I woke up around 4:30 when my alarm went off. The other people in my train compartment were grumpy, but I didn't understand how you could be grumpy when your day included going to Moscow. I was perfectly chipper and awake. Who needs coffee when you have obsessions?
We pulled into the station at a little after 5:00 in the morning- right on schedule- and left the train. It was still dark outside, and when we walked out of the station we got our first, very dramatic view of Russia's capital city.
Moscow at night is one of the coolest things ever. Those two rather sinister-looking buildings are two of the seven identically-designed skyscrapers that Stalin commissioned for Moscow. You've got to admit, they're very impressive.
We dropped our things in our new hotel- which was, impossibly, even bigger than the one in Saint Petersburg- and then took a little bus tour around the city. The day was overcast, which was too bad, but fortunately it wasn't too cold.
Moscow is one of the largest cities in Europe, with over 10 million inhabitants. That's twice the population of Denmark. It is also a very old city and, like most old cities, does not have much in the way of city planning. Bits were just simply added wherever over the centuries. We were told that people from Saint Petersburg refer to Moscow as an overgrown village. And in return, Muscovites call Saint Petersburg an open air museum. There's a bit of a rivalry going on there.
Moscow has the same problems with traffic as Saint Petersburg. Everyone wants to have a car, despite the fact that the Moscow Metro system is very good. So despite the fact that it was quite early in the morning, there was a ton of traffic.
Moscow has a lot of little old churches all over the place, scattered between the more modern buildings, but the number that are there now is only a small fraction of the number of churches that Moscow used to have. A few centuries ago, visitors approaching the city would just see shiny gold everywhere from all of the domes. The reason this is no longer true is that most of the churches in the city were destroyed during the Soviet era.
So we were driving down the road and then suddenly, up in front of us, was a sight that I had been looking forward to the entire trip.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Moscow Kremlin, probably the most famous big red brick wall in the world. It is a huge fortress, much bigger than the one in Novgorod, and it encloses all of the most important churches in Moscow as well as the administrative buildings of the modern Russian government.
And it's AWESOME for a myriad of little reasons.
One of them being this church, which is right next to the Kremlin and which I'm sure you've all seen pictures of because it's the most famous landmark in Russia. It's called Saint Basil's (well... technically it's Saint Vasily's- Basil is the Anglicized version) Cathedral, and you are going to be seeing a ton of pictures of it, most of them better than this one.
Then we got off the bus, walked up in between the cathedral and the Kremlin wall and entered Red Square, where I almost wet myself with happiness. Almost.
I took a ton of pictures of Red Square, and I'm going to try to choose some of the better ones but, frankly, it's hard to take a bad picture of the place. It is beyond awesome.
Moscow is not as old as Veliky Novgorod, but it is still quite old. It first became a powerful city during the Mongol occupation of the area that would become Russia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Mongols were the first and last people to ever conquer Russia. No one who has tried it since has succeeded. One of the princes of Moscow, Ivan I (otherwise known as Ivan "Moneybag". I'm not kidding) sucked up to the Mongol Khan by offering to help collect tribute from the other cities to give to the Khan. This resulted in Moscow becoming very wealthy and gaining a lot of power and influence until eventually the princes of Moscow were almost as powerful as the Mongols. When the Mongols were finally chased out of Russia Moscow immediately took up the role of the most powerful city in the area, replacing Kiev, and the prince of Moscow (who at the time was Ivan III (the Great)) became the de-facto ruler of all of the cities. After the area officially became unified into one country Moscow became the official capital, and remained so until Peter the Great decided to be all Western and revolutionary and made Saint Petersburg the capital. This change was fixed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and Moscow is now once again the capital of Russia.
The Kremlin is in the very center of the city and is the oldest bit. It was modified and made more impressive and fortress-y by Ivan III and has undergone countless renovations since then, but it is still the oldest part of the city. And Red Square has got to be nearly as old. It was certainly around during the reign of Ivan III, which was during the 1400s. Its name in Russian is "Krasnaya Ploshchad" and it is a name with multiple meanings. You may have a few ideas about why it's called Red Square, and I'm here to enlighten you. In Russia the color red has always been considered to be a holy color, and this is reflected in the language, as the word for red- krasnaya- also means "beautiful". Initially, this is the meaning that was used for the square, so instead of Red Square it was Beautiful Square. Later, after Ivan the Terrible used it as the site of his mass executions and the place began to be associated with blood, people started to use the other meaning of krasnaya.
This is Spasskaya ("Savior") Tower, one of the cooler towers in the Kremlin Wall. Every year on New Years Eve Russian TV stations show the clock on the tower as it counts down to midnight.
As I mentioned before, the Cathedral on Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg was inspired by Saint Basil's Cathedral, but Saint Basil's Cathedral is much, much older. It was built in the 1500s, during the reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible). See? He didn't just kill people. He also built shiny churches.
I like this dome. It reminds me of a pineapple.
This is Lenin's Mausoleum, one of the more unusual sites on Red Square. When Lenin died in 1924 his body was embalmed and treated so that it would stay in good shape for a little while, so that people from all over Russia could come see it and pay their respects. A special wooden mausoleum was built for it, and many people came from all over to see the body.
When it became clear just how popular an attraction Lenin's body was, it was decided to maybe try to preserve it just a little bit longer. The wooden mausoleum was replaced with something a bit more permanent, and his body was kept on display inside. And well, to make a long story short, he's still in there. I'm not sure exactly how they've managed to preserve the body for this long- and frankly, I don't really want to know- but today you can still go in and see the very very very late Comrade Lenin. At this point he's still there because the government isn't quite sure what else to do with him. Before the trip my teacher told us that we might have the opportunity to go in the mausoleum and see the body- a thought that both thrilled me and freaked me out- but sadly it turned out to be closed for the whole month of April, so we couldn't go in. And to think, I could have had so many creepy zombie Lenin pictures to show you...
Oh well. Maybe next time.
By the way, right across from Lenin's Mausoleum there is a huge shopping mall. Oh, the irony. I really wonder if they did that on purpose.
This awesome building is the State Historical Museum. It is basically a giant Russian history museum, the very thought of which had me drooling. Sadly, however, we didn't have time to go in. Obviously I need to go back to Moscow, if only to spend a few weeks in this museum.
This is a Russian police officer. They have awesome hats.
This is the Kazan Cathedral, which was torn down during the Soviet era and then rebuilt after 1991.
Krasnaya Ploshchad, living up to the original meaning of its name.
This is a statue that stands just outside Red Square. It shows Marshal Zhukov on a horse, trampling Nazi German flags. Zhukov was one of the Red Army generals during World War II, and after the war he became a very popular military hero.
And this is Moscow's World War II memorial with the obligatory eternal flame. Moscow was not directly affected by the war (the German army got really, really close but was turned back before they could actually take the city) but they still have a memorial.
Part of the memorial is a long line of blocks with the names of cities that showed great valor during the war. This is the one for the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southern Russia. The Battle of Stalingrad was, arguably, the most important battle of World War II because it was the first one the Germans lost. They had taken Stalingrad and the Red Army fought like crazy to get it back. It was an extremely bloody, prolonged battle- the way it is often described in history books is as a struggle for each building and each street- but eventually the Red Army overcame the German army, which started retreating West. The Red Army chased them all the way to Berlin and on May 9th, 1945 the Germans finally surrendered and the war in Europe ended.
And that's how the Soviet Union saved Europe's butt and won World War II. Sorry, America.
In general, Russians are very, very proud of their victory in World War II. They call it the "Great Patriotic War" and have a huge, awesome military parade on Red Square every May 9th to commemorate the day of the German surrender. I watched videos of the parade from this year, which was just a few days ago. It was really impressive, as usual. There were missile launchers.
Two and a half days wasn't nearly enough time to spend in Moscow, so we spent that time going around and seeing all of the major sites in the city.
Like this building, which is the Bolshoi Theater. We weren't able to go in, but seeing the outside was still cool. It is currently in the process of being renovated, and has been for quite some time.
By the way, "bolshoi" is Russian for "big". Now you know.
Communism alert!
This is a statue of Karl Marx that was built during the 1960s, when Khrushchev was trying to get people all excited about Communism again. The text on the front says "Proletarians of the world, unite!"
How could I resist having my picture taken in front of a statue like that? I mean, come on.
We spent a little time at the Sparrow Hills, one of the high points of Moscow, which offer a nice view of the city. It was cloudy, so we weren't able to see as far as we could have, but the view was still pretty cool.
This is a ski jump from the 1980 Olympics, which were held in Moscow. These are the ones that the United States and a bunch of other countries boycotted, because the Cold War was going on and the US took every opportunity to stick it to those commies in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union then retaliated by boycotting the Olympics when they were held in the US a few years later.
Actually, the most exciting part of the stop at the Sparrow Hills was lunch. There were a few little food stands there and I ordered a chicken, lettuce and tomato sub. In Russian. Now, I know very, very little Russian, and what I do know mostly consists of being able to say things like "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian". But I had made it known to one of the teachers on the trip that I really wanted to improve my Russian, so she went out of her way to help me. I was extremely grateful, despite the fact that I had a feeling she thought I knew more Russian than I actually did. Anyway, back in Saint Petersburg she had taught me the phrase for ordering food, and now she insisted that I order my sub in Russian. So, after a quick crash course in food-related vocabulary, I did it. I ordered a sandwich, with all of the bits, in Russian. It was so cool! I'm still really psyched about it, and it's been a month. It went smoothly until the woman behind the counter told me the price, at which point I went "......" because I don't know Russian numbers. Then the teacher stepped in and translated the price for me and explained to the woman that I was a student practicing my Russian. The woman said that I seemed to know my food vocabulary quite well. Heh...
Anyway, it was an awesome cultural experience. And the sandwich was really good too.
After the Sparrow Hills we went to a really cool cemetery with some rather significant graves.
The weather provided a perfect cemetery ambiance. There was even hail!
This stylish and subtle grave marks the final resting place of Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation.
Борис Ельцин
This is a great way to learn different alphabets. See if you can figure out the equivalent Latin letters! It's fun!
(Hint: Ц and Е are both two letters in the Latin alphabet and Ь isn't a letter, it's an accent).
And this is the grave of Nikita Khrushchev, the third premier of the Soviet Union.
Quick! Figure it out!
Никита Хрущев
(Hint: Щ is four (yep!) Latin letters).
Are you having fun yet?
Now I'm going to talk a bit about the Moscow Metro, because it's awesome. I never imagined that one of my favorite things about Russia would be the subways, but the Moscow Metro is just as cool as the one in Saint Petersburg.
The Moscow Metro is actually quite old, as metro systems go. It was built in the 1930s and was a source of great pride. There were songs written about it. It is not insanely deep like the Saint Petersburg metro but the stations follow the same concept of "palaces for the people". They are very grand and decorated and dramatic, and I wish I had been able to take more pictures of them because they really are impressive to see.
The Moscow Metro stops, more so it seemed than the Saint Petersburg metro stops, followed a very obvious revolution and Soviet Union theme, which I really enjoyed. This is the sign for the metro stop we got off on to go to Red Square. I don't need to translate it for you.
The grandness of the metro stops often included statues. This is a statue that I thought was particularly cool. It was in the station closest to our hotel, which was called "Partizanskaya". As you can probably guess from the name, the station celebrates famous Soviet partisans. This is one of them. Her name is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and she fought in a guerrilla military unit during World War II when she was 18 years old. She was captured by the Germans, tortured and then, when she refused to provide information, was executed.
The Revolyutsii Ploshchad station (see above) also had some really cool statues. The whole platform was lined with statues of glorified versions of "the People" doing various things like picking corn and sitting with their dogs. You are apparently supposed to rub the dog's nose as you walk by, for good luck, because I saw a lot of people doing that.
Oktyabrskaya- another revolutionarily- themed station.
One quick cultural note. In general, Russians don't smile that much in public. My teacher told us that in Russia smiling at someone indicates that you know them, so smiling at a stranger is actually a little sketchy. Since I don't smile much myself I felt right at home. And they don't talk on public transportation. All of the bus rides and metro rides we took were pretty much silent, except for some of the kids I was with who were annoyingly consistent about having loud conversations in English on the public transportation and basically holding up a big sign saying "Yo! We're American tourists!". The locals weren't the only ones shooting them slightly irritated glances. It got to the point where I finally, on one of the last days, turned to them as we waited for the train and said "Um. Hey. Sometimes it's fun to not talk and try to blend in." They didn't take the hint. Sigh.
Of course, in Denmark there isn't really any talking on public transportation either. It must just be a chatty American thing.
This is the Church of the Savior, the tallest Orthodox church in the world. It was destroyed during the Soviet era, with the intent of replacing it with a huge building with a statue of Lenin on top that celebrated the Soviet Union, but the ground turned out to be too unstable for that kind of a building project. So Khrushchev had a pool put in instead. My Russian history teacher in the US told us that he used to go swimming there. Then in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviot Union, the cathedral was rebuilt.
Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral, but it was very impressive and ornate. The ceiling was extremely high.
While we were inside I found mosaics of Boris and Gleb, the first two Russian saints. Really excited, I started lecturing about them to the kids I was wandering around with. I'm not sure that they appreciated it.
On the last day we had a tour of the Kremlin, which was really cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the churches, unfortunately, but hopefully my pictures of the outside will give you a sense of how impressive a place it is.
The Kremlin was both the center of the Russian government (as it is now as well) and the country's religious center, since there was absolutely no sense of separation between Church and State. The tsar and the patriarch (the head of the Church) literally lived next door. So there are a ton of really impressive churches in the Moscow Kremlin, including the church where all of the tsars from before Peter the Great are buried, and the church where the tsars had their coronations. There are also a bunch of palaces and administrative buildings that we didn't go into.
This is the Tsar Bell, which was commissioned by Tsar Aleksey I to show how religious and awesome he was. It was never used, since it is far too big to actually be hung up anywhere.
Finally, this was a really big market that was right outside our hotel. It had a lot of touristy souvenir things. I found a little book shop, where I bought a book for teaching young Russian kids to read and a copy of "Ruslan and Ludmilla" in Russian, which seemed like good enough souvenirs to me.
The next day we left. I was really sad- as I said, I cried a bit- because even though I had only been in Russia for a week there is something about it that grabs you and makes you want to stay, just because it is such a fascinating and different place. I think it might have been the sense of foreign-ness that I liked so much, but it's hard to say.
I just loved the culture and everything I saw there, and I am determined to go back.
Okay, I really need to finish this up. I leave Denmark the day after tomorrow, which is crazy for me to think about, but I am going to continue this blog into the summer to fully tell you about my experiences, now that I no longer have classes to get in my way. Sorry. This didn't work out entirely the way I had planned.
