Alexander Gardens (next to the Kremlin)
by jeoren
One of the public gardens in Moscow is Alexander Gardens. You'll find here several nice fountains and other things. One of them is a globe where Moscow is indicated by an image of the Basilicus Cathedral. (you'll see it in the middle of the picture I added).
Unfortunately the Central Exhibition Hall at Alexander Gardens was hard up last year.
The Kremlin and Its Sites
by hunterV
Visiting the Kremlin and admiring the Czar Bell – the bell that never rang. It was cast in 1735.
I was amazed by its size: 6.6 m in diameter, and its weight: 200 tonns.
This is an artistic monument decorated with portraits of the tsars and an ornament in relief. After the fire in the Kremlin the bell cracked and a piece broke off it. Then it was mounted on a pedestal and the fragment was placed on the ground at the side of it.
Next to the Czar Bell there stands another outstanding monument of Russian casting – the Czar Cannon.
It has a caliber of 890 mm and it weighs 40 tonns.
The cannon was to defend the gates of the Kremlin, but it never fired a single shot.
20 towers join the Kremlin walls, three of them round. The main tower is the Savior Tower.
Another must-see activity is visiting the Cathedral of St.Basil the Blessed erected in 1555-1561 to commemorate the Russian military glory after the victory over the Kazan Khanate.
It was built as a memorial to all the heroes who had fallen in the century-old struggle against the Tatars.
Its picturesque onion-shaped domes, fairytale-like attractive image shows that the Russian folk architecture knew nothing of cold ascetism.
This cathedral is rightly called the pearl of Russian architecture. visiting the Kremlin
Blagoveshensky Cathedral. Southern Gallery.
by bugulma
Southern Gallery of the Cathedral is a kind of museum where you can see icons of the main iconostasis in the ancient times. The museum was open in 1989. Besides there is an interesting interior of that times. Don't know why but i like the column you see in the picture.
Vodka Drinking
by tere1
Vodka is the national drink in Russia and it's a fact that russians drink a lot of vodka and unfortunately there is a high level of alchoolism in the country. They drink it with the meals, with blinis ( russian pancakes) and just as a drink.
I had never liked vodka until I went to Russia and , in a good vodka shop and advised by the owner, I bought a couple of bottles of the best brands. Well, they were really good, you don't have to mix it with juices because the vodka I bought is truly tasty and delicious.
So, if you go to Moscow, be sure to go to a good vodka shop and ask for advice on the best brands. You won't regret it!
Why is everyone so gloomy in Moscow?
by Muscovite
Look, try going to Detroit and look for smiling faces there - GM has just filed for bankruptcy.
It’s no fun to live according to one’s means, is it?
That’s market economy, folks.
Remember what your advisers told us in 1991? Old-age pensions are the Soviet era holdover, aren’t they? And to think one’s life’s savings are really safe in the 100-years-old bank is an illusion typical of a paternalistic state, they said, we should be ashamed of it. You should take responsibility for your own life, they said, and so we did.
Unemployment benefits, Medicare, food coupons, municipal flats for the poor – tell that to our teachers, doctors and scientists who raised potatoes and scrubbed the floors in those new offices.
A loan for a house with a garden, a bedroom for each child – tell that to my neighbours from the Bolshoi theatre orchestra, they lived 4 adults and a child in a 2-bedrooms flat they had well bought and paid for.
And those are not temporary passing hardships after years of indulging in wild consumption off numerous credit cards, that’s our life.
Do you think I spend an hour a day in the kitchen out of my devotion to Russian cuisine? Check the prices at the most modest of the Moscow diners and compare them the average salary anywhere except Oil & Gas – how many lunches can I buy without going boost, and I am not the worst linguist in the country, you know?
I don’t normally rub salt into anybody’s wounds.
But you, please, leave mine in peace, too.