July 29, 2013

July 29, 2013

We start our day with a driving tour of Moscow. Our local guide tells us humorously how great Russia and Moscow are.  He starts off relating that Russia is the largest country on earth (by far!)  Russia stretches across eleven time zones, almost half the world. Vladivostok on the Pacific is just as close to Chicago as it is to Moscow.  Moscow is the largest city in Europe and has the biggest (and worst) of everything. He provides some entertaining examples.

We then depart the coach and travel by the Moscow Metro system a few stops to see different styles of subway stations. Many are decorated richly with marble and chandeliers.  This was Stalin's doing.  He considered them to be the People's palaces. The last one I like the best.  It is decorated with dozens of statues of happy Communists living an idyllic existence.  It took amazing propaganda to convince Russian people that they were happy.

Our Coach bus then dropped us off in Red Square where we got our formal orientation.  During our free time we went inside St Basil's Cathedral.  It was disappointing.  It is not an ordinary church.  It is a maze of interconnected chapels and corridors.  We then went next door to the GUM department store for an inexpensive lunch of Borscht in an upper floor cafeteria.  Even though Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world, there are ways to live cheap.

The Coach then dropped us on the other side of the Kremlin.  Kremlin means fortress in Russia and many old Russian cities have one.  Moscow's Kremlin has thick red walls with two dozen very tall towers.  Inside is the present seat of government along with a half dozen medieval churches in one plaza.  We get a tour of two churches.  The first contains the burial crypts of all the ancient Czars before Peter the Great, (e.g. Ivan the Terrible).  The other church is the seat of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Our guide gives us a rundown of the differences between Orthodox and Catholicism.  He said they are very similar with most of the differences being just cultural.  If we understood Russian, we would recognize the Mass.

Outside the churches are the largest bell and largest cannon ever built.  To emphasize that Russia has the biggest and worst he relates how neither was ever functional.

From Cathedral Square, we went in the Armory for a tour.  This museum holds the national treasures of Russia.  Most of it is the former property of the Czars and Orthodox Church confiscated during the Revolution.  Looking at all the gold and diamonds, you understand why the Russian people revolted.  Some of the more interesting items are the royal carriages, the royal crowns and scepters and the strangely popular Faberge eggs.  Aimee not surprisingly really likes the royal ceremonial gowns on display.