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HEADING back through Moscow on the metro system, no longer with my guide at my side translating where needed. I was now going to do some exploring in this exotic location along, seeing how I would go. Everyone here was Russian with their stern faces still showing the stoic residue of over seven decades of socialism. Everything written in the Cyrillic alphabet which I couldn't write.
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Catching the metro |
This is one of the exciting things about travel, the adrenaline of being lost in a totally unfamiliar place where I'm unable to communicate even if I wanted to. How many of these people speak any English? Very few I imagined.
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Another metro station |
The vast underworld of the Moscow Metro was spectacular, with getting on and off all different stations on my journey back towards Red Square before it gets dark. The metro was obviously built in a time past with strong Socialist themes still pervading the dimly lit caverns crowded with commuters hurrying on their journeys between work and home.
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Another metro station |
Every metro station had its own unique character, each telling its own story from a past time. Modern metro trains sped between the underground stations below the city, carrying people across the capital of the world's largest country.
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Riding the metro |
Navigating through the enormous maze of the Metro, I finally reached the destination station where I took an elevator up an angled tunnel up to the surface just a block or two away from Red Square.
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Heading out of the metro |
Outside the station entrance two guitarists were sitting on seats playing away in the very cold overcast conditions. Fortunately, the sky was still light, as it had been when I went underground near the All USSR Museum.
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Buskers |
I walked through the paved mall passing brightly coloured stalls and carts of the Autumn harvest festival. They gave bright warm colours to the otherwise grey palette of the city of stone under the overcast sky.
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Flower arches |
Reaching the Bolshoi Theatre, I passed the fountains seeing the main entrance signs of the harvest festival outside Red Square.
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Harvest festival stall |
I crossed the busy road to where the mall area was covered in numerous stalls and carts. The occasional marquee with an open front was set up with band equipment set up. In one of these one solitary person rugged up was playing keyboard as a few people watched on.
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Performer |
Carts were loaded with hay bales and pumpkins with the state museum sitting behind it enhancing the brightness of the displays. Several large paintings added more colour to the festival.
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Harvest festival stall |
Heading towards Red Square a couple of people dramatically dressed in traditional Russian clothing were greeting people, probably wanting to be paid to have people have their picture taken with them.
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Russian costumes |
I headed into Red Square, passing the Kazan Cathedral. The first thing I noticed was the GUM brightly illuminated with orange lights carefully arranged up and down every corner and around every window and entrance. The light was starting to fade with sunset very near now. The GUM brightly shone against the otherwise unlit Kremlin wall.
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Kazan Cathedral |
A lot of people were wandering across Red Square. With the air temperature only about five degrees, everyone was heavily rugged up. Walking in front of the State museum I saw a couple of young Norwegian women with a phone working out how they were going to take a selfie of themselves with the GUM in the background as they held paper cups full of hot coffee. I helped them out knowing they wouldn't be able to get an ideal picture at arm's length. One I had photographed them I got them to take a few pictures of me in front of the brilliantly illuminated GUM.
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The GUM |
I left them to continue exploring the square while they continued taking more pictures whilst holding their coffee cups.
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Museums |
Passing the mausoleum, a single guard stood lonely behind the low fence keeping people out. It would have been a very lonely job just standing out there all alone in the bleak coldness guarding the entrance to a long-dead leader. I imagined it would be rather awful out here during the long winter.
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Lenin's mausoleum |
I walked around the square, reaching St Basil's Cathedral, then walking back along the front of the GUM to the Kazan Cathedral, outside which two tiny old hags were violently arguing with each other and a rather tall cop was trying to mediate with them.
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Traditional dress |
It was quite a spectacle in the otherwise stoic environment with people walking past with blank faces and a couple of men elaborately dressed in traditional Russian robes stood. Clearly the two hags knew each other and would have robust discussions on a regular basis here.
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St Basil's |
I passed through the gate out of Red Square back through the harvest festival area where more crowds were gathering as the light was disappearing from the sky. The sun must have set.
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Harvest festival stalls |
A couple of performances were in progress on the stages. I explored the different pumpkin and floral displays, mostly reds and oranges. Yellow didn't get much of a representation here, perhaps because Russians saw more than enough yellow in the vast forests of silver birch. Well that was my theory anyway having seen the almost constant silver birch forests over the 5100 kilometres crossing Siberia from Irkutsk.
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Large pumpkin display |
Carefully positioned lights illuminated the buildings around the city, bringing them to life in stark contrast to their daytime drabness.
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Illuminated building |
I returned to Red Square. Enormous floodlights on top of the GUM shone across the square brightly illuminating the red wall and red and white towers of the Kremlin.
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Red Square |
At the far end of the square St Basil's Cathedral was perfectly lit up from a clever arrangement of flood lights. The lighting had really brought the square to life. More people were here than there had been earlier. Perhaps the increase was mainly locals gathering here having finished work for the day.
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St Basil's |
St Basil’s Cathedral, officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Moat, and also known as the Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed. It was built under Ivan the Terrible between 1555 and 1561 to commemorate the independent Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakahn. It was consecrated as a Russian Orthodox Church in 1561, but now functions as a museum.
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Museums |
The cathedral stands at 47.5 metres high with 9 domes and two spires. It is unique in containing eight side churches around the main one. A tenth church attached to the building was erected over the grave of local saint Vasily (Basil). The church was perceived as the earthly symbol of the Heavenly City. It was shaped as the flames of a bonfire, and although it is one of the most recognised pieces of Russian architecture, there are no other buildings in Russia similar to this. Legend says Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect so its design could never be replicated. It was built using red brick. The bright colours distinguishing the church were only added in different stages between the 1680s and the 1840s, when colour became fashionable in Russia. In its first two hundred years before the 1680s the cathedral was plain coloured.
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The GUM |
The church was damaged in a major fire in 1737 and repaired between 1761 and 1784. It was looted and converted to stables for horses by the French during the 1812 Napoleonic battle. It was quickly repaired in 1813.
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Lenin's mausoleum |
The church was confiscated by the Soviet Union in 1928, and has since operated as a museum. It is considered part of the Kremlin, even though it is outside of its walls.
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Harvest festival sign |
The temperature was continuing to drop, with more adventures to go on, I needed to head back into the metro. A station was just across from Red Square, so I headed into the subway walking along a long tunnel where a violinist was frenetically playing the opening winter movement to Vivaldi's Four Seasons, most relevant to the bleak conditions outside.
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Violinist in subway |
I continued along the tunnel, heading down a long escalator back into the Moscow underworld of its metro system.
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