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Friday, November 24, 2006

Postcard from Moscow

We are here in Moscow for a few days near the end of our trip. Our first day out of course we had to visit the Kremlin. Growing up during the cold way, I always pictured it as a dangerous but probably beautiful government structure, which was there, but the main part of the Kremlin and the part that you are allowed to visit is made up of Cathedrals. I was quite suprised at that.



This is a photo from the main gate. Like so many ancient cities, Moscow was built on a hill near a river. The city walls were in a ring further out, then the main city on the hill is surrounded by walls the height of the hill. This makes all the buildings inside the walls at the level of the tops of the walls. Very cool. We purchased our tickets and headed in.



This is Stephen listening to our Audio guide in front of Cathedral of the Assumption. The audio guide was probably about as good as a paid guide and also a lot cheaper. I didn't know a whole lot about Orthodox Churches before coming to Russia but I sure learned a lot. They have a slightly better cross, love icons and Mary. It seems that all the Cathedrals are dedicated to some part of Mary and there are tons of icons of Madonna and Child.



Also in the same complex is the bell tower with its two additions. It was under renovation along with one of the cathedrals so we could see the jewel collection unfortunately. Apparently the Czars would compete with each other by building bigger bells with a deeper ring. This is the largest one built and it looks like it went the way of the liberty bell.



Also there is the Czars cannon. It is absolutely enormous. Not in length but in the size of the cannon balls. It was cast by well-known Russian founder Andrei Chokhov in 1586 and has an inside diameter of 35 inches or nearly three feet! I wonder if it ever got used...



Around the corner in Red Square is St. Basil's Cathedral which is notable because it looks like it would be more at home in Disney Land than Moscow. Who can accuse these designers of creating dreary old cathedrals?

The next day we went to the National History Museum and saw the history of Russia since the first fish crawled up on land till the last of the Czars and everything in between. Interestingly enough, there was nothing on any Soviet history there. We tried to visit Lenin's tomb but it was closed for some reason.

Tonight we head to St. Petersburg by train. Moscow has proved to be a very cold city and a bit drisly or sleety at the same time. Lets see how St. Petersburg is.

1 Comments:

  • cold. yeah. same here. wait... no... burning hot with mosquitoes everywhere. send me a message when you (finally) get home. Much love,
    Dave

    By Blogger David Samuel Sandler, at 8:02 PM  

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