A post just for photos of Moscow.I'll take you on a little walking tour, eh? Start at the first hotel I stayed at: the Rossia. The anglo spelling can vary, but this is fairly close to the pronunciation.
This place is huge, occupying one full city block. It sits right on the edge of the Moscow river. As we leave from the east entrance (or maybe the north, I forget), we see the old British embassy, established in the 1800's. Worth noting are the brickwork and the wooden shake roof.
As we walk uphill, within a halfblock we see the walls of the Kremlin, with their watchtowers of brick.
We turn from our view downhill to the river, and I note the street through here is cobblestone. The cobbles continue up the hill, through the Red Square, which is completely paved with cobbles. As we approach the entrance to Red Square, St. Basil's is on our left.
Now we are in Red Square, and in front of St. Basil's we see the workmen erecting a scaffolding for the 60th anniversary celebration of the end of WWII (or one of the events, anyway).
The main tower of the Kremlin rings out the hour - with real bells.
And, as we walk north across Red Square, we see Lenin's tomb, by the wall of the Kremlin.
On the
north side of Red Square are the Red Gates, or at least I think this is their official name. Once again, made from brick. The iconic paintings are remarkable. In front of these gates is the Kilometer Zero marker, from which all roads in Russia are measured. It is a big brass design inlaid into the cobbles, and tourists are supposed to stand on it and toss a coin over their shoulder for luck or wishes or whatever.By now this page will probably take forever to load, so I'll continue this tour later.
