Moscow - Day 2

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Our last day in Russia.....

We started our day with a tour of the Moscow Metro. No, really, a tour of the subway. Wait till you see the pictures. It actually made the list of 1000 things to see before you die. It boasts 8 million riders a day but was amazingly clean, including no graffiti that we saw, although we were told there was some at other stations. This is an extremely expansive system and dates from the 1930's which makes one, if not THE, oldest systems in the world. It was also used as a bomb shelter in the WWII.

Ernest was so in his element. As those of you who work with him can imagine, I had to keep my eye on him to make sure he didn't wander off and miss our trains. We visited 3 different metro stations. I never thought to see chandeliers, marble and mosaics in a subway.

As a side note, many of you know Ernest and I have been seeing Texas this year through ghost tours. Two of the many pictures he took in the subway showed orbs....yes, orbs. Not dust or dirt cause they are perfectly round and not in pictures before or after. Anyway, we thought it was interesting.

Our last subway stop took us to Red Square, which is right next to the Kremlin. The archway entrance to Red Square is very impressive, though, sadly it's a reconstruction because Stalin had it bombed to make way for his tanks. On the arch end of the square is the history museum of Russia. To the left of that is the outside wall of the Kremlin but in front of that is Lenin's tomb. To the back end of the square is St. Basil's Cathedral. The final side of the square is a mall called GUM. Originally built in the 1870's, it was meant to house the basic market stalls that had been historically in the square itself. However, now it has very upscale stores like Gucci, Cartier and others we can't shop in. We walked into the mall and immediately realized we didn't need to be there.

The boat had provided us a sack lunch so Ernest and I went over to an adjacent McDonald's cause we'd heard the fries were different. They weren't.

Russia has a long way to go to catch up to the 21st century with it's infrastructure and they need to work through getting rid of some old government goons and get it's financial situation straight, but I really go a sense that there is a lot of hope for the future. The Soviet hand had it's grip for multiple generations so it take a few generations to really get passed that but it's happening. Most everyone we met is looking forward, unsure as they are what that holds. We learned a great deal and are so glad we went.

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Comments

[Rolando]

Moscow METRO
As a long-time stamp collector, the USSR displayed many of their subways on very large commemorative stamps. They have to have the most beautiful and ornate subways in the world. Certainly we don't have any subways like this in the USA.