Red Square

Our first day and a half in Moscow have been grey, not too cold, and very interesting. The first afternoon we were too tired to do much of anything besides trudge to a convenient lunch and back home.

Our hotel is across from the Kremlin and Red Square - makes museum visits very convenient.





This morning we walked around Red Square many times - every time we tried to enter somewhere there were guards blocking our way and gesturing to the other end of the square. At least we got a lot of walking in! We saw Lenin's tomb - he really does look like a wax figure. It was very austere. Elena really wanted her picture taken with him, but we were not allowed to bring our cameras or camera phones in. Then we visited the historical museum. It starts with prehistoric mammoth tusks and goes all the way through to the 19th century. And it can all be seen in an hour!

This is the first time I have travelled to a place where I have no grasp of the language and many people don't speak english. There have been a few occasions when people have spoken to me in Russian and I can't shake the feeling that they are saying something nasty, but with a smile on their face. I am going to try and tell myself that they are simple welcoming me to their city.





Here is Red Square with St Basil's in the distance and Lenin's tomb on the right. Across from Lenin is the shopping mall, GUM, where one can find just about all the major luxury brands (I did not check prices, but assume that it is marked up quite a lot, as is almost everything here).





A statue in front of the history museum. Hard to know who it is when everything is written in a foreign alphabet!

Tomorrow we are going to explore more of the sights in the Kremlin, including the Armory. David highly recommended it - he knows I will want to see all the jewels.