillic. Eventually we managed to find a train station, we weren't sure it was the one we wanted but we found a ticket desk.
In Kazanskiy station we found a travel agency in the VIP lounge and asked for an English speaking cashier. It was relativity easy to book our tickets as they spoke good English, however you do pay a commission of about £5 a ticket. We returned to the hotel by metro and ate dinner in the restaurant.
6/7
Day 160
We had hoped to visit some museums today as the weather was overcast, but it turns out that all the interesting ones are closed on a Monday. After checking out at midday we travelled back to the centre of the city to see if the state historical museum was open. As we left the metro and got to street level we noticed all the Kremlin and Red Square area were cornered off to
tourists. Security and military officers were everywhere. As the museum is located next to the Kremlin it meant that we could get nowhere near it.
We walked towards the main entrance to the Kremlin and waited to see if we would see the US President arrive. At 1pm the clouds in the sky cleared as if ordered just in time for Obama's visit. We walked over the Moskva river bridge to get some photographs. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour stands on the banks of the river, so we went to visit the impressive building with gold domes.
Inside the cathedral the interior was very impressive and looked surprisingly new. When we read our guide book it turns out that this replica cathedral is only 10 years old at a cost of $800 million! The original orthodox cathedral was built using public donations in 1883. However, Stalin (Premier of the Soviet Union) ordered it to be destroyed in 1931.
For lunch we headed to Arbat, a pedestrianised shopping street before getting a metro back to our hotel. The weather had improved and the sun occasional warmed the sky so we spent an hour in the botanical gardens
nearby. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel lobby before we set off for our sleeper train.
The Express train 4 from Moscow to St Petersburg left Leningradskiy station at 23.59. Our carriage was number 16 the last carriage on the train. Once again we had 2 top bunks and shared our cabin with 2 Russian ladies. We were very relieved to be on our last train of our 6 months trip and went straight to sleep as soon as we got into our beds!
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Maggie
non-member comment
homeward bound
You can tell your heading closer to home your back to wearing Jeans and coats again instead of shorts and T shirts. Looking forward to seeing you both back in the UK xxx