3rd May 1984 - Lenin's Tomb, Moscow TV Tower

Thursday May 3^rd  Breakfast was fried eggs and tomato juice. As with the other breakfasts in this place we were given salami and bread as appetizers.

   And then for the big outing of the whole trip – da da dadada daa – a walk to see a dead man. We got off the bus at 50^th Etc Square and joined the queue in Alexandrovsky Gardens, which are under the west wall of the K.

   It was evident that all the red flags and other May Day paraphernalia were being taken down because we saw men taking them down.

  The queue moved slowly, sometimes quickly, through the gates of the garden and up past the red museum [The State Historical Museum] and into Red Square. Eventually we got into the Mausoleum, but I wasn’t counting how long it took to get there.

   Once inside you turn left, go down some steps, turn right, go down, turn right, turn right and go up a ramp past a glass case containing what seems to be a wax effigy of the man himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is wax. And he’s so ugly anyway. His face and hands are lit up. This can be seen quite easily as one passes the case on three sides. [Up Lenin’s left side, round his head, down his right side.] On exiting the actual chamber you go up more steps, turn left and you’re outside. There are quite a few guards inside, fulfilling different roles like telling you to shut up or put your hands by your thighs.

Lenin's Mausoleum, by Kevin S. of Canada

   Outside we passed the back of the mausoleum; the wall of the Kremlin where there are plaques and graves for important people in Soviet history. Stalin is there, with a bust. Also, on Yuri Gagarin’s grave, were many many stickpin stars that people had placed there – many more than on any of the other graves. There were also flowers on each grave.

  Talking of flowers, the first day we were in Red Square, people had placed many flowers on top of the short wall in front of the mausoleum. If Mickey Mouse died, he would be buried in a Mouseleum.

   After our visit to the wonderful place, I went with Sandy and her mum to the GUM store to see if I could buy some ice cream. No such luck. Then I went back to the bus to pick up my camera to take pictures of the little churches near the Hotel Russia, which was built on the site of a monastery – hence the churches, now museums. [The Hotel Rossiya was a huge hotel – 3200 rooms – that was demolished in 2006-2007. In its place will be an entertainment centre that still seems to be under construction, or is just stalled indefinitely.]

  Then we went back to the hotel for lunch. I then tried to get a ticket for the Moscow TV Tower but they have set times for entry and I was too late to go to the 2.30 time so I got one for 5.00 instead.

   Not having anything else much to do, I went on the Metro tour to spend last time with some of the others. We went to the same stations as I went to yesterday, but got out at Kievskaya Station. Some of these lines are very far underground and they have long long fast escalators going down, and going up, of course.

   We hopped on the bus and went to a Berioska shop nearby, close to the New Maiden’s Convent. Here I bought a book on the Kremlin and said goodbye to some as I left for Sportivnaya Station to get back to the UDNKH (USSR Economic Exhibition) near the hotel. Then I ran along Academician Korolyov Street to get to the TV Tower.

Moscow TV Tower, also known as Ostankino Tower

   Up I went in the lift but they wouldn’t allow me to take photographs from there, so to spite them I didn’t take any pictures of the tower from the outside. Anyway, the view was a bit disappointing because of all the haze on the horizon, and within the horizon. I couldn’t make out the Kremlin, for instance. But I was amazed at the massive expanse of trees in a park to the east – millions of them. Also, hundreds of condo blocks. We were at 337 metres, and there are three dining halls of a revolting restaurant below the viewing level.

   I walked back to the hotel and was in time for an unpaid-for-by-me dinner. Most of the others had already left for the station to get out of the USSR. I bought a children’s book [The Adventures of Captain Wrangel, a kind of Baron Münchhausen] in the Berioska shop and went to Room 412 – Bill [grandfather] and [his grandson] David’s room [they who had been into Lake Baikal through the ice] – to write diary.

   At 8.30 we went down to the lobby and picked up our car to the Leningradski Station. We waited there for the train, which came, we got on and it left at 10.00. This was the cleanest train so far, with new sheets but the mattresses were a bit lumpy.