Moscow 2011

The Kremlin

Travel Dates 10th-11th June 2011

Click on any picture to see a larger version. 

On arrival in Moscow we docked at the North River terminal on the Moscow Canal about 20 km northwest of the Kremlin.

I said goodbye to my young cruise guide and welcomed my new guide Olga for the Moscow visit. She was excellent and knew her city well. We joined the French groups on a dinner cruise in the evening but for the rest of the day I was able to wander my own way with her instead of following the French groups. The ride into the centre was interesting, lots of brutalist apartment architecture and lots of traffic.

The OMON (cyrillic OMOH) Special Purpose Mobile Unit are a branch within the National Guard of Russia. Their main function is officially antiterrorist and antiriot. Everything seemed peaceful when I took this picture. Maybe he was not needed. Or maybe he was why it was peaceful...

Entering Red Square is like entering Disneyland. Everything is over the top and larger than life. The Kremlin is simply massive. The picture above shows part of the outer wall. This is a plan of the walled complex; it is easy to see how past tsars and Soviet leaders were able to isolate themselves from the general population.  

St Basil's cathedral dominates the entrance to Red Square. The design and colours are straight out of a fairy tale. Stalin ordered all the churches in the square destroyed in 1936 but saner heads managed to convince him to leave St Basil's. 

This is the GUM store. Reserved for the top echelon in Soviet days, now open to anyone with roubles.

Olga took me to the top floor for coffee. The prices seemed geared to tourists and not the locals. Possibly too many roubles required for a crowd.

The State Historical Museum.

Kazan Cathedral was originally a small church built in 1636 and expanded over the centuries with a major reconstruction completed in 1932. Four years later Stalin had it destroyed to allow bigger May Day military parades in the square. It was the first church rebuilt after the collapse of the Soviet Union, completed in 1993 based on detailed measurements and photographs of the original church.  

Just me, a bit younger and a lot fitter..

Inside the Kremlin walls it becomes clear how big it is. These are some of the governmental buildings. 

Several churches have survived and been renovated within the walls. I was told the domes are gilded with real gold; that might even be true...

The Fabergé museum is inside the Kremlin. These are some of the pictures I took before a guard informed me rather forcibly that cameras were forbidden. I missed seeing that notice. Oops.

I have heard of the crack in the USA Liberty Bell. It looks like the Russian one is bigger with an even bigger crack. 

Getting all my ducks in a row in a Moscow park.

The following pictures were taken from the boat during the dinner cruise on the Moscow River which was included in the itinerary.

I don't recall where I took this picture; I think I saw it on a wall in the Kremlin. I was interested to see how the Russians built a canal system over time linking their major cities with the Baltic sea as a summer port and the Black and Caspian seas as all year ports. The Blue section at the top left is close to the route we followed.

Cheers, Alan