Moscow - Part 6

Friday, 22 April 2016, 1 pm

In front of St Basil's Cathedral is a monument known as the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky which is made of bronze.  This monument is a tribute to Prince Dmitry Pozharsky (seated with a shield) and Kuzma Minin, urging the prince to fight on! They gathered an all-Russian volunteer army to defeat the Polish-Lithuanian invaders in 1612. The monument is to commemorate their success, and was unveiled in 1818

St Basil's Cathedral is made up of 9 cathedrals. The biggest is in the middle, surrounded by 4 bigger domes and 4 smaller domes. There is one odd pillar with a green roof, that is where (so it is said) St Vasily (St Basil) is buried. The cathedral was built in 1547-1561, commissioned by Ivan the Terrible. Legend is that he asked his architect whether he could build something more beautiful than the cathedral. The architect said yes, and so was blinded. 

After the Red Square we went to another famous church, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. This church was destroyed by bombs during the Stalin era (apparently only the third bomb destroyed it) but was rebuilt again in the 1990s. Standing at about 103 meters tall, it is the tallest orthodox Christian church in the world. Built to thank Christ the saviour for the retreat of Napoleon by Tsar Alexander I. 

I went in and lit a candle for all the good God does (yes, I'm being sarcastic). For me, it was reminiscent of some of the churches in Italy, although it is both completely different religions - Russian Orthodox vs Roman Catholic. But of course, all of the churches that I have seen so far (including this one and the ones in South America) are much more majestic and grandiose compared to the churches in Malaysia. 

Next stop - Arbat street. This is a street about a kilometre long and has been in existence since the 15th century, but destroyed by fire during the 18th / 19th century and was completely rebuilt in the early 19th century. It's one of the oldest surviving streets of the Russian capital. There used to be a lot of street vendors selling food, souvenirs, knock knacks but cleaned up by the government who was not in favour of street vendors. So now all the shops are in proper buildings along the street. 

There are a lot of souvenir shops here, cheaper than those at the Red Square. I bought some souvenirs, of course - a KGB t-shirt for Philip, matryoshka dolls and smaller stuff for distribution. Also had lunch in a restaurant called My My (pronounced Mu Mu). Some cabbage and chicken wrapped in something like a roll, according to the waiter in broken English is traditional Russian food.

Before heading back to the hotel we stopped at a supermarket and I bought vodka (the locals recommended Beluga or Crystal but I couldn't find those so I bought Kremlin, I've no idea how it tastes and am not a fan of vodka) and Russian beers - Baltikan Nos. 3, 7 and 9 was all I could find.