A beautiful day at the Kremlin.

4357 Viking Helgi at the Moscow River Terminal

4371 The Trinity Tower in the Kremlin wall.  I'm sending this not so much because it's a beautiful tower, although it is.  I'm sending it so you'll notice that all the people crossing the plaza are on the zebra striped cross walk.  If you're a tourist in the Kremlin on the government side you'd better not stray one inch off the crosswalk.  Whistles will start to blow and voices will yell.  I kept expecting to hear someone yelling, "Get out of the water." a la the movie Jaws.

4391 Diana with the chunk out of Ivan's Bell.  Broken in a fire it was never rung.

4450 Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the Church of St. John Climacus-under-the-Bells.  Lots of musical power in those two structures.

4467  Diana and I with Ivan the Great's Canon.  It was never fired, in fact the design would make it very dangerous if not impossible to fire.  I'm sensing a bit of a pattern here with Ivan's designs.

 

 

June 9 – Moscow, Russia.  Today we are heading back to the Kremlin.  When we first boarded the ship we took this tour on foot, today we're doing the bus version.  I'm hoping to get some better pictures inside.  Last time is was very crowded.

 

A promising start, traffic in Moscow is better than last visit.  Surprise, surprise, surprise the Kremlin is less busy too.  Not too much to mention that I didn't cover last time.  Just some pictures to send that I didn't have to send last time.  It was much cooler and a way more pleasant day in Moscow.  That was nice.

 

Just one thing that struck me this time.  All the cathedrals on Cathedral Square in the Kremlin begin with an A, Assumption, Annunciation and Archangel.  Pretty cool.  We did get inside the Church of the Disposition of the Robe again but this time we also got inside the Cathedral of the Annunciation.  This was the personal church of the Tsars and it shows.  The place is beautiful and it should be after generations of Grand Dukes and Tsars added to and upgraded parts of the church very frequently.  On upgrade is sort of funny.  After Ivan the Terrible (IV) added the side chapels and three domes and had all the domes gilded, he was put under penance after marrying for the fourth time.  Apparently three marriages were all the church could tolerate.  As his penance he was no longer allowed to enter the church so he had a porch built for him to stand under, outside, during the service.  Oh that wacky Ivan!