Today's my first full day in Russia after landing at Domodedovo aiport yesterday afternoon and getting settled in.
I've just finished a morning tour I had where I was taken on the Moscow Metro to Red Square. I got to see the Kremlin, Lenin's Mausoleum (though not in it as it's closed for 6 months unfortunately), St Basil's Cathedral and much more. My guide first took me on the Moscow Metro, which has a station conveniently right outside my hotel. The stations are so much better than the ones on the London underground. The one I got off on for Red Square was one of the first underground stations built by the Soviets and is lined with more than 70 statues of 'the people'; soldiers, craftsmen, sailors etc.
On leaving the station right in front of me was Bolshoi Theatre, which unfortunately is undergoing some renovations or I would have been able to take a picture of the commemeration plaque where the Communist Party was founded or some such?
Apparently over 80% of old Moscow was lost when the Soviets came to power. Their original 1930s plan was to demolish almost all the old architecture to make way for the new government. My guide was showing me many buildings which have since been rebuilt, at great expense, such as cathedrals and the gates to Red Square, all of which I have pictures of.
As soon as you pass through the gates into Red Square this lays straight ahead of you:
To the right of that is the famous building where a lot of Russia's political history was decided.
Slap bang in the middle of Red Square is Lenin's Mausoleum, though unfortunately it was closed as they were doing restoration work on the body.
Behind Lenin's Mausoleum many famous statesmen, minus Kruschev, are buried. To the side of it is the only remaining bust of Stalin, where he lies after being moved from next to Lenin inside the mausoleum. It was atop that building the top Soviet members used to gather for special events such as military parades, which would pass on by near enough where I'm standing.
I also got to see the changing of the guards by the Eternal Flame and the row of plaques with soil from each city which suffered the most losses defending Russia in World War Two.
All whilst snowing (you can just about make it out in the pic above); it was amazing. Funnily enough though, despite all the snow it's really no colder than a bitter day in England.
What of Russia's past? Well, there are still some signs of it:
Although right below it:
And you can't escape them...
Getting round Russia and getting food, directions etc isn't too bad. I can read Cyrillic so I'm not totally screwed. I'm saving that for China. A lot of Russian words are literally the same in English once you translate them, for example 'лифт' literally translates to 'lift' (although oddly for some reason whenever an English translation is available they write it as 'elevator' despite their word for it being the exact same as ours)
Not many people can speak English, though, so there's still a fair amount of pointing and monosyllabic Russian/English going on but that's half the fun, really.
Tomorrow is my last day in Moscow, I check out of the hotel at midday and am taken to the station at 10:15pm to board my train on the first part of the Trans-Siberian railway. I'll be on that for three days straight before my first stop in Irkustk so I don't know how often, if at all, I'll be able to update between then.
Until then, пока!
No comments:
Post a Comment