We Infiltrate the Kremlin July 22, 2006
Holly must have been excited as she was up early this morning. Our itinerary calls for us to visit the Kremlin this morning. Being children of the Cold War we feel somewhat nervous stepping into the stronghold of the ex-Soviet Union, but having traveled this far we will continue on.
We are picked up by our guide Sergey and our driver / could be bodyguard, Igor. A Hollywood casting director could not have picked better guys. Sergey speaks English with a heavy Russian accent and Igor, and yes this is his real name, looks like an ex-boxer. His head is shaved with several prominent scars and a tattoo that looks like it was installed with a ten penny nail after three or four too many vodkas. He speaks no English but has a way of making himself understood. We are glad he is on our side!
Igor drops the three of us in front of the Kremlin main gate and we find out that we will be on foot or using the Metro (subway) the rest of the day. For the first of many times today Sergey will somehow get us around the queue at the main gate and in just a few minutes we are on the Kremlin grounds and getting what will be three days of rapid fire history lectures from him.
For those of you who are as uninformed as I was Kremlin translates as Pine Fortress and was founded in1156 AD as a defensive camp by Yuri Dolgorukiy and it grew from there. Because of this Yuri is credited with the founding of Moscow. The Kremlin became the seat of government in the late 15th century under Ivan the III but was moved to St. Petersburg in 1713 under Peter the Great. The government returned in 1918 when it became the center of Soviet power after the revolution. The fortifications and grounds were enlarged and built up over the centuries and the Kremlin now is home to several palaces, cathedrals, government office buildings, monuments and museums. The wall around the Kremlin is almost 1.5 miles long and range in height between 20 and 25 feet. This encompasses an area of 70 acres.
We visited the Cathedral of the Assumption after a brief orientation from Sergey. We now know that all Russian Orthodox Cathedrals are covered in murals and Icons and that the religion itself wears a fairly stern face. For example; worshippers stand for three hours during services as there are no seats of any kind in the sanctuary. (One exception is the Cathedral of the Assumption has three seats one each for the Tsar and Tsarina as well as one for the Patriarch of the church. The present cathedral was completed in 1479. The interior is beautiful to look at but is a little busy to the eye. The exterior of course has the iconic Russian helmet dome spires covered in gold.
We moved onto the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael. I won’t bore you with the details after a few Russian Orthodox Cathedrals they all look alike. To summarize; murals, murals, icons, icons, gold domes, gold domes and so on.
Our next stop was to the Tsar’s cannon which is 40 ton bronze giant that fires a 35” diameter ball that weighs one ton, except that it never was fired. After this we saw the Tsar’s bell a whopping 210 ton bronze casting that cracked while being made and was never rung. Is it just me or is there a pattern here?
After walking around the grounds and listening to Sergey’s machine gun delivery we came to the State Armory. This my friends is why we came. This is a collection of the remnants of treasures collected by the Russian royalty and is said to be the richest museum in the world. I have never seen more gold and gems in any one place. This includes serving pieces for food and beverage as well as clothing, weapons, accessories (a Tsarina is just not a Tsarina without accessories) and 20 or so carriages. A popular item seemed to be bible covers overlaid in gold and studded with almost any precious gem that you can think of, and some of them would choke a horse. One hall way had thrones, each new monarch had to have their own you know, that were, you guessed it covered in anything that was costly and precious. We were treated by seeing a collection of 57 Faberge’ Eggs. A collection of Easter Eggs that after Her Faberge’ (he was German) presented the first one to Tsar Nicholas became popular with all the royal swells around Europe and a few wealthy people in America. I’ll have to admit the detail work in these orbs was outstanding. The first egg although no more than 6 inches tall contained a tiny platinum train that could be wound up to run for a meter or so. After the egg craze Faberge’ started making crystal flowers and other items. All are creative and would seem to have taken endless hours to produce. In summary after seeing the Armory collection it is easier to appreciate why the people revolted. What is amazing is that the collection survived the Soviet years. Sergey told us that an entire floor of the armory was kept locked and no one was permitted to enter from the time of the revolution until the late 70s.
We left the Kremlin and walked around the outside of the walls past the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Eternal Flame. It was very reminiscent of Arlington National Cemetery and again just highlighted how similar peoples can be. I should mention that during this tour the crowds were huge and large tour groups seemed to cover the grounds. This made Sergey very nervous and he reminded us countless times to watch our packs as pickpockets and thieves were everywhere. Not just in Moscow but they roam the earth praying on innocents and idiots alike. They use knives to cut into packs before extracting their ill gotten gains. But that’s not all they also use knives to cut your pockets open releasing all your valuables and you being no wiser for it. Our initial reaction was a nod and a wink between Holly and I, but after numerous warnings we also became paranoid and would constantly look over our shoulders to foil any would be picker of pockets.
We then came to Red Square (the color and word red are synonymous with beautiful in the Russian language, but also stands for communism, this got confusing at times) where the massed Soviet armed forces paraded across our TV screens in the 60s and 70s. It originally was a market place but with some post revolution rearranging, a building here a building there, it was turned into a parade ground to showcase Soviet power. We walked across one corner of the huge area and came to soldiers that told us we had to leave. To Sergey’s credit he argued with them and in what has become the way of the “New Russians” when that didn’t work we went to another entrance and came back into the Square. Close to the end where we reentered sat St. Basil’s Cathedral looking slightly less Fantasy Land than the Disney Castle. With its multi colored swirled, checked and striped domes it is really something to see and is another of Moscow’s icons. We were also able to also catch a quick glimpse of Lenin’s Tomb although they were not allowing the walk through today. We also discovered that while Stalin was originally laid to rest in the same mausoleum as Lenin after cat was out of the bag on Stalin’s deeds that had him removed and reburied at the base of the Kremlin wall. The place for only the most honored Soviet and Russian people. When I asked Sergey why the Russian people would allow someone who murdered maybe 20 million of their countrymen to be buried in such hallowed ground he replied “because no-one asked us”.
After lunch we started our Metro tour. This was a tour of the Moscow subway system and consisted of riding the trains to various stops for viewing and rapid fire information Sergey style. The stations that we viewed were done in different styles but mostly with a Soviet political message. The message didn’t take but the architecture and art work left behind were impressive.
We decided we were going to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Sergey’s office had found the one theater in a city of 10 million that was showing it in English. After the last Metro tour stop we rode another twenty minutes and two train changes to only find that the 8PM show was sold out. Being the resourceful lot we are we stopped on the way back to the Metro for pizza, the first western restaurant food we have had in a week. We treated Sergey as he had stayed with us because in his words “I have never lost a client and now is not a good time to start”. He was good to his word as he rode another 30 minutes on the metro and then walked us back to the hotel before turning around and finding his own way home. (He told me the next day he was lucky and was able to catch a tram that ran close to his house.) We got back to the hotel around 11PM. We had been walking or standing since 9AM and were ready for bed.
We are picked up by our guide Sergey and our driver / could be bodyguard, Igor. A Hollywood casting director could not have picked better guys. Sergey speaks English with a heavy Russian accent and Igor, and yes this is his real name, looks like an ex-boxer. His head is shaved with several prominent scars and a tattoo that looks like it was installed with a ten penny nail after three or four too many vodkas. He speaks no English but has a way of making himself understood. We are glad he is on our side!
Igor drops the three of us in front of the Kremlin main gate and we find out that we will be on foot or using the Metro (subway) the rest of the day. For the first of many times today Sergey will somehow get us around the queue at the main gate and in just a few minutes we are on the Kremlin grounds and getting what will be three days of rapid fire history lectures from him.
For those of you who are as uninformed as I was Kremlin translates as Pine Fortress and was founded in1156 AD as a defensive camp by Yuri Dolgorukiy and it grew from there. Because of this Yuri is credited with the founding of Moscow. The Kremlin became the seat of government in the late 15th century under Ivan the III but was moved to St. Petersburg in 1713 under Peter the Great. The government returned in 1918 when it became the center of Soviet power after the revolution. The fortifications and grounds were enlarged and built up over the centuries and the Kremlin now is home to several palaces, cathedrals, government office buildings, monuments and museums. The wall around the Kremlin is almost 1.5 miles long and range in height between 20 and 25 feet. This encompasses an area of 70 acres.
We visited the Cathedral of the Assumption after a brief orientation from Sergey. We now know that all Russian Orthodox Cathedrals are covered in murals and Icons and that the religion itself wears a fairly stern face. For example; worshippers stand for three hours during services as there are no seats of any kind in the sanctuary. (One exception is the Cathedral of the Assumption has three seats one each for the Tsar and Tsarina as well as one for the Patriarch of the church. The present cathedral was completed in 1479. The interior is beautiful to look at but is a little busy to the eye. The exterior of course has the iconic Russian helmet dome spires covered in gold.
We moved onto the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael. I won’t bore you with the details after a few Russian Orthodox Cathedrals they all look alike. To summarize; murals, murals, icons, icons, gold domes, gold domes and so on.
Our next stop was to the Tsar’s cannon which is 40 ton bronze giant that fires a 35” diameter ball that weighs one ton, except that it never was fired. After this we saw the Tsar’s bell a whopping 210 ton bronze casting that cracked while being made and was never rung. Is it just me or is there a pattern here?
After walking around the grounds and listening to Sergey’s machine gun delivery we came to the State Armory. This my friends is why we came. This is a collection of the remnants of treasures collected by the Russian royalty and is said to be the richest museum in the world. I have never seen more gold and gems in any one place. This includes serving pieces for food and beverage as well as clothing, weapons, accessories (a Tsarina is just not a Tsarina without accessories) and 20 or so carriages. A popular item seemed to be bible covers overlaid in gold and studded with almost any precious gem that you can think of, and some of them would choke a horse. One hall way had thrones, each new monarch had to have their own you know, that were, you guessed it covered in anything that was costly and precious. We were treated by seeing a collection of 57 Faberge’ Eggs. A collection of Easter Eggs that after Her Faberge’ (he was German) presented the first one to Tsar Nicholas became popular with all the royal swells around Europe and a few wealthy people in America. I’ll have to admit the detail work in these orbs was outstanding. The first egg although no more than 6 inches tall contained a tiny platinum train that could be wound up to run for a meter or so. After the egg craze Faberge’ started making crystal flowers and other items. All are creative and would seem to have taken endless hours to produce. In summary after seeing the Armory collection it is easier to appreciate why the people revolted. What is amazing is that the collection survived the Soviet years. Sergey told us that an entire floor of the armory was kept locked and no one was permitted to enter from the time of the revolution until the late 70s.
We left the Kremlin and walked around the outside of the walls past the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Eternal Flame. It was very reminiscent of Arlington National Cemetery and again just highlighted how similar peoples can be. I should mention that during this tour the crowds were huge and large tour groups seemed to cover the grounds. This made Sergey very nervous and he reminded us countless times to watch our packs as pickpockets and thieves were everywhere. Not just in Moscow but they roam the earth praying on innocents and idiots alike. They use knives to cut into packs before extracting their ill gotten gains. But that’s not all they also use knives to cut your pockets open releasing all your valuables and you being no wiser for it. Our initial reaction was a nod and a wink between Holly and I, but after numerous warnings we also became paranoid and would constantly look over our shoulders to foil any would be picker of pockets.
We then came to Red Square (the color and word red are synonymous with beautiful in the Russian language, but also stands for communism, this got confusing at times) where the massed Soviet armed forces paraded across our TV screens in the 60s and 70s. It originally was a market place but with some post revolution rearranging, a building here a building there, it was turned into a parade ground to showcase Soviet power. We walked across one corner of the huge area and came to soldiers that told us we had to leave. To Sergey’s credit he argued with them and in what has become the way of the “New Russians” when that didn’t work we went to another entrance and came back into the Square. Close to the end where we reentered sat St. Basil’s Cathedral looking slightly less Fantasy Land than the Disney Castle. With its multi colored swirled, checked and striped domes it is really something to see and is another of Moscow’s icons. We were also able to also catch a quick glimpse of Lenin’s Tomb although they were not allowing the walk through today. We also discovered that while Stalin was originally laid to rest in the same mausoleum as Lenin after cat was out of the bag on Stalin’s deeds that had him removed and reburied at the base of the Kremlin wall. The place for only the most honored Soviet and Russian people. When I asked Sergey why the Russian people would allow someone who murdered maybe 20 million of their countrymen to be buried in such hallowed ground he replied “because no-one asked us”.
After lunch we started our Metro tour. This was a tour of the Moscow subway system and consisted of riding the trains to various stops for viewing and rapid fire information Sergey style. The stations that we viewed were done in different styles but mostly with a Soviet political message. The message didn’t take but the architecture and art work left behind were impressive.
We decided we were going to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Sergey’s office had found the one theater in a city of 10 million that was showing it in English. After the last Metro tour stop we rode another twenty minutes and two train changes to only find that the 8PM show was sold out. Being the resourceful lot we are we stopped on the way back to the Metro for pizza, the first western restaurant food we have had in a week. We treated Sergey as he had stayed with us because in his words “I have never lost a client and now is not a good time to start”. He was good to his word as he rode another 30 minutes on the metro and then walked us back to the hotel before turning around and finding his own way home. (He told me the next day he was lucky and was able to catch a tram that ran close to his house.) We got back to the hotel around 11PM. We had been walking or standing since 9AM and were ready for bed.
posted by Gary and Holly Davis @ 7:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home