moscow

St. Basil Cathedral on Red Square

St. Basil's Cathedral stands at the southern end of Red Square. The church was built in 1555-61, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. It's worth the money to get inside and have a look! We stayed at Hotel "Rossiya" just walking distance from the square. You can see it with the Cam link Moscow Cam

If you are planning a trip to Moscow then a must read: Moscow...things to see

Lenin's Tomb

Lenin's Tomb served as the stand from which all of the Soviet Leaders would review their military might on May Day. Western intelligence agencies would then carefully analyze pictures of the reviewers to see who was present and where they stood in relation to each other and so discern the Soviet leadership hierarchy. Behind the tomb, next to the Kremlin Wall, are buried a pantheon of Soviet-era notables.

Lenin in State/ Original Tomb

First English Embassy (Trading Post) in Russia

The first English Embassy in Russia was not much more than a trading post. According to the documents in this building the English were interested in the quality fabrics that Russia made for their sails on their fleet of ships. The materials were of such great quality the documents suggest that the English were able to out maneuver the Spanish and thus the English were victorious in 1588 (Spanish Armada). Historians place this battle as the reason that United States is English Speaking.

Above are the various rooms in the Embassy

Inside the Kremlin Wall

The Tsars wanted the support of the Russian Orthodox Church thus the center of the Church was moved to Moscow and inside the Kremlin Wall. The rulers collected taxes to support the Church and the Church supported the Tsars.

Russia was originally a pagan nation; Russians believed in a variety of major and minor gods. Christianity was first introduced in Russia in 988 by Prince Vladimir whose grandmother, Olga was converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith in Constantinople, according to tradition. The religion in Constantinople at the time was Eastern Catholicism or Orthodoxy (from Greek orthos doxos 'true faith')

Moscow

Look close you could lose your head

This scene is portrayed in many Russian painting

s. At the Tretyakov Gallery "The morning of the Streltsys' Execution" (1881) by V.I. Surikov (picture below) depicts the last few moments before the execution of the Streltsys, musketeers who rebelled against Peter the Great's reforms in 1698. Click pictures below to see enlargement.

Red Square...

that familiar bricked expanse in the heart of Moscow is located just outside the Kremlin, along it's Eastern wall. Think of Red Square, and you'll undoubtedly recall pictures of those May Day parades, from the years when the Soviet Military displayed it's might, respectfully passing before the Soviet leadership atop Lenin's tomb. But Red Square's history stretches back

The House of Russian Government

When McDonald's Pushkin Square Restaurant opened on Janu Restaurant Opening

ary 31, 1990 it broke McDonald's world wide opening day records for customers served. To this day, 12 years later, Pushkin continues to be the busiest McDonald's restaurant in the world.

way before the Communist Soviet Union, back to the days of Czarist Russia. In the late 15th Century, people came to this square, called Torg, or market square, to purchase food, livestock, or other wares. By the late16th Century, it was renamed Trinity Square, and served as the main entrance to the Kremlin. It wasn't until 1650 that it received the name Krasnaya Ploschad, krasnaya meaning both beautiful and red. The Red Square of today is more than 500,000 square feet of open land. A place where people gather to celebrate official state events, to be photographed in front of favorite sites, or just to drink in the historic splendor.

I could not believe the size of this McDonald's. In the states I seldom ever go to a McDonald's; however, I admit quite candidly that I was looking forward to fries and a burger with my diet coke. What you see is just the first floor. The second floor was just as big and just as full. We had to wait approximately four minutes for a seat. The lines were not that long because now Moscow has seven stores. The food is the same as it is in the States and the crowd is definitely there for the good prices. Sorry kids no playground.

Bolshoi Theatre Moscow

Click picture to see enlargement of the "Inconceivable Princess" Opera.

This old square lies In the very center of the radial-circular network of Moscow streets. It took shape in 1817 after the Neglinnaya River was piped underground and the hilly and marshy area was drained and leveled. At the time the entire perimeter of the square, which was then called Petrovskaya Square, was built up with symmetrically situated two-story building whose facades were designed in the same style. In 1824, a new building of the Bolshoi (Petrovsky) Theater was erected in place of the old one which had burnt down. The inner part of the square was an empty unpaved area, fenced off by thick ropes, which was intended for military reviews and parades.

This strictly symmetrical ensemble in the neoclassical style was designed by the noted architect Osip Beauvais. The only still extant example of the buildings that originally stood around the square is the Maly Theater erected in 1821. In 1830 the square was renamed Teatralnaya (Theater) Square and it was given its present name in 1919. In the northern part of the square stands the Bolshoi Theater with a monumental colonnade and quadriga of bronze horses on its pediment, which has become one of the symbols of Moscow. Built in 1820-1824 to the design of architects Alexander Mikhailov and Osip Beauvais, it is one of the finest theatre buildings in the world, a monumental work of 19th-century Russian neoclassicism. In 1855-1856, after a fire, it was in great part rebuilt by the architect Albert Kavos, who preserved its original general layout but increased the height of the building, added a third storey, and put up a gallery supported by iron columns on either side of the building. The five-tiered auditorium is famous for its excellent acoustics and rich ornamentation. A splendid great crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling which is decorated with a painting. The auditorium, seating 2,153, is 21 meters high, 25 meters long and 26 meters wide.

Quite a few outstanding artists have performed on the stage of the Bolshoi. Fyodor Chaliapin sang here and Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya danced on its boards. Today a younger generation of fine Russian performers are keeping up the worldwide fame of the Bolshoi Theater. We saw the opera the Inconceivable Princess.

Czar's Cannon and Bell

Czar Cannon Just outside Cathedral Square, you find the stunning cannon. The Czar Cannon, built in 1586. It's considered the largest cannon in the world, sixteen feet long, weighing 85,000 pounds. It was Czar Fyodor I, Ivan the Terrible's son, who commissioned master craftsman Andrei Chokov to cast the giant bronze weapon to better protect the Kremlin.		Czar Bell At the foot of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, rests a monument to the grand days of the Romanov Dynasty. The Czar's Bell. It was Czarina Anna I, who commissioned the bell in 1734, a fulfillment of the dream of her grandfather, Czar Alexei. The huge bronze bell was to be the biggest and clearest sounding bell in the world. Unfortunately, before the bell was raised, it cracked in a fire in 1737. Two hundred tons of silence are all that remain.

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