Jeans Were Such a Bad Choice

Day 73

After staying up late the night before to watch the men’s 100m Olympic final, we slept in a bit and didn’t leave the hotel until about 11am.

With the Red Square out of the way, our next destination was the Kremlin, which is the centre of Russian politics and once the home of the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Much of the information we had read earlier on the Kremlin suggested it would take a whole day to tour, bags must be left outside in lockers and no shorts were allowed to be worn. The whole no shorts policy was a bit of a pain as it was over 30 degrees in Moscow, however, I followed the rules and packed a pair of jeans in our bag.

After changing into jeans and storing our bag we joined the fairly lengthy queue into the Kremlin. Some people mustn’t of known they had to check their bags in, as they were turned away and told to go to the luggage storage. The no shorts policy seemed to be a misnomer as after entering I spotted half a dozen people with shorts on! Too much information can be dangerous sometimes I guess.

The Kremlin is made up of roughly four churches and the State Kremlin Palace. Although the wall spans approximately 2.5km around the venue, the churches and palace are quite close so it was quite easy to make our way around. To be honest, after going into the Church of Spilled Blood in St Petersburg it was going to be hard for any other Russian churches to top it so we flew through all four.

Kremlin Church - may be Annunciation Cathedral?

Ivan the Terrible Bell Tower

The Tsars Cannon, Ivan the Terrible Bell Tower and one of the four churches.

We took a walk around the gardens and also stopped at the Tsar Bell, which was a gigantic and heavy bell at 202 tonnes. Unfortunately the bell cracked before it was ever rung and it now sits on the pavement outside the churchyards. Also nearby is the Tsar Cannon, which was built in 1586 but never shot. Looking at the size of it though, I can’t see how you could even maneuver it, let alone shoot the thing.

The big Tsar Cannon which was never fired.

Hate to be the bloke that did this to the Tsar Bell after it was finished.
Definitely not a small crack.

The Kremlin also house the armory and diamond fund which was a opulent collection of jewels accumulated over time by the Russian state and church, including the worlds largest sapphire. To view these treasures was basically the cost of an additional ticket and I always find it insulting to have to pay additional to see something that a church or state never paid for in the first place and could obviously afford not to charge you an entrance fee. It’s also terrible to see people begging on the streets for food while the church flaunts such priceless gems, rather than taking care of its citizens. So long rant over, we decided not to go in.

Next stop for day two in Moscow was the sculpture garden and Gorky Park. It was a fair hike south of the Kremlin and we passed the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which was only finished in 1997. 

The site had previously housed a church which was built to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon, however, this was torn down by Stalin as he had plans to build a 315m high ‘Palace of Soviets’ (including a 100m statue of Lenin). The project never took off and instead the site served as the world’s largest swimming pool for 50 years.  To be fair, the church looked nice and all coming back along the bridge, however, surely the pool would have served a far greater number of people than another Moscow church.

Church of our Saviour

Claire outside Church of our Saviour.
I got biten by a wasp just before this - who gets biten by a wasp?

Moving on we walked past the huge statue of Peter the Great, which sits on an apex in the Moscow River and then swung left into the statue park. There were a number of newly created statues, however, much of the park was dedicated to ex-soviet statues of Lenin and Stalin that had been pulled down following the collapse of the USSR. 

The massive Peter the Great Statue.

Inside the sculpture park with some of the past Soviet relics.

The park itself did not appear to be that well maintained with grass flowing over some statues and rubbish and debris littered about the place. I guess the lack of maintenance was due to the government not wanting to devote too much money to a fallen regime.

Where the money appears to be channeled was the wonderful Gorky Park, just across the road. Once considered unsafe and dirty, the park had received a lot of refurbishment over the past several years as it was now full of well landscaped gardens and a large number of attractions, including paddle boats, hammocks, music stages, bars & restaurants and even table tennis tables.

Table tennis in Gorky Park.

You can get a pint of beer with your
Subway sandwich. Brilliant!

We stopped for a quick bite to eat at Subway, where you could also get a beer with your sandwich and then continued on walking through the park with an ice cream. With it being a Sunday, the place was thriving with people relaxing or going for a walk, on bikes or rollerblades.

By the time we got to the end of the park it was late afternoon, so we headed back to the hotel to get showered and ready for the ballet.

The performance was played in the Russian National Theatre, which was quite old and in need of some air conditioning, as the whole place was stifling with a full house. 

Claire practicing her fifth position
before Swan Lake.

Russian National Ballet Theatre.

Swan Lake Second Act.

Having never been to the ballet before I don’t really have a benchmark to compare it to, however, I think we could tell early on that the performers were a little below par compared to their counterparts across the road at the Bolshoi (who were currently on holiday), as they were a little out of time and there wasn’t a great deal of pirouettes (Claire’s words not mine). Overall though it was a great thing to see in a city renowned for it’s contribution to ballet.