First Day Continued

Red Square

This is the center of the city, the center of the country, and the center of the Russian history. 

Below in the picture is the historic city center with the Kremlin enclosed in red brick walls with its cluster of domed churches, and the Alexander Gardens at the bottom, and the Red Square in the open space at the top, with the colorful domes of St. Basil’s church in the upper right, and the brick Armory at the other end of the Square. Lenin's tomb is in the square, with its carefully embalmed body, which is nonetheless rotting anyway,  but still on display.

The big glass-topped building at the top center is the GUM mall - originally the big store for the communist elite, and now home to all the top fashion houses of the world.

In real life they look like this:

St. Basil’s - This was built in thanks for the defeat of the Mongols who ruled the area for some hundreds of years.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of which there were innumerable. There is an eternal flame burning in front.

This memorial has a curious ritual. Periodically the officer you see walking in back goes to each soldier (there is one on each side), turns, does three huge goose steps, salutes, then physically checks all the guard’s equipment, his belt and coat, and adjusts the guard’s cap, before turning on his heels, doing three more huge goose steps, saluting, and marching back to his post in the porch. Actually, we saw they were just conversing a bit, probably about the hundreds of tourists taking their pictures. 

The rest of the pictures are on my camera, so will have to wait.