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Published: September 27th 2010
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St. Basil
St. Basil's is in Red Square and the Kremlin adjacent, so many tourist attractions are in central Moscow - within 10 minutes of our hotel YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT, THEN GO BACK TO THE JOURNAL OR GO THROUGH THE PHOTOS (CLICK ON THE NUMBERS AT THE TOP) IN THAT ENLARGED FORMAT. TO RETURN TO THE JOURNAL, JUST CLICK YOUR BACK BUTTON OR ON THE NAME OF THE BLOG ON THE RIGHT OR BOTTOM OF PHOTO - DEPENDS ON YOUR COMPUTER.
NEAR THE TOP ON THE LEFT WHERE IT READS 'Travel Blogs by: Kathy Bernie << Previous Entry,' CLICK ON 'Kathy Bernie' AND YOU'LL GET A PAGE LISTING (BACKWARDS CHRONOLOGICALLY) OUR BLOGS, WHICH YOU CAN SCROLL THROUGH AND CHOOSE ONES YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN. IF YOU CLICK ON 'Previous Entry' YOU'LL GET ONLY THE LAST ENTRY. WHEN OFF THIS SITE, YOU CAN GO TO: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Kathy---Bernie/ WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO THE PAGE LISTING ALL OF OUR BLOGS. MOSCOW, RUSSIA - August, 2010
Normally in Europe it is easy to travel independently, but with no facility with the Cyrillic alphabet let alone Russian or Ukrainian languages, we decided to go with a group to Kiev, Ukraine; Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Obtaining A Russian Visa:
We didn’t need visas for the Ukraine, but had to get our
Red Square
While we were there the square was obstructed with a bandstand being erected as a tatoo (marching band) competition was to be held there soon. This photo is from Wikipedia and taken by Christopher Meneboeuf own visas from the Russian Consulate in Berlin where we were living at the time. The visa application wanted to know every address we’d ever lived at, every school we’d attended, every job we had - all with names of supervisors, addresses and phone numbers. That wasn’t going to happen. I tried to be as accurate as I could - looked up addresses and phone number on the internet. Bernard took a more lax approach - he put down the correct area/country/postal code, but then just made up everything else.
One section we felt hesitant to be less than accurate on was the travel: they wanted to know every country we’d visited in the last 10 years, and the dates we'd visited. They had our passports, so this could be verified. I spent a day going through our passports and my travel blogs making the list:
40 countries, but many numerous times, so a list of 68 with the dates we’d visited. And of course Bernard’s and mine were different.
This had to be submitted as an attachment since the space on the visa application form was about an inch. When we gave the Visa Officer the form,
Kremlin
Bernard with Kremlin behind; building on left is the Kremlin Armory, now a museum; in front is the Moskva River he looked at the attachment and handed it back. Seems they didn’t need it! I suspect the English language form was out of date. I tried to argue with the man, but my German is terrible and I have no Russian, his German wasn’t much better than mine and his English non-existent - you can imagine how that conversation went. We just kept our fingers crossed for the two weeks before we had to return and, hopefully, pick up our validated visa, which of course we did.
We had some concerns about visiting Moscow because they'd been having a terrible heat wave all summer. The heat had sparked hundreds of bog/peat fires, so the air quality in Moscow was awful at times. There were reports that in the subways people were choking on smoke.
A few days before we were due to travel, the heat wave broke and the wind shifted to blow the smoke away from Moscow. When we arrived it was downright cool and overcast - a most welcome change for the Muscovites, and we weren't complaining either.
Moscow is the capital of modern Russia and the country's most populated city with over 10 million
Cemetery Monument
A famous actor shown sitting here with his beloved pet dog lying in front of him inhabitants. It is built on the Moskva River, which has 49 bridges spanning it within the city limits. Moscow has always been an important city, but in 1711 Peter the Great moved his court to St. Petersburg. The first reference to Moscow as a city was in 1147, but undoubtedly was settled before that.
In our hotel lobby our first morning in Moscow, while awaiting our guide, Olga, a young man,
Dan, introduced himself as the seventh member of our group. He was originally from Odessa in the Ukraine, so had skipped Kiev, but would be with us for Moscow and St. Petersburg. His real name is Vadim, but he has been living in California for the past 30 years and folks there call him Dan.
Our first morning was spent on a driving tour - across the river to get a nice view of the Kremlin, above and around the city to see various monuments and architecture.
One of the most unusual places we visited was a
state-run cemetery. The Russian state provides and maintains this huge cemetery for the burial of dignitaries - artists, actors, writers, poets, politicians. The monuments were varied and individualized for
Chong Family
Lishan, Amber & Ken, part of our original group, in front of the Kremlin church. Within the Kremlin walls was a beautiful church complex - some museums, others not. the person being honored. A famous ballerina, for example, had a life-size statute of her dancing. A writer might have a page from one of his books inscribed on the tombstone.
After a nice lunch, we did a walking tour of the Kremlin. The Kremlin is amazingly compact - everything within one area (see photos). Olga gave us a history lesson as we walked. Inside the museum, the
Kremlin Armory, she continued the history lesson as she pointed out the most important pieces in the huge collection.
The Kremlin Armory is one of the oldest museums in Moscow. It originated as the royal arsenal in 1508 and was used as such until the court was moved to St. Petersburg by Peter the Great in 1711.
We were on our own for dinner, as we were most evenings, so our group all went together to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. Amber, the eleven-year-old, had been in Vietnam earlier in the summer so was a great menu guide.
We were leaving Moscow by
overnight train to St. Petersburg that night, so we checked out of our rooms and stored our luggage before meeting Olga. The day was spent at
Brian & Kremlin Bell
One of the original members of our group, Brian from Newfoundland, Canada but living in Doha, Qatar was such fun to travel with the
Tretyakov Gallery, the largest repository of Russia's fine art - not necessarily Russian artists, but world-famous (mostly European) artists.
We were back at our hotel by 16:30, but since we had given up our rooms, we hung out in the lobby. Some of us did more touring, we all went for dinner at different times, but for everyone waiting until 22:00 to be taken to the train station was a pain.
More Angry People.
I say "more" because (for those of you who read the Kiev blog you'll remember) we ran into a few angry people in Kiev too. For our dinner Bernard I chose to get a couple of slices of pizza from a Sbarro vendor in a park adjacent to Red Square. As they do at every Sbarro, after choosing your slice, they warm up the pizza. When they handed me mine, I felt it and asked for another heating go-round because it was barely warm. At this point the manager came over and started yelling at me. Of course I had no idea what she was saying. I thought at first I might be holding up a line, but when I looked behind
Historical Museum
This beautiful museum was also just off Red Square me, there was nobody else waiting. The manager kept handing me back my pizza and I kept handing it back to her and pointing at the oven. Who knows what etiquette rule I was breaking, but the upshot was I wasn't going to eat cold pizza. The young gal manning the cash register re-heated my pizza and then put Bernard's piece in for a longer time also. Yes, capitalism has come to Russia, but they have a thing or two to learn about service.
Olga arrived timely and we were transported to our train and settled in our deluxe sleeping cabins and ready for the train's departure at 23:00. Seems I was the only one who slept well (ear plugs, an eye mask and two Tylenol PM tablets did the trick) because the railroad bed was rough, the train old and noisy, light kept flickering in through the curtains and our beds were a bit on the small side (the Chong family did just fine). Dan & Brian were sharing a cabin and according to Brian, Dan snored all night. So, the upshot was that when we got to St. Petersburg at 6 the next morning, none of us
GUM Dept. Store
Bordering one whole side of Red Square is the elegant GUM department store, built in 1890-93 w/1,200 stores; stayed open during the communist days; one of the few stores in the Soviet Union not plagued by a shortage of consumer goods, which guaranteed long lines. was well-rested.
TO BE CONTINUED IN NEXT BLOG: ST. PETERSBURG
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Carlos
non-member comment
Muy bueno :)
Fantastic guys!! Felicitaciones :) What a pizza time!! jeje In my poit of view there are many kinds of Capitalism !! I would say so many... They are all capitalism but every culture lives it... their way... Besos and keep travelling.. I Enjoy your newsletters :)