Today we went by Metro to Red Square and toured St. Basils Basicalica.
The subway was interesting, as the subway stations here are just beautiful. We saw two of them: Mayakovskaya, close to Terri's house and Teatralnaya, where we got off in front of the Bolshoi Theatre next to the Red Square. I took photos in the first one, but was so focused on which way to get out of the second one, I didn't take any photos. What was interesting though was that the trains themselves were pretty old and clunky looking, but moved at a pretty darn good clip. There was also a lack of handles to hold onto and people standing in one area had no handle to grasp and would lose their footing as we went around a corner or two. The other thing that Terri pointed out was the announcing voice. On the way into the center of the city, it's a male voice, but going the other way, it's a woman's voice! She said that during the soviet days, they would say something along the lines of "sending our men to work" and "our men are coming home".
Here is a link to more info about the metro if you are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayakovskaya_%28Moscow_Metro%29
Here's the first paragraph:
Mayakovskaya (Russian: Маяковская), is a Moscow Metro station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. Considered to be one of the most beautiful in the system, it is one of the finest examples of pre-World War II Stalinist Architecture making it one of the most famous Metro stations in the world. The name as well as the design is a reference to Futurism and its prominent Russian exponent Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Exiting the Metro, we were not inside the Red Square, but were on another square with the Bolshoi Theatre across the way. We walked over to our left and there behind us were the gates to enter Red Square. Two beautiful arches and we could see St. Basil's through on the other end of the square. We slowly walked through, looking at everything, with the Kremlin to our right, the Gum to our right, St. Basil's in front, and some beautiful red brick building behind us -- will have to look it up! Here is a link with quite a bit of info on the buildings of the square (but not on this particular one I am talking about): http://www.moscow.info/red-square/index.aspx
It was a pretty amazing feeling standing there....it brought back foggy memories and a feeling of fear of seeing soldiers amassed here during Communism times. Also, two thirds of the square was cordoned off for the construction going on, so it the size of the square was downplayed by this.
Standing in front of St. Basils, it struck me that it was not as big as I thought it was! I'm thinking that the Notre Dame stands much taller. We went in and it was awesome, but again different than I thought. (I didn't do much research for this trip, so haven't read in advance a lot about what I am seeing.) It's not a church per se, but many small chapels around a larger center chapel, but even calling them chapels is being generous, as they are not constructed to hold more than a few people in each room. Here are a few photos:
The subway was interesting, as the subway stations here are just beautiful. We saw two of them: Mayakovskaya, close to Terri's house and Teatralnaya, where we got off in front of the Bolshoi Theatre next to the Red Square. I took photos in the first one, but was so focused on which way to get out of the second one, I didn't take any photos. What was interesting though was that the trains themselves were pretty old and clunky looking, but moved at a pretty darn good clip. There was also a lack of handles to hold onto and people standing in one area had no handle to grasp and would lose their footing as we went around a corner or two. The other thing that Terri pointed out was the announcing voice. On the way into the center of the city, it's a male voice, but going the other way, it's a woman's voice! She said that during the soviet days, they would say something along the lines of "sending our men to work" and "our men are coming home".
Here is a link to more info about the metro if you are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayakovskaya_%28Moscow_Metro%29
Here's the first paragraph:
Mayakovskaya (Russian: Маяковская), is a Moscow Metro station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. Considered to be one of the most beautiful in the system, it is one of the finest examples of pre-World War II Stalinist Architecture making it one of the most famous Metro stations in the world. The name as well as the design is a reference to Futurism and its prominent Russian exponent Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Exiting the Metro, we were not inside the Red Square, but were on another square with the Bolshoi Theatre across the way. We walked over to our left and there behind us were the gates to enter Red Square. Two beautiful arches and we could see St. Basil's through on the other end of the square. We slowly walked through, looking at everything, with the Kremlin to our right, the Gum to our right, St. Basil's in front, and some beautiful red brick building behind us -- will have to look it up! Here is a link with quite a bit of info on the buildings of the square (but not on this particular one I am talking about): http://www.moscow.info/red-square/index.aspx
It was a pretty amazing feeling standing there....it brought back foggy memories and a feeling of fear of seeing soldiers amassed here during Communism times. Also, two thirds of the square was cordoned off for the construction going on, so it the size of the square was downplayed by this.
Standing in front of St. Basils, it struck me that it was not as big as I thought it was! I'm thinking that the Notre Dame stands much taller. We went in and it was awesome, but again different than I thought. (I didn't do much research for this trip, so haven't read in advance a lot about what I am seeing.) It's not a church per se, but many small chapels around a larger center chapel, but even calling them chapels is being generous, as they are not constructed to hold more than a few people in each room. Here are a few photos:
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