Russia - Moscow, Days 10-11 - Metro, St Basil's, Kremlin


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Europe » Russia » Northwest » Moscow
July 27th 2021
Published: August 22nd 2021
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After flying through Novosiberisk again, and again at the airport hotel and bar, most of us continued on another 6 hour flight to Moscow, with a few going to St Petersburg. Here there were some changes as most people were returning to Dubai and waited to get the Covid rapid test before checking in. However, Luke and I were going to stay a couple of nights in Moscow to do some sight seeing. Initially, it was intended to not be rushed home, but now I was supposed to extend my stay as part of a 14 day quarantine to go to Saudi Arabia. We finally found the express train to the city center, getting business class tickets and having an empty car for the 40 minute journey. We arrived and found our way to the correct metro station, thanks to the woman at the express train ticket booth. I got us each a day pass because we planned to explore the famous metro system the next day.

We stayed at the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya, near the same named train station. The hotel is of the Stalinist neoclassical architecture from the early 1950's, designed to also emulate American architecture, and is one of the tallest buildings in the city and one of the seven sisters - at one point, among the tallest buildings in Europe. It was very nice and classic, recommended by our friend who loves Soviet history. The room was small, but with a great view of the train station and surrounding area. And easy to get around by walking to the metro and train station. We had initially planned to do something that night, but the 9-hour time difference caught up to us and we quickly passed out.

Moscow Metro

Due to the time difference, this also met we were both wide awake before 5am and were bored. So, as soon as the metro opened, we planned to start our tour. The Moscow Metro is famous as each of the 241 stations are elaborately decorated and unique. Luke had found a site that recommended the best of the stations, so we were able to put our day pass to good use. In three hours, we visited many and also got to experience rush hour in Moscow! The stations we visited are described below:

Komsomolskaya Station

This was our 'home' station and was a nice introduction to the city. Beautiful high yellow ceilings and Baroque-style ornamentation, it is a lovely spot. There are 68 octagonal marble columns and above are chandeliers. It was pretty easy to navigate, both for the metro and finding the train station. And it is super busy at all times.

Prospect Mira

Our first official 'stop', we went to the closest one we noted on the list. Of course I am the homing pigeon and I found the metro system very easy to use, with the stations, lines and directions very clear. It was interesting to see the difference in train types for each line though - for instance, the brown line (5) seems to have the newest, most technologically advanced trains with automated signage, whereas some of the older trains are hard copy line information. It was a nice intro to our tour of the metros, but as we saw more, it lost its appeal as one of the destination stations.

Kievskaya Station

Now this was a memorable station! This is also located on the circular brown line and we spent quite a bit of time exploring this one. This station was designed to celebrate Russian and Ukrainian unity, and has many elaborate mosaics.

Park Pobedy

This is the deepest metro in Moscow at about 84 meters and one of the deepest in the world. The design itself is not overly memorable, but the 3 minute long escalator ride was pretty cool! We went up to the top just take the ride, saw nice, clean marble floors - anywhere else in the world you would say it is a gorgeous station, but in Moscow it is just ok.

Slavyanskiy Bulvar

This one I thought was one of the prettiest we saw. It was simple, modern and elegant with an open platform and tasteful coloring.

Arbatskaya Station

This station at 250m is the 2nd longest in Moscow as well as somewhat deep at 41m. It was originally intended to also serve as a bomb shelter for nearby officials in the event of attack. It has high ceilings with elaborate chandeliers

Ploschad Revolyutsii

This station is named after the above Revolution Square and was one of the most interesting. There are 76 bronze sculptures of various design, 10 pairs repeating about 4 times (originally 80 sculptures). The sculptures are representative of the Russian people, featuring people such as farmers, students, soldiers, etc. The cool thing is that some of these parts of the statues are considered lucky, with people rubbing them as they pass, such as the soldier's dog's nose, or the shoe of the female student, or the rooster from the female farmer. I saw people walking by to rub them as they went to their platform - where they rub is noticeable more polished than the rest of the statue. Pretty cool!

Electrozavodskaya

This one was the most eye-catching! Built for the nearby light bulb factory, it was dazzling with all the lights and marble motifs. There are 318 inset lights in the ceiling of the platform as well as 12 of the marble motifs depicting the Russian people during WWII. This one was probably the most memorable, especially the name easy to link to the design, and was Luke's favorite.

Teatralnaya

This one is located in the theater district area and has some interesting marble motifs on the ceiling / arches, and some inset laps that give the station a unique appearance.

Mayakovskaya

This one turned out to be my favorite. It has an open platform design, but the eye is drawn to the the 34 inset mosaics in the ceilings. The design was inspired by the 'future' and was even replicated for the 1939 World's Fair in New York. The mosaics mostly feature aviation like planes and hot air balloons. My neck was starting to get a crick staring straight up, but it was worth it!

Red Square

After three hours touring the metro, we were ready to move onto the next spot. So, we made our way to the Red Square, which was pretty empty at 9am. So, we had it almost to ourselves, but the sun was not great for good photos at St Basil's. We tried anyway, knowing that we would be back to visit it later if we needed additional photos. Since the State Historical Museum was not yet open, we tried to find a place to relax for a bit of breakfast - nothing was open! I guess they don't eat breakfast or have coffee in Russia? Weird. We finally found a spot a little off the square that looked to be just opening and got some breakfast blinis and I had a flavored lemonade (yum!). It was already starting to get hot.

State Historical Museum

At 10am, we were able to get tickets to the Museum and spent the next hour or so exploring it. There was a lot to see and they sorted it by timeline, starting with the dawn of man basically through the acquisition of items from the Romanov dynasty, though it did not seem to continue into the 20th century. A bit disappointing as Luke was interested in the Soviet era and I was interested to see the Bolsheviks. However, the museum was tastefully decorated, including some of the old rooms still decorated with accents or even ceiling mosaics, though these were possible restored in the late 20th century. It was fairly easy to follow the information, despite most of it only being in Russian. The cool one was an old excavated long boat - it looked almost fake. We also had a great view of the Red Square from one of the exhibit locations. And yes, as per usual, the Russians do like their stairs!

GUM

The main shopping mall in the area is the GUM, recommended by our friend - a bit surprising as he is very old school, and this place appeared to be pretty fancy. It was fairly empty when we arrived, so we walked around the to the top level to get some good photos of the high end stores and beautiful interior. Our friend also recommended the restaurant Stolovaya 57, which apparently was like a cafeteria specializing in Russian comfort foods. It was super hot and I was not starving, so I initially got a shredded beet salad and fruit, with a juice. Luke loaded up! Thankfully he let me try a few things, like the fish and some other side dishes. It was an interesting atmosphere and a good way to try some local foods.

St Basil's

After eating, we walked past Lenin's Mausoleum which was not open today, but was interesting to see. We then went back to the iconic St Basil's cathedral, which was not cheap to get tickets to. I was waiting to be told to cover myself (wearing short shorts) or hair, so was on the lookout for scarves being sold. However, this did not even come up. We walked to the entrance and were told the general direction to travel through the maze of corridors and tiny rooms. It was very much not what either of us expected and we were a bit disappointed, Luke especially. We expected a grand orthodox cathedral with light and borderline gaudy paintings, but instead it was like the complete opposite. In effect, rather than a functioning church, it is a museum.

It was built on the orders of Ivan the Terrible in the mid 1500's. There are nine of the beautiful domes reaching to the sky, each corresponding to a different church within the cathedral. So, each 'church' within is actually quite small, hence the many corridors and dark interior. One feature that we both found off-putting was some of the weird paintings or decorations - such as fake bricks. Weird. The outside is absolutely incredible, majestic, and unforgettable; the interior was just strange and I mostly had no idea what I was looking at. And it was expensive! I think if we had known going into it the intention of the church, it might not have been as disappointing - usually I do a little research, but I honestly had not planned to come to Russia for a long time. Oh well. Hopefully, this will help you.

Kremlin

Neither of us knew exactly what the Kremlin was! You hear the name, but what is it? The government offices? Museums? Churches? All of the above actually! It is a fortified complex housing a bunch of various institutions. So we bought tickets to visit the grounds, cathedrals and the Armoury (at a set time). We walked through the beautifully kept grounds and then to the Armoury for our time, getting some cool water to drink on the way - it was so hot.

Armoury

This was actually a pretty interesting museum - I am not usually big on weapons and such, but there was much more to see, including jewels, dresses, silverware, thrones and my favorite: the many, many carriages, most belonging to the Empress Elizabeth! We spent about an hour exploring before going back out to see the multiple cathedrals.

Archangel Cathedral

This was the first one we visited and was one of the smaller ones, but had a lot of I guess sarcophagi for Russian tsars and princes. Finally, though! It was nice to see the imposing orthodox cathedral we had anticipated. High ceilings, lots of paintings and mosaics, lots of gold... just quite impressive.

Annunciation Cathedral

Our next stop was just across the cathedral square... and it just got more impressive. This church was just beautiful and artfully decorated. You go up the stairs and walk through the gallery.... you're kind of funneled along and you can take it all in, instead of being a bit overwhelmed at once. They were also having a service and had a cappella singers while there. It was lovely and spiritual.

Church of the Deposition of the Robe of the Holy Virgin

We were trying to find our way into the main cathedral, but walked in a circle around the wrong way and came upon this small church first. This one was very simplistic, but had a lot of wooden sculptures dating to about the 15th century, which was interesting and different. But we just stayed a few minutes.

Dormition Cathedral

Finally, we made it to the main cathedral... Not intending to save the best for last, but we did! Wow. Now, this was definitely impressive. A huge main hall with soaring ceilings and domes, gold, paintings and mosaics, tall columns... this place had it all. It is so hard to capture the splendor in photos - you just have to see it to appreciate it.

Tsar Cannan and Tsar Bell

Lastly, we walked around the outside of the cathedral square to see some more of the interesting artifacts. First, was the Tsar Bell, which is a very large bell located near the tall church. It's one of the biggest in the world at about 20ft diameter and 20 ft height and dates from the 18th century. However, it was never actually in use as it was heavily damaged in a fire while still on wooden supports, with a large slab breaking off. At one point, it even served as its own church with the broken area being a door. Now it is on display to dwarf the tourists.

The Tsar cannon is made of bronze and is one of the, if not the, largest in the world. Supposedly it was never fired, definitely not in battle, so as the bell, it mainly serves as a tourist attraction. Due to a certain someone's lingering bitterness, we caught a couple of photos where the perspective is that the cannon is about to fire upon St Basil's Cathedral... There were also a lot of little cannons of varying types located all around the Kremlin grounds.

At this point, we were both exhausted. It had been a long, 13-hour day and it was time to get some sleep. He was leaving at 10pm and I would stay on through the next morning before heading to St Petersburg. It was a great day though! While not as empty as some of the places we had recently visited in the pandemic, it was still noticeably low crowds as to what it normally would be. For me, I love that, because I can't stand when there are too many people - it makes me grouchy. Instead, it was a peaceful day with much accomplished! I felt like we had fully seen the tourist areas of Moscow - if I ever go back, I guess I will need to now see the real Russia.


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22nd August 2021

Wow!! What an itinerary...
I enjoyed my day in Moscow where I was on business. A Russian colonel and his wife were my tour guides.
23rd August 2021

Moscow
You saw a lot in a short amount of time. We hope to get to Russia soon.
24th August 2021
Dormition Cathedral

Dormition Cathedral
Talk about lucky...we sat in this grand place sucking in the aura too afraid to take a photo for fear of confiscation. I have posted this and anor in TB's 'Cathedrals, grand churches, mosques & places of public worship' thread in the Photography Forum. Check 'em out.
25th August 2021
Dormition Cathedral

Photos
Will do! Yes, I guess we were lucky - lots of people were taking photos, but it was so huge that you did not even seem to notice.

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