2009 - Scandinavia - Day 13 - Moscow, Russia

Today we went to see the Kremlin and the Armory. We don’t get served breakfast in this hotel, so we tried to get up early enough to run to the McDonalds for breakfast, but we were afraid we wouldn’t meet up with the group in time, so we skipped breakfast, and didn’t eat lunch until 2:00 pm, which made us have low energy, for a busy walking day. The Kremlin, I had no idea what a Kremlin was. I assumed it was a cathedral or palace or something similar. Kremlin actually means a walled city or fortress. It was a walled square with different cathedrals and the president’s headquarters. We walked form our hotel about 20 minutes to this place. The first thing we saw was the armory. And again I was surprised by what it actually was. I assumed I would be seeing a bunch of swords and shields and guns. It actually was filled with such extravagance—gold and silver and gems galore—you could feed all of Russia. These were all items of the Czars, and gifts from the Ambassadors to the Czars. We saw so many treasures, tons of weight in gold and silver. And dresses or coronation gowns and robes of priests. One robe of a priest had over 100K pearls sewn in. And a cover for a bible had 1000 diamonds on the cover with rubies and garnets and emeralds and sapphires. And a rocking crib made of silver and studded with diamond all around the top. I thought I saw incredible gems in England with the crown jewels. That would have only been one case out of 2 floors and many many rooms full of amazing treasures. I wish I could have taken pictures. We did see some swords and “armory” type stuff too. One room was full of swords and maces; wow the maces looked so cool! And guns and shields. Everything was still encrusted with gems. It must have been show weapons, who would really use a shield in battle covered in emeralds? There was also a room full of the carriages they used in the 1700’s. Wow! They were more spectacular than any I have every imagined. Mom said they looked like Cinderella carriages, and I disagreed. I thought it was better than anything I have ever seen in any Cinderella movie. I can’t describe all the amazing things we saw. Then we went outside and walked around the square. We did go in one Cathedral, where some Czars were buried. Afterwards, we sat in a park and Mike talked to us for a bit about Moscow and the Cold War. Then it was after 2:00, and mom and I still hadn’t eaten anything for the day, so we walked to a nearby McDonalds and had a bigmac, fries and vanilla shake. We then found a nearby grocery store, and bought a few things for breakfast and lunches for the next couple of days, and finally made it back to our hotel. We got to rest for about an hour until it was time for us to see a Russian.