Moscow: First Full Day, June 25

Bolshoi Theatre

We all slept well our first night in Moscow, although the guys still needed more time and rest to recover from jet lag.  Breakfast was served in our rooms, as requested, at 7:30, and by 8:30 we were on the streets.  It was a lovely day, with the temperature in the low 70 degrees Farenheit (low 20s Celsius), sunny skies and no noticeable humidity--a welcome change from Japan and South Korea!  First, we went to look at the Bolshoi Theatre, with the horses above the pediment.  We walked along the boulevard and came to Lubyanka Square, faced by the former headquarters of the KGB (now occupied by the Russian equivalent).  A statue of the founder of the KGB used to stand in the square but was torn down in 1991.

Many of the boulevards are quite wide, and there are pedestrian underpasses at many intersections, some having small kiosks selling food and souvenirs.  I have to wonder how the persons working in them, mostly women, can abide spending so much time in a space where they only have room for a chair and no room to move about.

Churches of the Archangel Gabriel and of St. Theodore Stratilites

We walked along streets lined with shops and cafes, many of them displaying hookas in their windows, in Petrovka and the Ukrainian Quarter.  Every few blocks, there is a church.  One of the more stunning in exterior architecture, with its twisted golden onion domes, is the Church of the Archangel Gabriel, built in the early 18th century.  A church in European Gothic style is next to it, St. Theodore Stratilites.

At the end of the street with these churches is a park, an area which used to be called "Dirty Ponds" because refuse from the nearby meat markets ran into the pools in this area.  In the 19th century, the area was cleaned up and re-named Chistiye Prudy (Clean Ponds).  This is a pleasant place to stop by a fountain for a rest.

Katya by fountains at Clean Ponds

St. George's Church

Heading east into the old residential area known a Kitai-Gorod, with architecture from the 15th through 17th centuries.  The first striking building on Varvarka Street we saw was St. George's Church, showing two distinct styles as it was built in two different centuries, the 1500s and the 1700s.  Inside, it is hushed and icons are displayed on every wall.  An old woman was making her way around the church, stopping to cross herself, pray and kiss each one.

We had a bit of trouble finding the entrance, but our stop at the Museum of the Romanov Boyars was worth the effort.  The original structure was built in the 1500s.  Only the basement remains intact; the current floors above ground level were re-created in later centuries.  The walls are very thick and the windows are mostly small, so it is cool and dark inside.  The cellars hold the kitchen and the storage place for arms and treasure.  There are separate floors for women and men.  On the men's floor, we saw the dining room, the library and the study.  The latter two are quite small.  A large, green, ceramic-tiled stove served as the source of heat for them.  Each room has a "red" corner, the place where an icon was hung so that it is at a 45-degree angle (from the back) to each wall.

Romanov Boyer Museum

The next floor up is the women's quarters.  There was a common room which displayed mirrors, cosmetics, books, and other items.  Beside it is the "light" room, with ceilings, walls and floor made of wood in patterned designs.  At the top of the house and facing south with large windows, this is where the wife and the daughters of the boyars and a few selected maids would spend their days making thread, weaving and embroidering.  At that period of time, women were expected to be out of the way, modest and industrious.  The needlework on display was gorgeous.

We left this quaint museum and passed other churches as well as the Angliisky Podvorye (English Courtyard), a wooden-roofed building with white-washed walls, one of the oldest civilian structures in Moscow.  Ivan the Terrible granted this area to English merchants to foster trade in the 16th century.

St. Basil's Cathedral

This brought us back to Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral (also known as Khram Vasiliya Blazhennogo or Pokrovsky Sobor).  The church was built in the 16th century in honor of the victory over the Mongol Tatars in 1555.  There is not a single large sanctuary, but nine gloriously decorated chapels beneath the various colored exterior domes.  Although there is a design, it seems like a mixed-up maze.  Beneath the chapels are beautiful rooms and niches (which are structurally vital), displaying icons and fresco painting in floral and religious designs.  While we were there, a men's a capello choir sang briefly; their music was magnificent and complemented by the wonderful acoustics of the center chapel.

Interior, St. Basil's

Interior, St. Basil's

The family--not me!--was starting to weaken in enthusiasm, but we got re-vitalized by ice cream from a vendor in the lovely Alexander Gardens on the west side of the Kremlin, bought our tickets for entrance to the grounds and the cathedrals and entered through the Kutafiya Tower.  We crossed the Trinity Bridge and walked through the second gateway, the Trinity Tower, to enter the enormous enclosure of the Kremlin.  Although red brick walls surround the compound, inside the buildings are yellow ochre and white and pink for the most part.  We passed by the Arsenal, with cannon on display outside, and then came to the Tsar Cannon.  This enormous and ornately decorated piece of artillery has a 40-ton barrel.  Built in the late 16th century for firing stones, it has never been used.  Nearby is the Czar's Bell, from the 1730s, sitting on a granite plinth with a chunk knocked off the rim.  It is 20 feet high and 22 feet in diameter and weighs 200 tons.  Like the cannon, it was never used.  In fact, it cracked before it could be rung.  Visual impact was obviously more important than function.

The Annunciation Cathedral

A half dozen cathedrals surround Cathedral Square, all with domes gleaming in the summer sunshine.  The white-walled Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, built in 1505, contains the tombs of the Great Princes, local princes and the Tsars, beginning with Ivan I.  Directly across from this church is the Annunciation Cathedral, with many gold domes topped by large crosses and distinctive gables, korbel arches, thin windows and niches beneath them.  Matthew's energy had waned appreciably and his feet were sore; Katya had lost interest in religious structures and icons.  They sat in the plaza while Peter and I went into this second cathedral, the home church of the Great Moscow Princes and later the czars.  Built in 1482, this is where the czars were christened and married.  There used to be a connecting porch between this cathedral and the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Domes of the Terem Palace

Matthew and Katya decided to call it a day when we returned to the square, so Peter and I gave them directions to the hotel and continued visiting the cathedrals and grounds (and taking many photos!).  We were awed by the bright gold domes of the Terem Palace, the oldest structure in the Kremlin, between the Annunciation Cathedral and our next stop, the Church of the Deposition of the Robe of the Holy Virgin.  With narrow stained glass windows, an unusual feature in Russian architecture, this buildings now displays wooden figures and icons and church relics from the 15th through the beginning of the 20th century.  The actual interior of the church dates from the 17th century and has three naves.  It was built as the private church for the patriarchs of Moscow and Russia.

Add caption

The last building Peter and I visited was the Assumption Cathedral, another white structure topped by fat golden domes.  It was built in the late 15th century and features a large and bright.  This is where czars were crowned and patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church were inaugurated and buried.  The Patriarch's Seat is built into one of the pillars as is another for the czarina.

Looming over Cathedral Square is the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great, which was built in stages over the 16th and 17th centuries.  Bells of various sizes can be seen in the multiple belfries.  Next to Cathedral Square are the Secret Gardens, with tree-lined walkways and formal flower gardens.  From the far side of it, we could look down the steep hill to where a moat used to exist inside the Kremlin wall.

By now, Peter and I were feeling fatigued, so we went back to the hotel for a nap and down time.  Luckily the hours of daylight are long here around the 55th parallel, with the sun rising before 5 a.m. and setting well after 10 p.m.  It was still dark at 11 p.m. when, later, Peter and I returned to the hotel.  We all went out about 8 p.m. for dinner at Okhotny Ryad shopping center, a three-story underground mall next to the northwest side of the Kremlin.  We were looking for Russian food, but the Muscovites seem to prefer food from other nations, so, quite hungry, we finally settled on Italian food from an American chain, Sbarro, on the third floor.  From there, we could walk out to the Alexander Gardens.  There was a long and meandering pool of water with colorful fish patterns lining the bottom and interspersed bronze statues representing scenes from Russian fairy tales and fables.  It was quite nice, despite the fact that the water was a bit murky.  This didn't stop two Russian guys from swimming in it in their underwear!

We strolled through the garden and separated from the kids again, who were tired and anxious to get back to the hotel.  Peter and I enjoyed walking around the area on a balmy evening.  We stopped at a classy looking hotel on the end of wide Tverskaya Street near Red Square to see the lobby.  (It's the Ritz-Carlton, we discovered, but it is just too classy to put its name on the outside, we guess.)  Everything inside was exquisitely designed and placed for optimal aesthetic appeal.  Luxury oozed from the walls.  After a couple minutes, we came out, passing the valets and bellhops again.  One of them stopped Peter to tell him that there are great views from the 12th floor open-air restaurant and oxygen bar, free to the public. This Miami-themed place had a large mural of Biscayne Bay (We recognized the bridges we passed under in Epicurus.) and up-scale patio furniture.  Although the night was warm, the staff supplied patrons with what looked like cashmere blankets if they felt chilly!

When we got back, Peter went to bed and I stayed up past midnight downloading and labeling the (over 100) photos I had taken that day.  Nevertheless, I was up at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning, ready for another day of exploring.