Russia Part III: Moscow II

Our second day in Moscow began with a guided bus-tour of the city. This was a nice change from all the walking of the previous day, with us being driven around the major sights and stopping at key points for a closer look.

The Monastery

After visiting a church, our next stop was a monastery on the edge of the city centre. It was surrounded by a very attractive park with a lake populated by hundreds of ducks. But as with the other nice parts of the city, there was a nasty contrast if you turned your back to the monastery...

The view in the other direction

After more driving about, with our very knowledgeable guide who filled us in on all kinds of interesting history, we stopped at the memorial to Soviet war dead from WWII. It is an enormous spire at the end of a long walk with a section for every year of the war. The weather was quite poor while we were in Moscow so anything tall, like the spire, faded into the mist.

War memorial

We saw various other sights from the coach, including the enormous Olympic stadium that hosted the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and the former residences of Soviet leaders. We also stopped on a hill giving us a look over the unfortunately-misty city. Strangely, there was a terrifying-looking ski jump on the hill. I wasn't tempted to use it.

Mmm! Haven't had a tasty CrapDog in years!

After stopping for food our tour came to an end in the centre of the city and we looked into visiting the Kremlin. Annoyingly there was an official function with hundreds of people queuing at the main entrance, so we were forced to walk around to one of the other gates to get inside.

That's one big cannon

Once inside we explored the grounds of the Kremlin. We only bought the cheaper tickets which don't give entrance to the museums, but there was enough to see outside, including multiple churches and the enormous Tsar's cannon and bell, both of which are basically stupidly-large versions of the normal varieties.

Either that's a big bell or those are very small churches.

The cannon was built to defend the Kremlin and never used, which is fortunate because I have the feeling it would have taken out most of the fortress if fired! The bell was also never used as construction of its tower was never begun. I can't imagine what kind of noise it would make but it would probably be the last thing you ever heard if you were too close.

Inside the Kremlin

As I said in my previous post, the Kremlin really is quite impressive and is clearly the jewel of Moscow. In fact it seems to be the only clean and well-maintained part of the city! It was getting dark so we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest before going out for the night.

The former KGB building

Again we came back to the metro station near Red Square (seems everything interesting is near there) and were led by our slightly-crazy-but-nice Finnish guide, Jukka, to a somewhat hidden restaurant/bar located in a basement. On the way we passed the imposing building that was formerly the headquarters of the KGB. Apparently there is a museum inside, but you need to inform the authorities 48 hours in advance of when you want to go and must state your purpose of visit. Sounds like a very mysterious kind of museum to me.

Inside the bar

I was very hungry so I ate first, while the others got a head start on the cheap vodka. Strangely, I was served my dessert of ice cream long before the main course came. This was just one of many problems we had in restaurants in Russia, but I'll forgive them as it's always been a bit of a childhood dream to have dessert first!

Paying the restaurant bills was always fun with the piles of Russian money needed

We were treated to a performance of Russian reggae by a group who had clearly taken far too many drugs to be coherent. I didn't want to drink too much but others kept buying me drinks and it would have been rude to turn them down! We eventually stumbled back to the hotel and continued with the drinking in an Irish person's room.

View from the hotel at night

We spent the rest of the night drinking far too much and eventually drifted off to bed in the early morning, ready to get up in a few hours for more intensive sightseeing. Unfortunately, Rachel managed to forget where she left her shoes and we spent the morning looking for them, but the less said about that the better!