Our study abroad group also took a 4 day trip to Moscow to do a little sight seeing. We took the overnight train down there and back. We stayed in the Hotel Izmalaevo, which is a little out of the center of town. We got to use the metro and public transportation and everything. It was really different from St. Petersburg. I gotta say that I like Petersburg better- it's more cozy and less big.
Our whole mission group in front of the Russia Peace foundation office in Moscow. They were our sponsers.
St. Basil's Cathedral on the Red Square. It was comissioned by Ivan the Terrible. Once the builder made it, Ivan had his eyes poked out so that he couldn't made another cathedral as beautiful as St. Basil's.
Inside St. Basil's.
Another shot of St. Basil's.
Lenin's tomb. We went inside when we went with the study aborad group. It was so cool to see Lenin all dead and waxy.... yeah I'm a dork that I got so excited about seeing an old dead guy.
2005 was the 60th anniversary of victory over Germany in WWII. There were posters all over Russia .
Memorial to the unkown soldier. We got to see the changing of the guards. They do a really wierd funny walk thing when they change. It looks like a little shuffle. Very cute!!
More St. Basils... I really like that cathedral.
Cute little turtles in the hotel Rossia that we stayed at. Sadly they're about to tear down that hotel. Very sad since it's a very old hotel. When it was built during the Stalin era, it was the biggest hotel of its time with 6000 beds.
The Kremlin. Very pretty. And old.
Christ the Savior Cathedral. Stalin blew this one up during the '40s. He had planned to build the Palace of the Soviets, but the foundation kept sinking. The it rained and filled up the basement hole with water, so they turned it into a huge swimming pool. It stayed like that for a long long time- biggest heated outdoor pool. Unfortunatly, one day it snowed and collapsed on all the people swiming there from the weight of the snow. So they rebuilt Christ the Savior in the late 1990's.
Moscow State University. This is one of Stalin's Seven Sisters- buildings with the same archetecturial design and generally with a star at the top.
View from the top of a little outcrop. Very senic point in Moscow.
Ummmm.... I don't really remember what this is. But it looks cool.
Arch de Triumph in Moscow. Immitation of the one in Paris.
Silly David!
So we went to this resturant that was sort of in the middle of nowhere. Right next to the resturant was this area of old abandoned planes, including lots of old Soviet planes.
The Bolshoi Theatre.