A day with a Guide

Tuesday morning we woke to some blue in the sky and no rain, which was a very big positive on the previous couple of days. Cam had to go to work today so he had arranged for an English speaking guide to meet us at the apartment and take us out for the day. We were very fortunate! It was 15 degs today so warm.

Konstantine met us at 10 a.m. and commenced our day with a walk around the surrounding streets to Cam's apartment explaining the history of the area and of various houses. As we walked he ensured we knew where cafes etc were as they were hard to sometimes see the entrances. A short stop at a famous bookshop that is open 24 hours a day to see various English tourist books before heading to the Post Office to buy stamps and postcards. I was certainly happy to have his help as I am sure that I wouldn't have got what I needed. Virtually no one speaks any English and it is extremely hard to communicate. Saying that, Cam says his Russian is still very amateur but it is a huge help as he can read most menus, order food, get taxis and transport etc with no real effort.

Moscow has many theatres so Konstantine was able to show us some of these and explain the history. Again the numerous number of monuments around the city were also explained. Just prior to lunch we made our way down under Red Square to a huge city shopping mall that has been built. We didn't actually do any shopping but interesting to see. A quick walk over to Red Square and the "The Gum" which is a very famous shopping arcade built in the 1890,s (http://www.thisisthelife.com/en/gum.htm if you are interested). We may even go back there today to have another look. We also watched the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier in front of the Kremlin Wall.

After lunch we headed to the Kremlin - Konstantin had fortunately ordered tickets in advance for us, as it is impossible to buy on the day, or sometimes even the week you want them. We had tickets for the 2.30 p.m. admission to the Armoury where we saw, and had explained to us, the wealth of Russia displayed in gold and jewels. We also saw huge collections of gold and silver treasures, the biggest collection of coaches we have ever seen and heaps more. It seemed to leave the collection at the Tower of London for dead. A link to see some of this is: http://www.kreml.ru/en/main/museums/armoury/

Our guide was very knowledgeable, or if he wasn't he made it sound as though he was and were were none the wiser.

After the Armoury we went further inside the Kremlin walls into the gardens, then the various cathedrals. The office of the President is within the Kremlin walls but today the only residential area is the facility to house the soldiers. The Kremlin wall is some two kilometres alone the three sides and the towers are visible clearly as it is set slightly on a hill with the Moscow River on one side, there was originally a moat on another and a small river on the third, which has since been tunneled on another. It was a very unique experience.

We finished our time with Konstantine by travelling the Metro (underground train system) to see the works of art in some of the train stations. The stations were built from the late 1930's and a whole day tour is available just looking at the stations. Each station is different with mosaic art on the ceilings, bronze statutes, use of marble etc. One of the amazing things is that there is no grafiti. Some ten million people travel on the system every day. It is cheap to travel but I am not sure that we would be confident enough to do so without either Cam or someone to assist us. There is no English at all and it is difficult to identify the name of the stations as the Russian language is very different and it appears that they not only show the station name but heaps of other information as well. The trains run every minute or so, so there is never a problem about missing one train as another will come along very quickly.

We finished our day going to the theatre with VIP tickets to the ballet and after function. The theatre was within about 10 minutes walking distance from Cam's apartment. The ballet was a collection of twelve excerpts from various ballet theatres and was advertised as the best of the best and this show was the farewell from Moscow before the various ballet companies head off overseas for the season. We really enjoyed it. After the show finished we went to the after function - Peter and Cam enjoyed drinking Cognac but alas not me and I stuck to orange juice and coffee. It was difficult to even recognise some of the finger foods. We recognised a good number of the dancers join the party. They had a photographer roaming and Cam said it is not usual to see your photo published on websites and in papers saying who has been attending various functions - this has happened to him already and I wouldn't be surprised if he is not in print again as they asked him to pose in front of the Cognac signage plus took other photos during the evening.

We walked back to the apartment and I was pleased to see my bed. It was a great day, full of various highlights of being in Moscow. We were very lucky. I even experienced eating a caviar sandwich which I am not too sure I need to experience again.