Moscow

The overnight train from St Petersburg to Moscow wasn't a comfy sleep. It was a cosy four berth cabin though. Ian has a tour mascot, his small toy cuddly tiger which used to sit on his computer at work, and he comes out for a picture every now and then (which will hopefully feature at times when we figure out how to put photos on this sight). So Tiger has his photo taken on one of the bunk beds with us girls. The train doesn't have showers, but 24 her hot water for cuppas, soups or noodles. Our Moscow city guide by the name of Vlad (22 yr old Uni student) picked us up from the station for our 3 day stay. It was pouring down rain. Thankfully he gave us a couple of hours to rest when we got to our hotel before setting out for.....you guessed it.....sightseeing. Each city we get to we have to have our visa's registered, that are in our passports. If we didn't have someone else taking responsibility for this, ie. like a hostel or tour company, it may be a bit difficult. A number of sights are all in the same convenient location. Red Square is a cobbled large square that is surrounded by Lenin's mausoleum, St Basil's Cathedral, The Kremlin and the Goom Shopping Arcade. We lined up to see Lenin's mausoleum. We had to go through security, there were police and guns, and you couldn't take in day bags or cameras. It was built on the side of The Kremlin in 1930 of red granite. Lenin's mummified body is on show and you have to continuously walk past it being silent. Doubled up guards stood at every new area and hurried you along, or told you to be quiet. I assumed the body was plastic, but apparently it's real. He died on the 21/01/24 and he was apart of the Communist era so there is some embarrassment by the locals they it is kept on show and so many people line up to see it. St Basil's Cathedral was commissioned by Tsar (King) Ivan the Terrible (he was from the 16th century and Ivan the Great was 1462-1505). Unlike the very open and grand Cathedrals this one had many smalls rooms and it was easy to loose which ones you had been in, as it was cave like. The outside, although under renovations was very similar to the "Split Blood" Temple in St Petersburg, which I related to India. The story goes that when Ivan the Terrible asked the architect who built it whether he would be able to create anything better, he popped his eyes out when he said he could! In Napoleon's day when the French invaded Russia in 1812 the Cathedral was used as horse stables. There was a revolution towards the end of the 18th century. In 1917 Soviet Power was established, with the subsequent civil war creating terrible food shortages and loss of life. By the late 1980's services had started to collapse under Gorbachev's reforms and the breakdown of Communist Power. (There was a bit of history for you to set more of the scene). The Kremlin is the seat of Russian government. It is a huge building that holds not only this but Cathedrals where 46 Tsars (including Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible) are burried, a huge cannon that was apparently never fired as the balls were too big, a huge bell, that was also too large to have ever been used, and the Armory Museum that holds the richess of the Royals - carriages, armour, clothes, jewels, crockery, and these amazing Faberge eggs (like Easter eggs) one with a gold wind up Trans Siberian Train. Everything seems to be large, and tends to have water and fountains. There was Victory Park with a World War 2 Monument, Statue Park, which included the 1st KGB leader amongst others, and the All Russian Exhibition Centre, with large water fountains. Even Russian Pool (billiards) is played with huge white balls that hardly fit in the pockets. Unlike all the walking in the previous city, this time we took the Metro everywhere, which my feet were thankful for. This Metro was even more impressive than our first stop. We experienced a business buffet lunch, which was cheap and apparently the way to go, by having the main meal during the day. Deciding that I needed to understand more about the Tsars (Kings) and history, I asked our guide to draw me a family tree, so that I could see it written down. Well, as I tried to stay awake, although very informative, he began........at the VERY beginning! Somewhere around the year 608 (that's without referring to my pages of notes), when the first Tsar was a Viking. Amazingly Vlad went through the whole history with pictures and exact years!!!!!!!!!!! It seems to rain somewhat each day, for a period of time. So we took a boat cruise. Couldn't see anything, but it had a bar. Ian, Vlad and his friend who had joined us briefly commenced the Vodka consumption. Somewhere Ian had heard that one of the 100 things to do before you die is to drink a Russian under the table. Considering that the Russian are well known for the amount they can drink, and Vlad had been personally bragging about it, the competition was on. By the end of the night Ian was very proud to maybe not say much right then - but he had drunk Vlad 'under the table'. And of course Vlad couldn't understand why he ended up throwing up a couple of times. Next....... Late train to Irkutsk (still in Russia). 3 days and 4 nights.