Lost in webSpace: Moscow 1

We got into Moscow before 5am and checked in to our hotel.

The day had started, the OH has some work calls, so I got dressed and walked around by myself.

I saw these lovely onion domes in the distance and walked towards that.

That shade of blue would look fabulous in a Mysore silk.

Next thing I know, I ended up at the Moscow river.

The OH and I explored the riverside and a park nearby before going back to the hotel to start our sightseeing for the day.

Our guide for the day was Oxana.

We drove to the Red Square. Krasnaya Ploshchad.

The day was very overcast with low hanging clouds. But still the first sight of the onion domes of the iconic St Basil's cathedral was such a rush.

We stood there and looked to our fill. Mentally we were trying who did what in the Kremlin from which entrance in which movie.

The brain was overloading and overwhelmed. I tried to remember every book I ever read which mentioned the Kremlin in some form or another.

Kremlin, in Russian, means fort or fortification. There are Kremlins in other parts of Russia too.

But for me, Kremlin means THE Kremlin in Moscow. The Red Square, with the whimsical and colourful onion domed cathedral of St Basil on one side, the fortified wall, the mausoleum of Lenin (which we didn't get to see or visit because access to it was blocked by the stands set up for the Victory Day Parade), the State Museum ... That the iconic view I've seen in movies, read about.

Oxana gave us an interesting fact about the Kremlin. There are many gates to the Kremlin. So to enter, one needs to look at the towers over the gates and look for one's with a 5 pointed star on top. These are the access gates. The other gates have weather vanes on their towers.

Krasnaya Ploshchad or the Red Square.. my first look at it was very confusing.

Isn't Red Square supposed to be absolutely massive? Havent in seen pictures and videos of huge matching contingents, (what seemed like) entire battalions of tanks and armoured vehicles parading through it?

We.. Maybe like how it's said that the camera adds 10 pounds, here it adds a few tens of acres??

Anyway, we were in the Red Square, and I grabbed the OH and the two of us did the most Red Square thing ever.

We marched in Goose step.

How could I not?

We went past the Red Square around the Museum and the Kazan cathedral, past the statue of Marshall Zhukov (on the disproportionately made forelegs) and made our way to the Eternal Flame for the fallen soldier.

We walked around the outer walls of the Kremlin, among lovely apple blossoms and lilac blooms and even tulip beds.

The beauty of the gardens and flowers simply smashed the stereotype in my mind of Moscow being grim and grey.

We passed a mural depicting soldiers marching and I simply had to pose alongside that too.

Each gate of the Kremlin has an icon over it. Most gates had an icon of St George (he who was responsible for the extinction of Dragons) or St Nicholas.

We finally entered the Kremlin from the Troitskaya tower.

Inside the Kremlin, the main buildings are the President's residence, the President's administrative offices, the senate building, the Armoury, 5 cathedrals, a bell tower built by Ivan the terrible, the Grand palace, and beautiful gardens, with lilacs in shades ranging from white to lilac (duh) and to purples that are almost black.

The various cathedrals inside the Kremlin, the huge cannon with its beautiful carvings.

All these Cathedrals inside the Kremlin, but no Cardinal??

The broken bell from the Bell Tower of Ivan the Terrible.

An oak tree planted in the Kremlin gardens by Yuri Gagarin.

We drove down to Swallow Hills for the views, but saw nothing as it was incredibly overcast.

This picture is the Moscow University.

Stalin had apparently commissioned eight Skyscrapers to commemorate eight hundred years of Moscow.

This is one of them. Seven of these skyscrapers are in Moscow and one in Warsaw.

The famed Bolshoi theatre.

And how could we not do the ballet there? Of course we look more like a parody of 'Walk like an Egyptian'

The lady who took our picture laughed so hard she was in danger of falling down.

We made our way to Lyubyanka. The HQ of the former KGB.

Thanks to our Cyrillic reading skills, we identified Tovarisch Yuri Andropov.

As we made our way back to Red Square, we stopped to take a picture for an older gentleman.

He then insisted on having a picture with us.

Vladimir lost his brother on 7th May 1945 in Berlin. Just days before cessation of hostilities. Vladimir was just 3 at the time. He had brought flowers for the memorial at the Eternal Flame.