Contrasts of Scandinavia and Russia

Day Eleven – 2 June 2010

Weather: Partly cloudy, humid, mid-twenties.

The darker night meant I slept like a rock. I made a point of standing in line for an omelet since the day was expected to be so full. I switched seats to the back middle seat where others from my tour had rotated to and we drove to see Victory Park as part of the Heroes of Russia optional.

In the Second World War, or the Great Patriotic War as the Russians call it, more people died protecting Leningrad than died for the US and UK combined. The loss of life in the Soviet Union was staggering and the park is a fitting memorial.

It rivals Vimy. The centre obelisk is engrave from bottom to almost the top where an angel and other figures dominate the view. St. George is on a horse at the base of the obelisk where he is cutting up the dragon into neat pieces.

With enough time, one can walk (or run) down the street and climb all over a Russian tank. We left the park and drove past the Russian version of the Arc de Triumph.

Then we pulled into the Panorama Museum. It holds the huge circular painting of the 1812 Battle of Borodino against Napoleon about 124 kilometres from Moscow.

The painting is very impressive. The detail is amazing.

Optional Opinion: A must for anyone interested in military history. I would recommend it over the two from yesterday.

Attending this optional also meant getting dropped off at the pedestrian shopping street for some last minute power shopping. We walked the length of the street and turned around and started shopping. At one point, I stepped into a shop, glanced around and stepped out to find the others laughing. Apparently, as I turned my back, a cat stepped out from between the buildings with a mouse in its mouth, looked around and sauntered away.

We finished up the walk with a stop at the one place one needs to have at least one meal in Moscow – McDonalds. I thought there was one on Red Square, but there wasn’t, so I got my Big Mac here. (First one I’ve had in years and woah!! It’s like half the size!!).

From here, we proceeded to the Kremlin for the Treasures of the Kremlin optional. Since the Kremlin is a working government area, the security was pretty tight. I was told that no one could bring in a camera bigger than 70 mm, but we weren’t sure what they were referring to. The telephoto on mine is 18-200 and the officer didn’t give it a second glance.

Once inside, we were reminded of the security. Officers stood around with whistles. If we went somewhere where we’re not permitted, the first whistle was a warning. The second was a last warning. The third is the crack of a rifle.

I kept my camera at the ready.

And sure enough, one of our tour mates stood in the middle of the road taking pictures. He got two whistles while we all turned around and focused our camera on him. Tatyana told him to get off the street and asked if Malcolm had told us that we weren’t allowed to walk on the streets. He hadn’t or we didn’t hear if he did.

We walked by the yellow government buildings – which I expected to be red for some strange reason – and were shown a large cannon. The Czar Cannon is the largest in the world and never fired a shot.

After that, we came to a huge bell. The Czar Bell is the largest in the world and was never used.

Neither worked.

hen again, nothing called Czar worked in Russia, according to Tatyana.

After the bell, we walked into Cathedral Square and got some good pictures as the sun began to shine again. Tatyana took us to the Church of the Assumption where we couldn’t take pictures. This is the church with the paintings on the four columns.

From here, we went to visit the armoury. This requires some real standing power. It’s essentially four large rooms with a selection of dresses, carriages, armour and assorted jewels and icons.

My knees were ready to pop by the time we finished. It was very interesting, but a little too much explanation for some items. After such a long day, we were pretty spent.

Optional Opinion: Essential unless you plan to stay in Moscow and visit it on your own. One doesn’t get to walk through the Kremlin every day.

Just keep your ears peeled for whistles if you do.

After we left the Kremlin, we met up with Malcolm for the Metro Optional that was cancelled on the first night. It was supposed to be held at 6 pm but they decided it was better to do it before rush hour.

Good call.

Malcolm gave us some direction before we entered the station. Tatyana would lead and he would bring up the rear. He said that before we got on the train, he would tell us how many stops before we get off.

So, we hustled like penguins into the station, stared down the gypsies waiting for us inside, got through the gates in one piece and descended down a very long escalator. I didn’t even think to take out my point and shoot to take video and kicked myself afterwards.

The stations are amazing with works of art, mosaics and sculptures. We travelled to five stations, all equally impressive. The first train was very crowded, but the further we went the fewer people we came across, until the last stop.

Some 9 million people take the subway every day. We met 8.9 million of them.

And it wasn’t rush hour!!

It wasn’t hard keeping Tatyana in sight.

Malcolm said he had never lost anyone on that optional and we didn’t break his perfect record. We exited the station, said good-bye to Tatyana and returned to the hotel where we had about an hour to get ready for the Farewell Dinner Cruise.

Remember, we haven’t stopped since 9 am.

We left for the river cruise at 7:20 and were early. The traffic was mercifully lighter today than it was yesterday so that we arrived on time to all our stops. The dinner cruise is no different than any other dinner cruise I’ve been on. It started across from Gorky Park and passed by all the same sites we had seen over the two days including the Kremlin, Peter Columbus and St. Basil’s. Had the sun stayed out, the pictures would have been so much better.

Dinner was the usual buffet but dessert was an underwhelming dry piece of cake. We docked around 9:30 and I was already counting down the number of hours I had before my 2 am wake-up call for the drive to the airport.

As if four hours wasn’t enough, Malcolm said he was taking us to see something special.

Now, I’m down to 3 ½ hours.

The site was the lit up Red Square, but we didn’t get enough time to walk right up to the square. We could only get pics from below. But we did have a nice sunset behind the Kremlin wall.

One gentleman from the other tour group liked how I took pictures and had me take his pic with his camera a few times and I gave him a tip on using a DSLR – that it’s better to use the landscape setting than the auto setting. He was blown away by how much better the pics in low light were. He later gave me a commemorative Hawaiian quarter for my help.