Visiting the Kremlin

We got to visit the Kremlin for the first time today. We intended to go see Lenin's tomb, but that's going to have to wait until another day. I couldn't do both with my knee and probably did more than I should, but they had a beautiful collection in the Armoury Chamber where they used to house the Kremlin Treasury since the time of Ivan the Terrible. Now it's where they house treasures that were gifts to the Kremlin, Tsars, or produced by Kremlin craftsmen over the years. We couldn't take any pictures of the inside of the place, but we did take some great shots of the outside.

One of the first areas we saw the where they have the eternal flame lit for an unknown soldier. Same as we do in Arlington Cemetary, they recognize their lost ones from World War II. The Soviets lost something like 24 million people in the WWII.



They do the changing of the guard 5 minutes to the top of the hour each hour.

From there we went to Kutifaya Tower and bought our tickets for the Armory Chamber and the Kremlin Cathedrals/Grounds. This was a combo ticket for about $1050 rubles. The Armory Chamber does their entries into the museum on timed entries...so we had to hustle (as fast as I can going slow) from the Tower, around the government offices, 5 churches, down the hill, and into the Armory building. To start the tour we had to climb the grand staircase in the Armory building up to the 2nd floor. This was so much fun with my knee hurting. Fortunately they take this into account and had benches on each level and in each viewing room for those of us with issues. We got an audioguide and saw 11-15th century silver and gold object. The most impressive to me was the gilded bible covers with the 3X3 inch emeralds on the cover.

After this tour we went back up the hill to the Cathedrals: Assumption, Archangel's; and the Church of the Laying our Lady's Holy Robe; and Ivan the Great's Bell tower. In the bell tower they had an exhibition of Persian and Indian treasures with maginificent jewels and carvings. Wish I could have read enough Russian to learn more about them.

After that, we came back to the hotel and rested and then went to dinner with another couple we had met at the baby house. They are adopting a little boy and are from Washington, DC. We ate at a Russian themed, Russian cuisine restaurant recommended by our hotel. It was really good and they had ladies dressed in traditional outfits singing Russian songs.







Well...tommorrow we're going to stay in and do some housekeeping things. i.e. Do our laundry and relax some. Love you all.