2nd May 1984 Kremlin

Wednesday May 2 1984. Breakfast at 8.30 – some sort of sultana cake type thing which was very nice. We left the hotel at about 10.00. It was raining at the hotel, but lightly. Because Moscow is such a big place, Tanya said, it might not be raining in the centre of the city. It wasn’t, but overcast, though. (Yesterday was sunny and quite warm.) We waited in the buses on Gorky Street outside the Intourist Hotel (next to the National) while the Tanyas went inside to check out the theatre ticket situation. Then we went to Kutafya Tower over Troitskaya Bridge (Trinity Tower and Bridge).

   After entering, you find on the left the Arsenal. This was built in the first half of the eighteenth century on the orders of Peter the Great. Around it are the barrels of 875 guns given to the Russians by Napoleon as he was leaving the country. What a nice farewell gift. I think he gave most, if not all, of then at the Battle of Borodino.

   On the right is the only modern building within the walls of the Kremlin – the Palace of Congresses, which is made of reinforced concrete with large expanses of glass and marble decorations. The Big Hall inside seats six thousand people, four thousand more than the Bolshoi Theatre, so it is used by ballet and opera when Congress is not sitting, which is most of the year. It has 800 rooms in its five storeys, but we didn’t go into any of them.

  We went along to have a look at Czar-cannon, which was cast in bronze in 1586. It weighs about forty tons and has a caliber of 890mm. This is heavy artillery at its most ridiculous and it probably wouldn’t work if fired. Well, it might fire a one ton cannon ball about three feet.

 Next we had a look at Czar-bell (I prefer czar rather than tsar). Like the czar-cannon, this is ridiculously big and was never actually used. It was cast in 1733-1735 and is the most ridiculously large bell in the world, weighing two hundred tons, and being 6.4metres high. It lay in its casting pit for about one hundred years and it has a large chunk missing from it which weighs eleven and a half tons. This chunk was caused by a fire in the pit plus water thrown onto it equals stressed metal. The bell bears intricate relief work depicting Czar Alexei Mikhailovich and Empress Ioanovna and other things that might have been interesting to Russians of that time. Scientists estimate that if the bell was rung, the peal would be heard from as far away as forty-two kilometres. Pity the poor bugger who would have to ring it.

Czar Cannon (maybe it was only decorative...)

Czar bell

    We then went to Cathedral Square which has about seven cathedrals and churches and a lot of people, all in groups with their respective tour guides from Intourist.

   We joined a long queue to get into the Cathedral of the Assumption, but what was assumed I don’t know. But what is known is that it was betweenly built 1475 and 1479, and an Italian had a lot to do with it. Aristotle Fioravante by name. The walls are of white limestone with brickéd drums supporting the five gold cupolas, which are quite close together.

   When it was built it differed from earlier Muscovite churches in that it is lofty, spacious and bright. The walls are completely covered in religious murals – figures with gold halos standing around being holy. At the foot, the walls are lined with silver coffins of dead people (Patriarchs). There are also bigger whateverthewordis – vaults?- of deader people who were Metropoles (Metropolitans?)

 In front of the altar (which is never seen) is a sixteen metre high iconostasis of five tiers. ‘Tis trés incredible.

   The only seats in the place – worshipers are only allowed to stand or kneel – belonged to the Patriarch, the Czarina and the Czar (this is to one side and is made of wood because Terrible Ivan wanted it that way).

   Also in this immensely interesting place are twelve chandeliers from the 17^th and 19^th centuries – eleven are gilt bronze and the central one is of silver and bronze. This one had something to do with Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, I think.

   After gaping inside the cathedral for a while, I wandered around the grounds of the Kremlin before going back to the bus. I took a picture of the Lenin statue and saw the recently relieved guard come in through the Saviour Tower gate rather more casually than how they would be in Red Square. (It’s also called the Middle Arsenal Tower.)(Just depends which book you look at.)

  Lunch at the hotel was some yummy crumby things with meat inside. After lunch I wrote diary, then at 2.30 went with Leanne on the Metro. We went as far as Prospekt of Peace station on our local line, then transferred to the circular Koltsevaya Line, going as far as Kievskaya Station, but sometimes hopping off to look at the stations. I’m not terribly impressed with Socialist art, by the way.

    Anyway, above ground again and we walked along the road to a church, St Nicholas’ by name, but it wasn’t open. It was, and still is unless it has been crashed into by a tomato sauce truck, white with orange and green arch-type things.

   We then went over the river to the oft-talked-about-and-read-(the book)-on-our trip Gorky Park (Gorky Recreation Park.) It was a Public Holiday and those funfair type things including Ferris Wheels, boating on the ponds, walking, talking, listening, whistling, anything that’s not illegal in Russia.

  There were, on one of the ponds, some black swans. This far north, and west (or east); who would have thought it. They must be lost. [I had never realized that black swans, an Australian bird, would be in other countries.]

   I bought a Fanta and a couple of pastries for 88 kopecks. We then went to find a station and found it, and completed the circle on the Koltsevaya Line. We got back to the hotel just in time for dinner, which was stew, mash and an éclair.

   What a quiet night, writing diary and writing postcards just to get rid of ones I had bought in a fit of pique.