The most exciting moment of my entire Russia trip was on my penultimate evening when I walked up the Kremlevskiy Prospekt slope from the north-west corner of Red Square and saw that iconic view laid out before me.
I was in Moscow twice. I spent three full days there are the beginning of the trip and I flew back there from Perm ready to fly home to London at the end and because accidentally overstaying my visa wasn’t an option, I gave myself two days. If something went wrong with the flight into Moscow on Friday, I had Saturday to try it again ready to fly home on Sunday. But at the beginning of the trip, Red Square was occupied by a market, festival and international military tattoo combination. You couldn’t really see anything. But when I got back from Perm, the square was empty and so you could walk in and see an expanse of cobbles and that big red wall and St Basil’s looming at the other end and the GUM shopping centre and I walked around that square with wide eyes literally going “heeheehee!” in glee.
I can’t believe I’ve already used the word iconic. But what other word is there for that view appearing in front of you? That’s Russia, that’s hundreds of years of Russia right there. Oh, it was an amazing moment.
But let’s rewind to my first full day when I was corralled down the east side of Red Square, past market stalls, through crowds, a little overwhelmed, a little confused, a little disappointed and found myself pushed right in front of St Basil’s. I knew I was going to go inside. I’d seen some blogs saying that the inside didn’t live up to the outside but as if I’m going to go all the way to Red Square and then decide not to bother going inside the famous cathedral. I just hadn’t realised I was going to do it so quickly.
It costs 500kr (about $7.70/£6.25) and there’s very little queue. The ticket office is a little kiosk and then you just walk in through the front door. You get your bag searched but it’s in that “oh, you’re opening it, I don’t care” kind of way.
What’s not obvious from the outside is that there are two floors inside the church. I don’t know if it’s not obvious because I feel like it should all be hollow inside like a normal cathedral or if the size and shape and scale makes me think it should be multi-level. The downstairs is fairly dark and bewildering in places. In some places it’s hugely over-decorated and in others it’s bare brick. The most spectacularly over-decorated chamber is the tomb of St Basil.
This cathedral’s full name is the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat but it’s known as St Basil’s because of St Basil the Blessed’s tomb. This was originally eight churches arranged around a central ninth; St Basil’s tomb became the tenth and people got into the habit of saying things like “we’re going to see St Basil” and the name grew to mean the entire building. His tomb is all gold and frescoes and spectacle – I’m not entirely sure what St Basil would have made of it, as a man who went naked to give to the poor.
Upstairs is better. The stairs are very narrow and steep and then you step out into a surprisingly light and airy labyrinth. Now, I have no idea which church is which. I’ve not found a map and I’ve not found anyone or anything that could give me any clue which church is which. They all have a gold-riddled iconostasis and high ceilings but they’re all decorated differently. My favourite bit was the slightly faded red and blue striped frescoes that looked like airmail stripes although the blue floral ceiling was good as well. I 100% disagree with anyone who said the inside doesn’t live up to the outside. It absolutely does and I absolutely recommend going to visit.
Back out in Red Square (and on a different day, let’s be honest here), I went to visit the Tomb of Lenin. It’s free but it’s only open in the morning and it’s only open five days a week so I got lucky by choosing the moment I did.
You queue for a while – I’ve seen the queue so much bigger than it was when I joined in but it took a while anyway. You go through metal detectors, of course, and get your bag looked at and swiped with a handheld detector and then you’re in. Feels a bit weird because the only thing separating you from the rest of the square at this point is a chain. I followed everyone else because I had no real idea where I was going. Actually, at this point, I was still just hoping this was indeed Lenin’s tomb.
We walked alongside the Kremlin wall to the burial ground. An assortment of Soviet heroes are buried here – among them Stalin and Yuri Gagarin. My history isn’t up to recognising any of the others. Lenin isn’t among them. Lenin’s in the big red granite building.
Oh my god, Lenin is inside the big red granite building.
I must have been here before but I had no idea what to expect. And what to expect is that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s body, which has been dead for 95 years now, is lying on a bed scowling at the silent people shuffling past. That’s not a waxwork. That’s not a sculpture. That’s an embalmed dead human body that’s been dead for nearly a century. Should have done the reading before I walked in because that really took me by surprise. Apparently Russia quite regularly has the discussion “should we maybe bury him?” but it hasn’t happened yet.
You walk in silence through the mausoleum. No photos, no hats, be respectful. Again, I don’t know my history well enough to know whether he deserves respect or whether I think he deserves respect. Stalin’s a bad guy, isn’t he? Isn’t Lenin his predecessor? Does that make Lenin a bad guy too? Spot the person who dropped history gratefully in year nine.
When I went to Kyiv last year, I discovered that they’ve torn down all the Lenin statues and red stars and hammers-and-sickles and renamed all the Lenin Streets. So I was somewhat surprised to find Russia hasn’t done the same thing. I mean, it does make sense that Russia has a different view of the USSR to Ukraine. But it still felt weird to see people revering Lenin and to see Ulitsa Lenina in every single city I visited.
The other thing I did in the vicinity of the Kremlin (the Kremlin itself gets it own post, of course) was visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Russia – the entire former USSR, I think – sees World War II as the Great Patriotic War and it lasted from 1941-1945. It looks odd to see those dates on war memorials because in my part of western Europe, it definitely started in 1939. The memorial is a long dark red granite wall, with plaques on the wall to honour the hero cities – a Soviet honorary title awarded to twelve cities for outstanding heroism during the Great Patriotic War. It’s written in Cyrillic so there are times when I have to spell out the names but I can now read Odessa, Kyiv and Minsk without even having to check. St Petersburg is sufficiently different that although I don’t see “St Petersburg” when I look at it, I do recognise it. Also, war memorials usually say Leningrad but I’ve definitely seen St Petersburg somewhere. And many of the others, I have to decipher – Smolensk, Kerch, Novorossiysk. This wall, by the way, is not for sitting on or kneeling on or leaning on. Of course it’s not but it is a handy wall-shape and if they don’t want people to think they can sit on it, they shouldn’t have built it that shape. There’s a guard with a whistle whose specific job is to make sure people don’t sit on it.
The Changing of the Guard happens every hour from 8am to 8pm, unless there’s an event going on outside it, as on my very last day in Moscow. This is something to be seen. There are two guards – not the one with the whistle – who stand over the flame and they’re replaced by two new guards and… well, I think you have to watch for yourself.
Oh yes, that’s something you shouldn’t miss. And while you’re laughing at them, have a little think about how high you can kick your own legs.
Next week we’ll be taking a short break from Russia while I tell you about my first ever Brownie camp and my weekend on Dartmoor but then we’ll be diving back into Moscow again. I’m trying to space them out a little bit.