Dad & Dave in Siberia

St Petersburg

By Dad | January 31, 2007

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Photos of St Petersburg

By Dad | January 31, 2007

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Images of Moscow

By Dad | January 31, 2007

Now I’ve had some time to edit them, here are some photos of our time in Moscow.

One of our first stops in Moscow was the reconstructed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Stalin built 7 gothic skyscrapers across the city, now called the Seven Sisters.� This one is a university.� You can imagine them being used in movies like Ghostbusters or Batman…

We were taken to a viewpoiint above the Moscow River, although it was a bit misty because of wet weather.

This is the memorial for the Great Patriotic War (WW2).

We drove past the White House, where Boris Yeltsin had his stand off with the military.

This is the National History Museum, on Red Square.

Our group on Red Square.

Lenin’s Mausoleum in front of the walls of the Kremlin, Red Square.

Dad & Dave in front of St Basil’s, Red Square.

St Basil’s onion domes.

This is one of the Parisian-like streets in the area of Moscow we were staying in.

Some of the Metro stations are works of art in themselves -although many are works of celebration of the Communist Party and Comrade Lenin.

The cathedrals inside the Kremlin walls

The Kremlin from the Moscow River.

Another one of the Seven Sisters

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New luxurious way to ride to Vladivostok

By Dad | January 28, 2007

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Moscow - Part 2

By Dad | January 28, 2007

Our exploration of Moscow began in earnest yesterday morning with a visit to Red Square to visit Lenin’s tomb. We travelled by the metro (subway) which is distinctly impressive.

The Moscow Metro was begun in Stalin�s time in the 1920s. It has over 200 kilometres of track to 172 stations across 11 lines. Some of the earlier stations are very decorative as the soviets used them to showcase communistic achievement. They used the marble from the churches for decoration and some of the platforms have murals depicting how good life world be under Communism. As a result, these stations look like a piece of art in themselves. The trains run every two minutes, carrying over 8 million people per day - all for the standard fare of 17 Roubles (90 cents) from anywhere to anywhere.

It was at Red Square that we were given another lesson in Russian culture. The length of the queue meant that the wait would be well over an hour. We were approached by a guide who offered us a conducted tour without waiting in the line for 300 Roubles (about $12). We opted fur this but found that as soon as we had passed the security point, that our “guide” said goodbye and returned to the line to find another couple of suckers. The money was simply a bribe (fee) to allow us to walk straight through. However, it did save us a lot of time and it only cost about 10 Roubles per step through the tomb.

Seeing Comrade Lenin is virtually a carbon copy of visiting Uncle Ho in Hanoi. The buildings are very similar in layout and the guards enforce the same type of respectful demeanour with no talking, no hands in pockets and no smiling. Lenin looks like the same type of waxwork body. The main difference between him and Uncle Ho is that the soviets have removed Lenin’s brain to try and determine why he was so intelligent.

From Red Square, we walked through the town to Arbat Street, one of the oldest streets in Moscow. It was originally filled with the homes of wealthy merchants, but is now a mall and full of souvenir shops.

We had lunch here before heading off to do some more sight seeing. Russian meals (lunches) typically consist of four small courses - a small salad, soup, main course of meat and potato / rice with a desert and sweet black tea.

Our first stop after lunch was a large market that we reached after three changes of train on the Metro. It was here that I bought a set of Russian dolls for Audrey, my new grand daughter. Because she can’t read yet, I feel that I can boast about my purchase and it will still be a surprise that she can enjoy later in her life. I found a beautiful set of dolls that tell the story of the Ice Queen. There are nine pieces in the set and they are all hand painted and signed by the artist.

After we had finished at the market, we returned to our hotel for a rest before going out again for dinner and a return visit to Red Square to see it when it was floodlit. It was raining and very wet by the time that we arrived but perhaps some of the reflections on the wet ground will add to the photos.

On the way, we stopped off at some of the more ornate Metro stations on a little self-made tour of the train stations. A few years ago, we would have been arrested for taking photos in these places, but this is no longer a problem and the policemen didn’t even bat an eye as we flashed away.

Today, we visited the Kremlin and the Armoury.

The Kremlin is an impressive area within the old fortress that includes a lot of historic buildings, cathedrals and military relics including old cannon & mortars. It is still the location of Mr Putin’s presidential mansion and his departmental offices. There is an ugly soviet style building in the middle which was commissioned by Kruyschev as the meeting place of the elected communist party representatives. It is another one of the places that our guide hoped would be demolished soon.

The Kremlin area is protected by the military and tourists have to keep to defined pathways. Any hapless individual that strayed out of the defined area were warned by a shrill blast of a whistle and signalled to get back to where they belonged. In the central square, there were a lot of black limousines with blue lights on top. Every now and then six or seven would speed off in a small convoy to some unknown place, carrying unknown people.

The highlight of our day was a visit to the Armoury. This has a deceptive name because rather than being full of weaponry, the Armoury is a royal treasure house museum. It contains the Russian crown jewels, and significant treasures including ambassadorial gifts, carriages, costumes and some ornate antique weapons.

There are only five such places in the world and I have now seen three - Tower of London, The Armoury in Moscow and the Royal Museum in Stockholm. I am happy to pass on the fourth in Iran, but I hope that I can one day get to the fifth in Leipzig.

We had a quick and inexpensive lunch in the food court at the underground shopping centre near Red Square and were able to just get a glimpse of the changing of the guard at 3.00 pm.

We finished our time in Moscow with a cruise along the Moscow River. Not only did this give us an opportunity to stay off our feet for a while, we also passed many of the sites that we have seen over the last few days and it acted as a bit of a summary of our time here.

Tonight we have a very late train to St Petersburg, the last stop on this tour.

We are leaving Moscow with a number of interesting and favourable impressions. It is a very cosmopolitan city with a rich blend of history and modernism. It has a superbly efficient underground transport system, while traffic on the roads is congested and bottle-necked. It looks to be in much better repair than most other places that we have seen, although there is still some work to do. People still smile.

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Kanda Matsuri

By Dad | January 27, 2007

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Moscow

By Dad | January 27, 2007

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No hands in pockets in front of Lenin!

By Dad | January 27, 2007

We’ve been in Moscow for a day and a half, and have already started to got a feel for this city. I’m not sure what I expected, but whatever they were, those expectations have been exceeded. The part of the city we are staying in is almost Parisian in style, there are amazing buildings, and the famous landmarks have to be experienced to appreciate their grandeur.

The train ride here from Ekaerinburg took 24 hours, and the mot significant thing that happened is that we passed through one of the minor Stans. Tartarstan is south of Moscow, and we stopped for 20 minutes at Kazan, its capital. Out of the window, we caught a glimpse of some minarets and its kremlin (fort) in the sunset as we headed on to Moscow. This was a fitting way to arrive in Moscow, as some of the main atractions were originally built to keep the Tartars out.

The Kremlin was originally a fort built for this reason. St Basil’s, the famous church next to the Kremlin with all the colourful onion domes, was built to celebrate victory over the Tartars. These are amazing places, and our three days here is not going to be enough to feel like we’ve done justice to the city.

After ariving at Kazanskaya Station first thing yesterday, we were taken on a city tour by bus. We drove through the streets, notably passing places such as the Kremlin, St Basil’s, Red Square, the former KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square, the Bolshoi Theatre (under scaffolding), the Moscow River, the 1980 Olympic stadium, the Russian White House (where Boris Yelstin took on the military), the Duma, and several monuments to Russian heroes and wars fought.

We finished the tour with a walk through Red Square and into St Basil’s. Visiting Red Square felt like we were somewhere monumental in world history, and we could imagine lines of Soviet military hardware being paraded through here, like in the old days.

After dinner, Kostya and I took off on the Metro to go back to Red Square at night. The Metro is an amazing system, the first lines having being built in the early 1940s by Stalin. Trains arrive almost every minute, although they are a bit bumpy and old. They look like many were built back in the 1970s and still in use. Roaming through Red Square at nearly midnight was quite a highlight. There were fewer people around than during the day, the famous buildings are floodlit, and the heavens opened on us as we ran across towrds St Basil’s. We were already trying to get there and back before the last Metro train, but the cloudburst sent us sprinting through the rain, past Lenin’s tomb, back underground to the station. We got a bit wet, and it was quite fun!

St Basil’s at midnight in the rain

First thing this moring, we paid our respects to Lenin, and visited his mausoleum. This is quite the experience - although I felt like it was looking at a parafin wax manequin in a glass showcase. How disresepectful of me to think so.

When we arrived, a queue had formed, so in an ironic capitalist twist, we paid a tout to get us to the head of the line and straight through. I assume that the guards who man the line probably get paid off as a result. But it’s all very serious after this - the guards are soldiers who check bags, ensure no cameras or recording devices are allowed in, and police visitors’ behavour. I have one friend who was told by a Federal Court judge to remove his hands from his pockets when addressing the bench, but I had a very serious Russian guard tell me to take my hand out my pocket in front of Lenin. I’m not sure if it was because of this, or our sprint through the square past his tomb last night, but it seemed that Lenin was watching me with some disapproval as I filed past.

The rest of the day was spent mooching around Moscow - a walking tour that ended up on the Arbat, a street with shops and market stalls, then by the Metro out to a market. Some of the Metro stations are very ornate, and are quite a sight to behold. It’s easy to imagine them featuring in a Cold War era spy movie!

We’re going to explore the Metro a bit more later on tonight, and will then have tomorrow to properly explore the Kremlin and the Armoury.

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