2009 - Scandinavia - Day 15 - Moscow, Russia

Today was our last touring day, and we saw some really cool things. We met in the lobby and walked to the metro, or subway station. It was built as bomb shelters in the 1930’s and our guide said it was 12 stories underground. We got on different trains and got off on different stations and saw how beautifully they were decorated. They were like palaces with all the marble and paintings and mosaics and statues. It was really fun. We then went to the Red square. It was so cool to stand in the Red Square and see the cathedral of St. Basil. Today was one of the national holidays for the military, and since it is also Sunday, they had a little service in front of the cathedral. So the area right in front of the cathedral was sealed off. We watched the service for about 30 minutes, then walked back to our buses and went the cemetery of the rich and famous, from about 1800 and forward. It was somewhat small, but it had recent presidents and wives and military and governments officials, plus several famous scholars and authors and musicians and dancers and actors. But the best thing about this cemetery was the head stones. You can’t really even call most of them headstones, because they were statues or busts or all kinds of different things. It was simply amazing walking around and seeing all the different graves. I took pictures of several of them that I really liked. We saw Stalin’s wife that committed suicide and Gorbachev’s wife, and Svetlana’s father. Our last stop was at a park next to small lake, which supposedly is considered “swan lake”, because this is where the composer of Swan Lake got his inspiration. And across the lake was a walled compound which is a convent. Several hundred years ago, if the Czars didn’t like you and you were a woman, you were sent to the convent. One of the Czar’s, Peter I think, sent his wife and sister to this convent. While we were here, Mike gave a sacrament meeting type talk about love and the one true support, and to keep rowing and not to drift—all ideas of Tolstoy’s. It was wonderful.