Midnight in Moscow

October 12, 2019

As Tim sits down to write this blog entry, to be edited by Lynda before posting, we have just left our port in Moscow.  The port was on the Moscow Canal about 10 miles north of Moscow so once we set sail we were immediately in a very scenic area with lots of trees sporting their fall colors.

Yesterday, Friday, the only shore excursion we booked was a Moscow by Night tour.  That left the rest of the day to relax, read, nap and prepare our first blog posting.  Our night tour took us back to Red Square where St. Basil’s and GUM were spectacular after dark.  Hopefully we can get some pictures posted. 

St. Basil's at Night

GUM Dept Store

Chris Columbus/Peter the Great

We spent about 30 minutes at Red Square giving us plenty of time for pictures and to marvel at the beauty of the architecture around the Square.  The next stop was to board a small tour boat for a 45 minute cruise on the Moscow River.  From the boat we had more views of the Kremlin and St. Basil’s as well as the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.  The only other structure of interest was the statue of Peter the Great. This statue is consider a big joke in Moscow because the statue was original erected as a tribute to Christopher Columbus, showing him at the helm of one of his ships. Years later the powers that be wanted to build a statue in honor of Peter the Great, however, there was no money.  It was decided to cut off the head of Christopher Columbus and replace it with a head of Peter the Great.  Problem solved.   There evidently is no record of Peter the Great having ever captained a three masted sailing ship. 

As we were to find out tomorrow, this was not an unusual occurrence in Moscow.  After the cruise we went to a former nunnery to see a bronze statue of a mother duck followed by her 8 ducklings.  This statue was in honor of a children’s story that was popular in Russia.  Barbara Bush gifted the sculpture to Mikhail Gorbachev wife. It is a replica of a sculpture on the Boston Commons. It was after midnight when we finally returned to the boat but the 30 minutes at Red Square made the night worthwhile.

This morning we took a tour of the Kremlin. The tour started out as the tour from Hell. It seemed like every five minutes we needed to stop for someone to use the restroom.  Tim mentioned that he never wanted to travel with old people again.  Then it took us 45 minutes to get through security just to enter the Kremlin.  Just before finally getting to the entrance to security someone behind Tim in a crush of people announced in very loud voice “This is the line for the toilet, right?”  This comment caused raucous laughter in the immediate area going a long way to relieving the tension. Fortunately, the rest of the tour was good. The word kremlin in Russian means fortress which is what the Kremlin, in fact, is; a large fort. We saw a large 17th century building that houses the Kremlin and Presidential guards as well as a similarly designed building that contains the offices of Vladimir Putin as well as other central government offices. 

Putin's Office

On the grounds of the Kremlin there is also a building constructed in 1960 to house the Soviet Congress that was expanded and remodeled and now  is a concert hall. Additionally, there is a presidential palace in the fortress as well as 11 different churches and cathedrals.  One of the surprises for us was the number of churches we saw throughout Moscow.  While the Soviet Union tried to suppress religion in the country, Stalin, in particular, forbid the destroying of churches.  After the breakup of the USSR, the new leadership allowed more freedom of speech so the general population was free to openly attend church.  Every Saturday at noon there is a military parade in Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin.  This parade is more of a demonstration then a parade.  There is a 25 piece band that provides music for the 64 soldiers carrying rifles with bayonets and a troop of 10 horses. Both the horse troop and the soldiers did interesting drills to the accompaniment of the band. For Tim anyway, this was the highlight of the tour of the Kremlin.  Unable to see a football game today he was at least able to see a halftime show of sorts.

Military Parade

Having left Moscow, our cruise, until we reach St. Petersburg, will be stopping at small towns to visit lots of interesting sites.  At least that’s what the cruise brochure indicates.

Dasvidaniya (that means “goodbye” In Russian)