Moscow and St Petersburg

Today is our last day in Russia; tonight we are catching an overnight train to Kiev. Since my last blog, we've been to Moscow and St Petersburg, and we've enjoyed both, but it's St Petersburg I found to be absolutely amazing. It helped also that this is the off-season, and there are almost no other tourists. Yes it is a little cold, but if you don't mind that, this time of year is a great time to come here. For example the Hermitage, which sometimes sees 4 hour qeues, we had almost to ourselves. But I will start with Moscow:

The Red Square and Kremlin

The obligatory part of any visit to Moscow is of course Red Square and the Kremlin. They both look exactly like their postcard images, which I am sure everyone is familiar with. Actually, the Red Square is much smaller in real life than what it appears on TV. Compared to Tiananmen Square, it's tiny! We also saw pickled Mr Lenin, with a lot less fuss and pomp than what surrounds pickled Mr Mao. He looked much more real than Mao did, or maybe he is just in worse shape because he's been pickled for a lot longer. It's funny how the Communists have always professed to despise religion, but have created a place of worship and a God just like any religion!

The most impressive part of the Kremlin was the Diamond Fund and the Armoury exhibitions. Until the transfer of the court to St Petersburg, the Armoury was in charge of producing, purchasing and storing weapons, jewellery and various household articles of the tsars. Having been to Egypt the seen the treasures of Tutankhamun, I have to say that this was more impressive, maybe because there was so much MORE of it (starting from the time of Ivan the Terrible onwards). The most famous items of the collection are probably the Faberge eggs, but that's just one display amongst what seems to hundreds (if not tonnes) of kilos of gold and precious stones. It's actually very hard to believe that they are all real, they look just like sparkly cheap things in the souvenirs stalls.



State History Museum

I don't normally take photos of museum exhibits, but this one was fascinating. This globe was made in Amsterdam in 1690 for the Swedish King Charles 6. When Charles 7 came to the throne he refused to pay for it, and Peter the First bought it brought it to Russia. Check out the accuracy with which the West Coast of Australia is charted - this is 80 years before James Cook is credited with "discovering" Australia in 1770! You can't see it on this photo, but New Zealand and Tasmania are also on it (though less distinctly).



Moscow Metro

The lament of a Melbournian - why don't we have a decent train system? The most fantastic thing about the Moscow Metro to me is not the frequency, speed, or punctuality (although all are perfect), it's the RING LINE. It links all the other lines to each other, making the whole system useable for getting around town, not just getting to and from the city. Why is that such an impossible thing for us?



And ofcourse it's also beautiful:






Sakharov Museum

One of the most interesting afternoons spent in Moscow was at the Andrei Sakharov Museum. I would really recommend a visit for anyone who has an interest in Russia's political part. Andrei Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist who helped to develop Russia's atomic bomb program, but afterwards became a dissident and human rights activist. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The museum focused less on his personal story however and more on the history of Russia's repressions under the Communists and the subsequent human rights movement. I was stunned again and again at the courage some people possess. To dare to organise the first public protest in Russia in 40 years, to be imprisoned, and then straight after release to get back into the human rights movement, be imprisoned again, and still not repent! Not everyone can be a hero, some people just want to live their life and no one can fault them for it. But isn't it wonderful that there are heros in this world.
Another thing I liked about the museum is that it's still part of the human rights movement today; had loads of free literature published by the Moscow Helsinki Group (one of the first Human Rights Organisations in Russia) and many left-leaning student-types hanging around.


Relics of Communism

Which leads me straight into the subject of my pet hate:
- Why is there still a Lenin statue in every city?
- Why is Stalin's grave still in Red Square?
- Why are there still streets and a town named after Felix Dzerzhinsky (the founder of KGB)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dzerzhinsky
- Why is this plaque still on the outer wall of the former Lubyanka prison in Moscow (where to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was once a prisoner)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andropov



To me, this is akin to Germany leaving monuments to Hilter in place.