Today we woke up super early to get to the Kremlin! We wanted to get inside but they only have a certain number of tickets per day for entry and once the tickets are gone, there's no more entry! You can't even pre-book tickets! We arrived at 9.15 and queued up to get into the ticket office which opened at 9.30. You can get 4 different types of ticket for entry into different parts of the Kremlin. We got tickets to allow us into the Armory (which was spectacular) and also into the Cathedrals. Obviously there are parts of the Kremlin you can't go into as they're governmental buildings and there is a heavy police presence on the site. There were a lot of tourist groups, mainly Japanese, Russian and the occasional American or Spanish group.
Though as Winnie the Pooh would say it was a blustery day and it rained a little. But we utterly enjoyed ourselves nevertheless.
The Armory was a pretty amazing experience and I've never seen so many beautiful items in my life. The number of precious jewels that were in each of the artifacts was amazing. One particular crown was bejeweled with over 2 thousand diamonds. The first thought in my mind was what spectacular engagement rings they'd make! If we ever run out of diamonds or precious stones the first place to look is in the Armory! There were lots of items from the period of the Tsars which had been perfectly preserved. This surprised me a little considering what the Bolsheviks thought of the Tsars, I would have thought they would have destroyed all evidence of them & melted down their grand fancy things to make weapons & such. Obviously my ideas of socialism & communism which I've learnt from Lenin & Marx are not the same that Stalin used.........need I say more really?
The State Kremlin Palace was built by Khrushchev and was built to house the Communist Party meetings. From the outside you can clearly tell that it was intended as a place for Communists as there are large murals of the Hammer & Sickle & the Soviet Star. I actually found the building quite beautiful and it reminded me a little of the American Embassy in London. Today it hosts ballets and other cultural events.
Though as Winnie the Pooh would say it was a blustery day and it rained a little. But we utterly enjoyed ourselves nevertheless.
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| Moi, the Trinity Tower and to the left the State Kremlin Palace |
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| The Kremlin Arsenal (no admittance to the public though) |
There are at least 6 Cathedrals within the Kremlin site. Each one has a different name and a different reason for existing. Ivan the Terrible's relatives were entombed in the the Archangel's Cathedral though it was difficult to tell who was who because they used Old Cyrillic which actually makes use of the English 'I' and other letters are slightly changed.
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| The Annunciation Cathedral |
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| The Archangel's Cathedral |
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| Me & The Ivan the Great Bell-Tower, the Assumption Belfry & the Filaret's extension |
