Moscow...

Napoleon tried and failed, Hitler tried and failed. These guys got it all wrong. You don't need the big armys and flashy uniforms. Just a push bike and balls the size of watermelons ;).

 

A truly broken man!

St. Basils cathedral on the red square, built from 1555-61 on orders from Ivan the Terrible, it commemorates the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan.

Got up at 9am this morning to pack all my stuff away and head for the city centre. I spent a good hour last night drawing out a map of the route and even booked a hostel online. By 2pm I was in the centre with all my kit in my room, magic! I'd only really got today to spend in the centre so I hit the town to take a few pictures...

 A statue on one of the bridges on the way into the city.

 Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, this thing was leveled by the Soviets in 1931 for the twenty tons of gold in the domes. They planned to replace it with a monument to socialism called the 'Palace of the Soviets' but a lack of money, flooding from the river and the outbreak of war got in the way. The foundation hole remained until it was eventually turned into an open air swimming pool! In 1990 the Soviet goverment gave the orthodox church permission to re-build the cathedral. It was completed and consecrated in 2000.

 Tomb of the unknown soldier, got a bollocking at this one for pushing my bike up the steps. I came back an hour later and they were doing a changing of the guards thing, pretty cool.

Its a war memorial thats dedicated to Soviet soldiers killed in world war two. Some pretty cool history behind this one. Originally the remains of unknown soldiers killed in the battle of Moscow were buried at the 41st km of Leningrad highway at the city of Zelenograd because this was the closest nazi troops got to Moscow during the war. To comemmorate the 25th anniversary in 1966 the remains were moved to the Kremlin wall. 

Its a bronze sculpture of a laurel branch and a soldiers helemt laid on a banner. The eternal flame illuminates the inscription "Имя твоё неизвестно, подвиг твой бессмертен"

Which translates as "Your name is unknown, your deed is immortal"

 On the red square, terrible picture thanks to the scaffolding and tents. Contrary to popular belief its not known as the red square because of the red bricks, or because of the link between the color red and communism. красная can mean either 'beautiful' or 'red' in Russian. The name was originally given to St. Basils Cathedral (in the first pic.) with the meaning beautiful, and subsequently transferred to the square.

Statue of Peter the Great, built to commemorate 300 years of the Russian navy. Voted the 10th ugliest building in the world in 2008! In 2010 Moscow offered to re-locate the statue to St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg refused!

 Fountains in Alexander Gardens.

 

Met Joseph Stalin on my way back to the hostel. Interesting fact: Stalin was born in Georgia, its said he'd turn in his grave if he knew that his homeland was now outside of Russia.

You really can't do a place like this justice with a half-a-day mooch, in all honestly you probably need a week or two at least to see all that Moscow has to offer. I really wanted to see one of the Metro stations and also a park in the south of the city where people go and dance after work on weekdays! Unfortunatly I just havn't got the time :(.

A link to a few photos from Novgorod:

http://vk.com/album-41867723_174316660

Video of the group in Novgorod:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NqUbeRW2Oo 

Thanks Kate, replying to your e-mail now, sorry its took so long!

Dad and Sam Scrott check your inboxs later. 

Next stop, Kiev! 

"How many darkest moments and traps, still lay ahead of us..."