We arrived in Moscow late Friday morning, and busses were waiting to take us on a city tour, which began with a trip to Sparrow Hill, a scenic outlook south of the city looking north. The view of the city from this location is spectacular, and we had some time to enjoy it before boarding the busses to a metro station, and via metro heading to КРАСНАЯ ПЛОЩАДЬ, also known as Red Square. The first word, krasnaya, used to mean “beautiful” in Russian, but over several centuries time its meaning has shifted to “red”. So “Red Square” had nothing to do with the communism – it was Red Square long before the Russian Revolution.
Red Square is outside the walls of the Kremlin (“Fortress” in Russian. There was a kremlin in every city we visited on this cruise, including Uglich.), and the beautiful and very colorful St. Basil’s Cathedral, also called “The Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat”
is at one end of the square. Foreign Television correspondents frequently stood outside St. Basil’s while reporting on activities at the Kremlin, leading many westerners to think that St. Basil’s WAS the Kremlin. Take my word for it. The Kremlin has a huge, thick, almost featureless, brick wall, and can be considered beautiful only if you are in thrall of huge, thick, almost featureless, brick walls. St. Basil’s Cathedral is gorgeous – at least to me.
Red Square is outside the walls of the Kremlin (“Fortress” in Russian. There was a kremlin in every city we visited on this cruise, including Uglich.), and the beautiful and very colorful St. Basil’s Cathedral, also called “The Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat”
is at one end of the square. Foreign Television correspondents frequently stood outside St. Basil’s while reporting on activities at the Kremlin, leading many westerners to think that St. Basil’s WAS the Kremlin. Take my word for it. The Kremlin has a huge, thick, almost featureless, brick wall, and can be considered beautiful only if you are in thrall of huge, thick, almost featureless, brick walls. St. Basil’s Cathedral is gorgeous – at least to me. Also within Red Square are several upscale department stores, and some of our group took time to check into what they had available. Adrianne and I stood outside St. Basil’s Cathedral watching people for about 40 minutes until the bus came to take us back to the ship and dinner. It was easy to identify most of the tourists by their cameras or headphones (apparently Grand Circle isn't the only tour company to have adopted this technology), and we often knew we were looking at a Muscovite woman by her high heeled shoes; that can't be easy on the cobblestones.
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