Red Square is lovely there is the National Museum there, the walls of the Kremlin, and of course St Basil's Cathedral (another ice cream topped church). I went a tad snap happy here and took far too many photos, but that's what digital camera's are for right? It was a quick stop here as we would be coming back, and had plenty of other sites to see. So off we went to view all the sites of Moscow. Unfortunately due to the fact that I pretty much had no sleep the night before, and the warm comforts of the van we were in, I did sleep through a bit of the information that Olga told us, so I found myself getting out of the van and looking at some rather pretty things and having no clue what I was actually looking at! Though I did see the lake that inspired the music behind Swan Lake, so that was rather exciting. The rest of the afternoon wasn't too eventful, mainly due to the fact that myself and everyone else on the tour was ready to pass out due to sleep deprivation, so we got checked into our hotel, freshened up a bit and grabbed some lunch. I was really tired, but wanted to make the most of the day... how often are you in Moscow? So myself and a few others managed to drag ourselves out and get back into the city centre where we went for a bit of a walk around and grabbed a much needed coffee. The rest of the evening was rather relaxed with just finding a restaurant somewhere, and getting back to the hotel for an early night.
St Basil's Cathedral
Moscow day two was far more exciting, a solid sleep did help very much. So Olga collected us from the hotel lobby and we were far more enthusiastic about today's sight seeing. The first stop was the Kremlin. So we had a good look around here, I got to see the building where the Prime Minister works, the worlds largest canon which has never been fired along with the worlds largest bell which has never been rung. I also saw the Cathedral where all the Tsars attend, which was lovely inside, though no mosaics like the Church of Spilt Blood, it was covered in the most colourful of paintings. After seeing what we needed to see it was off to Red Square to visit Lenin, who has been preserved so you can see him lying there in a glass... I'm not sure whether to say tomb, coffin, case.... but you can see him and it's kinda strange. And for those who don't know Lenin started the Soviet Union in Russia, so he's a big part of Russian history (note why they preserved him). After Lenin we were all dropped back to the hotel, so we had free rein on what we wanted to do for the afternoon. So a small bunch of us, including myself went out to explore the Russian underground, as we'd heard that it is meant to be amazing, which it was. The underground is very spectacular, with sculptures, paintings, carvings, mosaics and chandeliers in most of the stops. It certainly gives the London underground with all its commercial advertising a run for its money.
Red Square
For our last evening in Russia we had booked to see the Circus, and it was safe to say we were all very excited about it. I'm pretty sure I've been to a circus before, though I must have been really young because I don't remember much about what it was like, so I was feeling like a bit of a kid again. We turned up and as you can imagine there were children everywhere, there was lots to see before you even headed into the main arena, you could have your photo taken with rabbits or snakes or a fox among many other animals. We found our seats and got comfortable and waited for the show to begin. During the wait we did read in the Russia Lonely Planet that "Russia doesn't have a western side to when it comes to animal training and some people may find the circus upsetting", good to see this right before the show started, not!
The circus wasn't as bad as I had thought, though we couldn't understand a word that was said as everything was in Russian. They did have monkeys, dogs and a seal which were great to see, the seal was the best one, though I do think he should be out in the ocean and not performing every night, but what can you do. The only 'upsetting' part was the seven lions that they had at the end, now there are animals that you can train and there are animals that you should just leave be, lions should not be trained, and it was very obvious that these lions were very unhappy with their life. So unfortunately I left this circus with a rather negative view, though the kids around us seemed to be happy with the show.
The lake that inspired Swan Lake
The next morning we said our goodbyes and then I slowly made my way to the airport with two others from the tour, before catching my flight back to London.
Russia as a whole was great, I'm so pleased I managed to get there and really see what it was like, I definitely preferred St Petersburg to Moscow, however Moscow was still lovely with amazing sights and things to do. So now I can tick off the country that's at the top of the 'Places To Get To List'.
Group shot
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