June 13, part 2 by Donna

We set out on foot today for Red Square and the Kremlin.  This area has been through a lot of building and rebuilding, having been the on-and-off the capital of Russia. I frankly lost track of all the comings and goings.  Suffice it to say that lots of important stuff happened here.  My favorite touristy thing was the people in costume just outside the square ... for just a few rubles, you can pose with Stalin, Lenin and Nicholas II, all at the same time (they would be mortified, don't you think?).  I would definitely have done it, but there was quite a crowd, and Arkady was urging us on.

We walked through GUM, the famous department store on Red Square that used to be state-owned but now is full of the kind of boutiques you see on 5th Ave in New York. 

 

We got to St. Basil's Cathedral, the best known church with the multi-colored onion domes.  We had a slight disappointment in that I had a photo from there with Marina, 15 years ago, that I was trying to duplicate, but the place that exact view was shut down for cleaning up after "Russia Day".  We got close, however, so took a good approximate photo.

We then took one of all of us for the cover of our Great Russia Trip photo album.  Other places were closed as well, including Lenin's Mausoleum, although we could see it from a distance.  Another big disappointment was that the Polytechnic Museum was closed for the holiday, so we couldn't go there.

 Inside the Kremlin we visited the diamond collection, basically the Crown Jewels of Russia.  As expected, they were spectacular.  We also visited the Armory, which is a museum of all Russian historical items including carriages, coronation gowns and, of course, the amazing jeweled Faberge eggs.  At this point, we staged a revolution and insisted on a stop and lunch (after 4 hours of walking) ... Arkady clearly was intending to just carry on!

After our rest we visited several of the multi-domed churches at the Kremlin, including the one where all Russian coronations were held.  Each one is spectacular, but it gets a bit overwhelming after a while, and your eyes glaze over.  We also saw the giant cannon and giant bell, which were impressive in scale, but never shot and never rung.

I should note that because of our unauthorized lunch stop we were late for entry to the Kremlin, and were turned away at the gate.  Arkady argued with the guard a bit, and then disappeared to get new tickets issued for us.  Probably Tanya would have succeeded at this episode of the Guide Game.

Both yesterday and today were quite hot, and suddenly a thunderstorm started as we made our way through the churches.  Several of us headed back to the hotel, while Joan and Karl, not the least bit detered by some pesky rain, went on for more shopping!

I keep forgetting to mention that Marina has been quite pleased with her own shopping, having found everything on her list, including a fur hat of silver fox.