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Published: June 26th 2017
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Geo: 55.75, 37.62
Thursday was the second day of the Congress and as Fletcher had recovered he headed off at 8-30 to attend. I had another day to relax and decide how much I wanted to do. I stayed at the hotel until 11-30am.
A few words about the hotel. This building is one of the Stalin 7 sisters. It is really the Hotel Ukraina, one of the buildings which Stalin based on the Empire State building . It is now rebadged as the Radisson Royal. It is very luxurious and we are only able to afford to stay here as the Local Organising Committee negotiated a special deal. It is the only hotel I know of that has, as one of its arcade of shops, a Rolls Royce Dealership!! Our room on the 12th floor looks out , over the Moskva River, to the White House, the scene of some turmoil during Yeltsin's premiership in 1993.
I walked to the shopping centre and had lunch at one of the coffee lounges there. Then I caught the Underground to Red Square and walked to St Basil's. I have been to Moscow three times now but had never gone inside this iconic building. It was
not expensive to go in and after a short queue I paid less than $10. This building is really named The Cathedral of the Protective Veil of Mary. It has become commonly known as St Basil because the tomb of St Basil the Blessed is in the crypt there. The building actually harbours 7 different chapels, one for each of the visible domes. Inside there are several elaborate iconclasis as well as other wall paintings and sacred artefacts. The internal decoration is quite detailed and striking. I spent over an hour wandering through the different chapels and seeing Red Square from a different point of view.
Once I had finished there I walked slowly back to the Metro and returned to Kievskaya station. I found the supermarket and bought some tonic and returned to the hotel.
Tonight the Local Organising Committee was hosting a dinner for all delegates in a place called the Forum. This turned out to be a large rectangular hall. However, the night was great! Our table had mainly Oceania people but we were joined by a young man from Syria and his friend from Palestine. That provided some lively conversation. The food was better than the other night
and the waiter was very attentive with resupplying wine and vodka so we thoroughly enjoyed the dinner. Once again the entertainment provided was fantastic and a group of great young tenors and the orchestra played fabulous dance music so of course some of us were up on our feet and moving to the beat!
Back at the hotel we had a nightcap with Lynn Davies( 1964 Long Jump Champion) and his wife Merel, both from Wales and an old friend of Fletcher's. We chatted about Dylan Thomas' poetry and as Merel was an Art teacher our love of paintings etc.They were great company. Eventually bed called about 1-30am.
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Jo armour
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Wish I was there Colleen! Looks so interesting.