RUSSIA 2015 #3

SATURDAY JUNE 13, 2015

We had the breakfast buffet this morning and then headed along the walkway which follows the Moscow River.  We walked to the Kremlin (walled area) and Red Square (pedestrian and marching area).  It was a beautiful warm and sunny day as we approached the cathedral of St. Basil.  It had several onion domes that remind me of several flavored ice cream cones.  We were also lucky enough to see Lenin's tomb since it is not open everyday.  There was no photography in the tomb and it was quite dark and made it difficult to see the steps.  Safety was not the top priority to see what looked like a plastic figure.  It is supposed to be his remains that you see which have supposedly been preserved by who knows what.  Not a chance.  It might have been a wax figure but even then it wasn't well done.

It is fortunate we did not get here yesterday, since that was their Independence Day and the Kremlin area was closed.  It was Independence from USSR.  

Corner of the Kremlin wall.

Looks like pretty flavors of ice cream.  St. Basil's Cathedral.

.

Area near Lenin's tomb where other heroes have been buried.

We saw the GUM which is an exclusive three story shopping mall.  Walt couldn't seem to find his credit card as we checked out the place.  Actually, we didn't see any bags that looked like new purchases.  Most were tourists just window shopping.

GUM shopping mall.

There are a number of American food chains here.  We have seen McDonald's, Subway and now Krispy Kreme.  We shall see if we can add to that collection yet this week.

We wanted to see what the Pushkin Museum was all about since it is quite famous.  We were a little disappointed.  It is not in the same category as the Louve as we had thought.  It does have some nice masterpieces, but it just seemed lackluster and some of the sculptures and very old items were too easily touched if someone wanted to do damage.  There were also a lot of plaster casts made from molds.  The originals are housed elsewhere like the British Museum or places in Italy.

We went to the Cathedral of The Savior which was mostly white with gold domes.  It had several wedding parties that were having photos taken around the grounds. It was also busy with folks making the sign of the cross and bowing and kissing the various glass covered icons.  These cathedrals are all Greek Orthodox which means women must have a head covering when entering.  It was quite impressive inside but we did not see any chairs or pews.  Obviously they must put out something for the parishioners, but we saw nothing around.

We checked out the Muzeon Cultural Park. As we entered we saw a really huge sculpture in the water of a ship with Peter the Great. It really didn't fit completely when attempting a photo. This Cultural Park certainly was a busy place with skateboarding, biking, scooters, and playgrounds.  This park also has a lot of sculptures, some of which are from the Soviet era.  They didn't destroy some of those huge icons of that time period.  There were lots of other sculptures there also.  

We then attempted the Metro.  It is not well marked as far as the alphabet. It was written in their Cyrllic alphabet which was more than confusing with our sound Russian background.  We asked directions and received the responses in Russian of course.  One employee did a better job with her inflections and sign language and we did reverse our path and carefully looked for particular letters.   The only signage that was easy was the exit but we already knew what exit looked like.  We did see some lovely stained glass and columns as we worked our way around the system.

 This was written on the floor which you can't see as you are trying to figure out your directions from signs posted high above.  Oh well, we did succeed, it just took us longer.