Moscow

Photos: Large building is GUM department store. Statue is a famous Russian comedian whose dog died a few days after he died and is memorialized in cemetery where the most famous of Russians are buried. Elaborate cathedral is St. Basil's in red square.

Sept 29.
This morning we sat at anchor n the Moscow canal for several hours waiting to come into port at Moscow. We arrived at 1PM after having a box lunch on board and went on a bus tour of Moscow. Moscow is a very appealing city with beautiful onion dome cathedrals everywhere, historic buildings and statues and all mixed into a gigantic typical city scene. We saw most of the major sites from the bus with stops at New Maiden Convent, still a very active religious training center and the Novodevichy cemetery that is part of the convent which is the burial place of Moscow’s elite. Political leaders who die after leaving office are buried there as well as very famous Muscovites like Tchaikovsy, Shostakovich, Chekov, Khruschev, Yeltsin, Raisa Gorbachev, comic Yuri Nikulin, etc. The monuments make it the most impressive cemetery that we have ever seen. Then a stop at Red Square. The word “red” means beautiful in Russian so our definition was never the intended name of the square. It’s a tremendously picturesque square with the spectacular St. Basil Cathedral at one end, Lenin’s tomb and the gigantic Gum department store. GUM= government universal magasin (shop.) It’s a gorgeous building that actually amounts to a mall with zillions of stores inside, many of them branches of all the very expensive and exclusive stores of Europe. It’s 3 floors, many cafes and (hurray) free bathrooms. We wandered all around Red Square and GUM and had a late lunch/early dinner at a kind of cafeteria on the 3rd floor that had typical Russian fare at reasonable prices. We also took a metro ride for 2 stops so that we could see a couple of very interesting stations and also have the experience of riding the Moscow subway. T he stations are impressive. One was the revolution station that has beautiful bronze statues in tribute to soldiers, one of which has his dog memorialized in bronze. It’s a Moscow good luck tradition to rub the dog’s nose which is polished bright gold by all the hands that touch it. We were leaving for the hotel at about 6PM for a ride that is a 15 min walk. We got to the hotel shortly before 7:30. Surely this was the worst traffic I have EVER seen. No particular event, just TRAFFIC!! Unbelievable traffic! They gave us a welcome glass of wine at the hotel….by then we needed much more than that. The good news: our room at the Marriott was gorgeous and huge. Our entire cabin on the ship could fit into our bathroom at the Marriott. The bad news: internet charges are $10/hr. No blogging at the Marriott will be occurring.