It was better than Cats!

Moscow –overall the city is cleaner than St.Petersburg, which is weird because St. Petersburg had deployed a veritable army of sweepers assiduously plying their brooms. The train stations are significantly scarier than those in St. Petersburg though. We arrived frightfully early and were unpleasantly surprised to see squat potties were the order of the day at the station – am I in one of wealthiest, most powerful cities on the globe or what? So far that has only happened the once – all other facilities have at least been up to late 20th century standards.

We found our hostel (Godzilla’s) and set out to track down our Moscow – Ulan Batar tickets (for some reason these can’t been done electronically), the overnight train was better than the bus because you have a bed, but it was still rough because although smoking isn’t allowed in the compartments, you can still smoke at the end of the corridor – it doesn’t have separate or any real ventilation. So, it was like sleeping in one of those 1930’s movies where the room is thick with smoke. Kimberly woke up wheezing and had lost her voice. We’ll spare the details about her bringing up the lining of her lungs for the better part of the morning.

Anyhow, en route to the ticket agency, we found a Starbucks. Normally, this wouldn’t be perceived as provenient grace or anything, but as Kimberly quickly noted – there is no smoking inside. None. At all. Not just is in one half of a completely open space. None. Normally, she is intolerable on local this and that, no chains, and “for God’s sake are you getting a Coke?” There was none of that here. $20 later, we emerged with a sunnier, more caffeinated outlook.

Tickets in hand, it was back to the Metro and on the Kremlin! It’s easy to find as you emerge from the Metro station, you simply head for the forest of gold onion domes . The Kremlin is a functioning government compound so the security is understandably tight. However, for a place that must see several thousand tourists a day, particularly at this time of year, the management of the crowds through the check point is slow to the point of absurdity. There is one working metal detector and two guards checking bags. The entrance the tourists use is the same one the people who work there use and they, of course, get to line jump. Brad was forced back to the bag check to leave the day bag we carry. Never mind the fact that the old biddies in the Italian tour group were getting in with their duffle bag sized “purses”. He did some serious line jumping of his own and is not ashamed to say so. He claims he was “going native” .

Inside you can see the cluster of churches with their fabulously carved doors and spectacularly ornamented porticos. The lunettes over the doors had elaborate frescoes as well. All these churches were gathered around a brick plaza. There is also a building that is surrounded by hundreds of captured Napoleonic cannons. We walked over to take some pictures and quickly drew the attention of at least two guards. All of the police types we have seen in Russia seem to have a black and white club about 18 inches long grafted to their hands and these were no exception. They did not speak, they just stared unwaveringly until we were back on the correct side of the line we had crossed.

Inside the various churches, which have names like Church of the Annunciation, Church of theDeposition of the Robe of our Lady, and so on, are treasures of all kinds. There are icons of every size and made of the most wonderful materials. Intricately carved ivory and gilded wood with crowns dripping pearls and encrusted with precious gems. There’s enough gold there to build a battleship. One of the churches housed the bodies of almost all the czars (not Boris Gudanov) up to Peter the Great who moved the show to St. Petersburg. In a few the walls are a bit plain but there are a couple that are frescoed on every square inch of the wall, floor and ceiling. These paintings are in various states of decay/restoration but they are all quite beautiful despite being nearly a thousand years old. One of the churches houses more modern beauties as well. We saw a collection of jewelry, snuff boxes, watches, and decorative objects belonging to various members of the royalty. Many of these were Faberge creations and were every bit as exquisite as that provenance implies.

Other sights around the Kremlin include Peter’s attempt to have the largest bell in the world made. It’s about 20 feet tall and weighs a bazillion tons. The original fell (why?) and broke, so a czarina had it recast and as it was being cooled somebody spilled water on it and a piece the size of a car door weighing 11 tons broke of,f thus ruining what would have been a very awesome bell. There is also an insanely large cannon. It was designed in 1586 to shoot 800 kilograms of grapeshot (that more than 1,700 pounds if your metric system is rusty).

Next stop, Red Square. Words really can’t describe the feeling of walking up the slight hill between the State Historical Museum and the walls of the Kremlin when the colorful domes of St. Basils come into view. Then, at the crest of the hill it really hits you: I’m in Russia! I know that sounds ridiculous. Duh, you’ve been in Russia for 4 days. Haven’t you noticed that all the writing is in Cyrillic, that everyone is speaking Russian? Nonetheless, it’s true. Until you’re standing in Red Square gawking at St. Basils it really doesn’t fell like Russia. We took dozens of pictures as we walked the length of the square, all the time jockeying for position with the throngs of other tourists trying to get that iconic Russian shot. Inside St. Basils we first learned thanks to Zada’s audio guide that it is actually 9 different churches connected with interior passageways. They all feature the familiar iconostasis that shields the alter from the prying eyes of the hoi polloi except at the time of the service. Some had plain walls and some the impressive frescoing of those in the Kremlin. Like everything else here, after a thousand years things need some work. With so much work to do it’s a wonder as much is getting done as it is.

Our second day in Moscow began with a line. We were trying to get in to the Armory Hall. There are a limited number of tickets sold to this each day and they are for set times, enigmatically called “séances”. We wanted the first one at 10 and after getting the tickets to our séance, we found ourselves in the familiar Kremlin security line. The Armory is absurd. Every last object a work of surpassing beauty and craftsmanship. The three of us kept a constant stream of “ooh, look at number whatever” all the way through. There were icons somehow even more elaborate than those we have already seen. There were unimaginably lovely Gospel covers, made of fabulously work gold and carrying a king’s ransom in spectacular jewels. Each object was beyond priceless – it speaks volumes to the sense of national pride that all of this phenomenal treasure has been so cared for long after the institutions they served and celebrated has passed from power.

There were also some Faberge eggs, each of them ludicrously detailed. Zada’s favorite was the one with a five car train inside. The engine was carved from ivory and the headlight was a microscopic but brilliant ruby. The Armory also has a collection of clothing from the czars as well as vestments wore by the leaders of the church. One such robe was embroidered with what must be 100,000 pearls. Another was red velvet crisscrossed with a latticework of at least 3 carat diamonds – there must have been hundreds, possibly thousands of them.

We also got to see the crown worn by Ivan the Terrible(among about a dozen others along with their scepters and orbs – all frosted with superb gems and capped by rubies the size of roc’s eggs and the like). They also had a couple of coronation gowns and wedding dresses belonging to Empresses. Yards of handmade lace, sumptuous velvet, ermine and everything embroidered in silver and gold thread. The waists of a couple of the dresses showed the results of lifetime of rigid corseting – Zada could just barely have gotten into them. Not that we are advocating a return to feudalism, but why can’t we make things like this anymore? Why is the level of craftsmanship and artistry achieved by illiterate slaves over a thousand years ago beyond our ability to produce?

Que sera. The next room was filled with carriages – splendid vehicles with beautifully painted panels – sometimes jewel encrusted. Next was the regalia worn by the horses, which are as gloriously jewel bedecked as almost anything the czars wore. They had a couple of taxidermed horses trussed in the full set out – a couple of magnificent diamond cluster aigrettes that Kimberly assumed were for Empresses to wear to balls and the like turned out to be for the horses.

We’ve left out the rooms of gold and silver table services, epergnes the size of Volkswagons, jeweled salt cellars, the Patriarch’s gold plate and thousands of exquisite cups, beakers, tazzas, toilet sets, and a hundred other little treasures.

There is no photography in the Armory or any of the other Kremlin interiors, so you will have to try to visualize it from our pitiful descriptions. I assure you that you will fail miserably, as human imagination is inadequate to the task.

We were going to visit Lenin in his mausoleum but when we got over to Red Square we found a very long line and so we had to pass. We headed for the Moscow Cat Theater. It is a bit hard to describe this experience. I think there was a story being told but it was all in Russian so I don’t really know. There were clowns, and cats, and a couple of dogs and it was pretty awesome. We’ll link a Youtube video we found about the place. It was unbelievably nightmarish getting there – the place was off all our maps and quite a hike from its closest Metro station we ran like fools to get there just in time. However, Zada was delighted with every second of the show, and that is what counts.

We are spending our last couple of hours in Moscow pulling together the blogs, the laundry, grocery shopping and trying to find a way to pack Kimberly’s new samovar. It hurts to not go see more fabulous – we’ve hardly been out of Red Square, but the itinerary has been so jam packed (you know the way Kimberly plans, and we haven’t done even half of what she imagined despite being up and out before 8 every morning and still going at 10 every night) that the necessary quotidian tasks have been completely neglected.

We will spend the next three days on a train, so, until Irkutsk!

(We don't have time for pictures right now but we will post some when we find internet in Irkutsk)