Moscow, Day 4

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

-morning rush to pack up, eat breakfast

-Kremlin; arrived at 10, got in line, went in, took pictures from every angle, went into Ivan the Terrible/Great(?) bell-towerWIKI (named not because he had it built but in order to connect it to Russia’s past)(?)

-went into 2 other churches; 1 where lots of tsars, from 1400s-1600s that I could tell, are buried; and the one where coronations of tsars was held (Dormition church??), including final tsar Nicky; tsar’s “praying place,” tsarina’s pew, in between the two is the patriarch’s seat; touched tsarina’s (tsar’s wasn’t reachable) when security guard not looking…Alexandra! Unreal. Gold everywhere. Enormous, hand-written icons floor to ceiling [in all the churches] and paintings of saints/biblical stuff

-lunch at neat café, no idea what it was called, really good, sweet and sour chicken (missing American Chinese food), chocolate-cherry cake

-Soviet cemetery (Novodechi??), Yeltsin, Khrushchev and his wife, Stalin’s daughter, Chekov, Gogol (??), Pavlov (THE Pavlov, we think), also the man who started the circus we saw the night before.

-back to the hostel, grabbed bags, went to the train station, came home, ate dinner, chatted with Lena (Irina in Moscow with her other daughter/Lena’s older sister), unpacked, going to bed

-overall, liked Moscow ok; amazing history; center of everything; good food; but too bustling, hectic, large—so many people, like NYC, just feels out of control because of sheer size; favorite parts still: Red Square, Moscow Circus; also, just seeing all the Kremlin police/guards, strolling through the Kremlin and Kremlin gardens (way less crowded than Red Square, though still of course touristy), and Soviet cemetery.

-but overall, as far as experiencing the life of the city, I can check that off my list. Like NYC (after much thought), it’s not a place I can see myself really wanting to visit again, though I’d go back to visit more sites of historical interest if I were given the opportunity--could look at such spots for days.