Last Tuesday after work we took a boat ride down the Moscow River. I saw a lot of the same landmarks and buildings I’d seen before, just from the other side. There were a few new things too though.

This boat is similar to the one I was on, but different, because I’m not on it.

This is me on my boat. I wanted a nice picture of me with the flag blowing behind me, but the wind would not cooperate. Thankfully a nice Russian lady helped me out.

We passed by Gorky Park and then Gorky Park’s Amusement Park.

This is one of the USSR’s last spacecraft (a copy of the US Space Shuttle) built just before the collapse of communism. It is now used as a ride in the theme park.

Next we went by a 317 foot tall statue of St. Peter the Great. It’s one of the largest statues in the world.

And here’s a close up of great big Peter the Great. I really need to get better at editing my photos so the color of the sky stays the same. I mean look at these next four, all taken within a half hour of each other.

And here’s some familiar sights – The Kremlin and St. Basil’s.

This building (the Hotel Ukraina) is one of Stalin’s “Seven Sisters”. The Seven Sisters were built during Stalin’s last years (1947-1953) and are a combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles with the technology of American skscrapers.

The Hotel Ukraina is the second tallest of the “sisters” (650 feet), and is still Europe’s tallest hotel.

Another of the sisters is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was right outside my hotel (across the street from my grocery store). It is 563 feet tall and was supposed to be a lot shorter. It was supposed to have a blunt rectangular top, but when it was finished Stalin changed his mind. They were just about out of money though and so a metal spire was dyed to match the building’s exterior and was hastily added to tower’s roof. This helped make it look more like the other sisters, however it’s not exactly a perfect match.

I’m not sure if I saw all 7 of the girls. I know there were a few more I saw that I didn’t take pictures of – you get the idea though.

Yesterday’s trip home took approximately 23.5 hours, not that I was counting.

It was fantastic.

The flight from Moscow to Atlanta was fine. I only got about two hours of sleep, but the flight felt like it went fast. It was once I got to Atlanta that everything went to hell.

At first our flight was just delayed for 20 minutes – not fantastic, but not overly terrible. Then we needed to change terminals – not a big deal, it happens. As we were on the escalator to our new gate though, it died. Thankfully it wasn’t nearly as long as the one in Moscow, and when escalators quit, they just turn in to stairs.

But then the rain came. It poured, it thundered, it lightninged. They closed the airport because of the weather.

That’s right they closed the airport, which meant no planes were allowed to land. This was more than just a minor travel annoyance, it was a big freaking deal. The plane that was supposed to come and take me to Virginia was instead rerouted to Knoxville. This meant that when the airport did open again my airplane was in Tennessee. I was not in Tennessee. I was in Atlanta and wanted to be in Virginia. I was not a happy girl.

So we were waiting for the plane to come from Knoxville when Delta decided to just give us a different plane. At this point it’s already an hour and a half after the time we were originally supposed to leave. The new plane finally shows up, they get all the people off of it and let us on. Once everyone is seated on the plane they announce that we’re going to have to sit for a bit longer because they just realized that the brakes on the plane need to be replaced.

Seriously.

We’re all on the plane and they’re going to call Triple A or whoever to come out, jack the plane up, and change the brakes? Now I’ve had family members change my brakes a couple of times (thanks Steven, Dad, Uncle Pete, and Dave) and they have always tested the car before they let me in it. It’s a good idea and nice of them, you know, make sure everything is safe. I really think I’d like it more if airlines had the same thought process. You know, test the brakes once or twice before you fill it full of people and take off. Heck, they didn’t even need to go through an actual landing, I’d have been happy if they’d gone down the runway real fast and tried stopping quick.

But the guy I saw out my window that was carrying the wrench (and not in a confidence inspiring way) apparently had the situation under control. We took off and landed (at about 11:30) fine. Once we got to the airport though, they didn’t have a gate for us. So we had to wait on the runway until they brought a people mover out to us. Here’s a people mover, just in case you haven’t had the pleasure of riding on one before. It’s not my photo obviously, because it was dark out.

Eventually I did get to where Dave was waiting for me and then we got to spend an hour waiting together for my luggage. Yeah, they started unloading bags from my flight when the conveyor belt jammed. At this point I was convinced that one of my bags would not show up at all and the other would be full of broken glass and vodka soaked dirty clothes, because that would be the perfect end to my evening.

But both bags did appear (the vodka was fine) and we ended up getting home a little after 1:00 am. We had just enough energy to bring in my luggage (when I say “we”, I mean Dave) and were both asleep by 1:30. Which was good because someone’s alarm (when I say “someone’s”, I mean Dave’s) went off at 5:30. This same someone hit snooze like 20 times so we could listen to it repeatedly. Awesome.

We (yes, really both of us here since I was wide awake too at this point) got up at 6:30. He finished packing and was on the road by 7:30 to head to Alabama. So if you don’t count time time spent at the airport, driving home, packing, or sleeping, we had about 40 minutes together.

So now I’m home without him, fighting jet lag and a month’s worth of dirty clothes. I won the laundry war (4 loads and not a single casualty) which is a pretty big accomplishment because the jet lag is kicking my butt.

The vodka’s been bought, my hotel bill’s been paid, and I’m almost done packing. My plane leaves at 12:55 tomorrow, and after an eleven and a half hour flight (11 hours and 35 minutes to be exact) to Atlanta, a two hour lay over and then another two hours in the air, I’ll be home.

It can’t come soon enough.

I really do like it here (much more than I was expecting to) and hopefully will be back to visit again sometime with Dave. Right now though, I’m ready to be home. I miss Dave, and since he’ll be heading down to Alabama on Sunday I’ll be missing him for most of August too.

Anyway, I’ll catch up on Moscow once I’m back in the states. For now I need to finish packing and maybe get some sleep (it’s not like I won’t have plenty of time to sleep on the plane). Tomorrow night, at about 8:30, Dave will be there at the airport waiting for me. He’ll be ready to give me a huge hug and (almost as importantly) carry my bags.

After the Cucumber Festival Natalya (that’s what the tour guide told us to call her, the Führer title was optional) had some more history to shove down our throats share with us. I can’t complain about it too much though, I got some fantastic photos.

We visited the Saviour Monastery of St. Euthymius in Suzdal. On our way there we passed by the cathedral of the Nativity. If you hadn’t noticed, they have a lot of churches in Suzdal.

We continued our walk to the monastery, though if I had wanted to I could have had this guy or one of his friends give me a ride.

Can you guess what’s inside of the monastery walls? If you said church, you get a gold star! It’s the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, and I think it, and the 1st one I posted today, tie as my 2nd favorite (my 1st is St. Basils).

It does get bonus points for being the first church I was allowed to take photos in.

There was a great garden too – flowers and herbs and all sorts of pretty things.

And before we left I grabbed a photo of this wall surrounding the monastery. It really is my photo, and I took it the same day, I don’t know why the sky isn’t as blue as the first two photos though. Crazy Russian weather.

So now I am all caught up with Saturday’s adventures. Sunday was shopping at two different markets and then last night we took a boat ride down the Moscow River. Don’t worry, I took pictures both days and I’ve still got plenty of Russia left to share with you before I come home on Saturday.

Before we were given our “free time” at the cucumber festival our tour guide insisted on telling us all about Suzdal’s Museum of Wooden Architecture.

Any other day I would have been much more interested in hearing about how the umbilical cords of baby boys used to be cut with a knife, while girls’ were cut with scissors (because boys did manly things like hunt and kill things and girls sewed), but not when the cucumber festival was waiting!

Finally we were allowed to explore the festival. Our long winded tour guide gave us a whopping 45 minutes of free time. If she’d have cut out the umbilical cord talk we might have had a full hour. I still was able to see most of the festival – very quickly. I wasn’t able to browse all the crafty stands like I would have liked to or even stop to eat a single cucumber! I know, I know, what a shame (not really, I don’t like cucumbers, or pickles, or younger siblings that eat pickles and then chase you around the house and breathe on you).

I did get to listen to some music.

And see people dressed up in cucumber garb. Some just accessorized with hats.

And others went all out. It really was a family affair.

There were puppet shows.

And Mr. Potato Cucumber Heads. Can you see the stuffed cucumbers next to them? Did you have any idea how versatile the cucumber was? Remember from Forrest Gump? You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. There are cucumber-kabobs, cucumber creole, cucumber gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple cucumber, lemon cucumber, coconut cucumber, pepper cucumber, cucumber soup, cucumber stew, cucumber salad, cucumber and potatoes, cucumber burger, cucumber sandwich.

No wait, that was shrimp.

Check out this lovely quilt!! Imagine the fantastic cucumber dreams you’d have sleeping underneath it!

And at then end of the day, they made me their queen!!

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) are a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family. Though technically they are a fruit, cucumbers are often considered vegetables.

Saturday we got up bright and early for our bus ride to Vladimir and Suzdal. The trip wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be, but I’ll get in to more on that later.

After we’d been driving for about an hour and a half we stopped at a rest area to pick up a group of college students that were joining us. I decided to take advantage of the bathrooms there since we still had another hour or two before we got to Vladimir. Our guide had warned us that they were pay toilets, so I knew to have 10 rubles (about 43 cents) handy before I went in. What I was not expecting was that inside each stall was a hole in the floor.

Now it was a very nice hole, porcelain and everything, and you even got to flush the hole. It was not however, a new experience I was willing to try that early in the morning. Thankfully I didn’t have to go that bad, and so my 10 rubles were the only thing that went down the drain.

When we got to Vladimir we picked up our main tour guide. She was full of historical information and insisted on sharing all of it with us, down to the very last detail. Some of it was interesting, most of it was just too much though, “My dear people, this building was once a textile factory, it is now an office building, blah blah blah”.

It really put a damper on the day. I think most of us were expecting to see a couple of historical sites and then be let loose at the Cucumber Festival. It wasn’t like that at all. Instead, Führer Tour Guide kept us on a very tight leash. She also was constantly referring to us as, “My dear people” (the college students made a drinking game out of it).

Most of the Vladimir portion of the tour consisted of St. Demetrius Cathedral, Assumption Cathedral (you know what happens when you assume don’t you?), and the Golden Gates. All three are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and I’ll start with St. Demetrius, because that’s where the tour started.

I’ll have you know that I was reprimanded while taking that photo. In order to get a better shot, I dared to walk ten feet away from the group while the tour guide was talking.

The cathedral was built in the 1190s by Prince Vsevolod III the Big Nest (the “Big Nest” nickname is because he and his wife had at least 14 children).

We weren’t able to go inside of this church, but that’s okay. The outside was beautiful enough. There are over 1,000 individual carvings adorning the outside. The most noticeable is this one of King David, it appears on the building three times.

From St. Demetrius we were shepherded over to Assumption Cathedral (Do not dawdle my dear people!).

Vladimir was the capital of Russia from 1169 to the middle of the 14th century. Assumption was the principal church where Russian princes were crowned during this time and for some time after the capital was moved to Moscow.

Alexander Nevsky was named the Grand Prince of Vladimir in 1252. Nevsky was one of the great warriors of Russia during the Mongol period and was adored by his people. Prior to his death, he took religious vows and was given the holy name of Alexis. In 1547 he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as the patron saint of soldiers. See, I told you, they loved him.

Alexander died of pneumonia in 1263 and was buried in Assumption Cathedral. In 1710 Peter the Great founded a monastery in his honor in St. Petersburg. in 1724, on Peter’s orders, Nevsky’s remains were transferred from Vladimir to the monastery. The people of Vladimir were very upset by this decision and begged the Tsar not to move the body of the saint. According to our guide, “Peter the Great finally relented and gave them the finger”.

She meant, of course, that they left one finger in Nevsky’s original tomb and moved the rest of his body. It still cracks me up to picture Peter the Great flipping people the bird though.

The Chapel of St. George and this giant bell tower were added on to the church in the 1800s. These additions were built out of red brick covered in white mortar, instead of limestone like the cathedral. That’s why the style and color is so different.

And lastly we have the Golden Gates. Built in 1163, the massive oak doors of the Golden Gates formed the main entrance to Vladimir. While we were there, the gates were surrounded with restoration and repair equipment. So I didn’t even bother to photograph it. I did find someone else’s photo from a different time to share with you though.

And that, my dear people, is it for today.

Friday night I went to the Moscow Circus. According to our tickets, camera were not allowed. However before the show they only said video recordings were not permitted. So I took a bunch of pictures (I am such a rebel). Most of them didn’t turn out. I kept the flash off because I didn’t want to be responsible for blinding a tightrope walker or ticking off a lion.

There were crazy clowns on a big bike.

Seals, I think. Dave knows the difference between seals and sea lions. I don’t. My favorite was the big fella on the right.

A flamanco balancing hamster wheel act.

These lions made me sad. There was one point where the man put his head in a lion’s mouth. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping the lion would Siegfried him (yeah, I know it was Roy, not Siegfried, that got mauled, but if I said “Roy’ed him” – would anyone have gotten it?). The poor lion should be out killing things and being king of the jungle. Maybe I should have used the flash for these photos? No, that’s not nice. I didn’t really want anyone to get hurt. It was pretty heartbreaking though to see these beautiful majestic cats having to perform like that.

The tightrope walkers were really great. At one point one of the men walked across the rope with two women balancing on his head – one on top of the other. They did have a net. It wasn’t a very big net though.

Those are all of the acts that had enough light for my photos to turn out okay. They also had a bunch of bare midriffed “cowboys” doing tricks on horses, an Arabian act with racing camels, ice skating trapeze artists, and limboing acrobatic Kenyans (much like the act we actually saw in Kenya).

And one last picture for you, here’s my hotel. The light display on the side of it changes. Note the double headed eagle, just like on that coronation gown. Since the sun sets so late here it was the first time I’d seen it in the dark, well, almost dark.

That’s it for tonight.  It’s already past my bedtime!  I’ll start catching up on today and yesterday tomorrow.

Rob commented that, “they have a lot of nice things they never use there”, referring to the massive cannon and broken bell. Well here is one more for you.

This carriage was built for one of the empresses (I think Elisabeth, but maybe Catherine). According to our guide, when it was completed they hitched 6 horses to it. The carriage didn’t budge. They doubled the number of horses and it still didn’t move (it needed more horse power – ha ha). So they took the wheels off of it and put it up on cinder blocks in the front yard. Okay, maybe not. They did pretty much park it until they had a museum to show it off in though.

It does look like something straight out of a fairy tale doesn’t it? I wish I could take credit for the photo – but I had to use someone else’s since photos we not permitted while we were there. Since I’m in a photo borrowing mood, let’s see what else I can find from the Armoury.

Here is Catherine the Great’s wedding gown. Check out that tiny, tiny waist. She was married when she was 16.

She was crowned empress at age 33. This was after she’d had three children. Look what it did to her hips! You can sort of see the emblem of Russia which is embroidered on her gown in gold, it’s a double headed eagle.

Tomorrow night we’re going to the circus and then Saturday it’s off to the 8th International Cucumber Festival. I’ll be taking lots of pictures!

Would you believe in that massively long post I wrote last time that I forgot something? I didn’t mention the race cars. They turned the streets around the Kremlin into an improvised race track for Formula One cars. It was just a demonstration, but the cars were so loud! We caught a glimpse of 4 or 5 cars going around a corner, but that was really it. Still it was pretty cool to be (quite literally) in the middle of it all.

Other than that I don’t really have much to write about tonight. Work is going really well (just thought I’d toss that out there so people know I am in fact working while I’m here). I do have one picture for you though. This was taken out my hotel room window just a few minutes ago (it’s 10:06 PM right now).

It’s supposed to rain most of the day tomorrow. An umbrella would have been a good thing to bring with me wouldn’t it?

We started today’s tour with another ride down the scariest, steepest escalator known to man. Once we got to the Kremlin, the first thing we noticed were these cannons outside of the Arsenal. The cannons were captured from the French during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).

Then we passed by the Poteshny Palace (the yellow building). It was built by Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich in the 17th century and housed the first Russian theater. Tsar Alexey enjoyed various comedic performances in the theater (often lasting days at a time). However, in the Russian Orthodox Church, attending such shows was a sin, so immediately after leaving the theater Tsar Alexey would attend a mass to repent his sins (note how close the church is to the theater).

And here’s Russia’s version of the “White House”, meaning that their president has his office there. I took about 10 pictures of this building to try and make sure I got a good one of the flag blowing in the breeze. I think I was successful, though with my perspective on this photo the building looks crooked. Oh well, focus on how nice the flag looks.

And here we have Tsar Pushka (literally, Tsar Cannon). The cannon was commissioned in 1586 by Tsar Feodor and weighs nearly 38 tons. The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the largest howitzer ever made.

The cannon has never been fired. In fact, the cannonballs in front of it are too big to even fit inside of it. I know, I measured them (or I read it in my guidebook, same thing). It’s believed the cannon was never intended to be fired and was made only to intimidate Russia’s enemies.

Not far from the cannon is this massive bell, helping prove that every thing’s bigger in Texas Moscow.

The bell was commissioned by Empress Anna, niece of Peter the Great, and is currently the largest bell in the world. The bell weighs 216 tons and is about 20 feet tall. Unfortunately the bell has never been rung. After being cast in 1737, the bell was cooling off when it came in contact with water. This major “oops” caused an 11 ton chunk of the bell to break off.

Here we have the Annunciation Cathedral. Interesting fact, during WWII Stalin had all of the crosses removed from the tops of the churches. This is because the crosses are always placed East-West and low flying enemy planes could use the crosses to help navigate.

The inside of this church was beautiful, unfortunately photos (even without the flash) were not allowed.

We went in a couple of other churches as well. One had a beautiful quartet singing in it (I think it was Archangel Cathedral). I could have listened to them all day. I’m not 100% sure, but I think it’s the church above with the silver domes. The artwork and tombs of the Tsars were truely awesome to see.

Here is one of the Kremlin’s 20 towers and another beautifully fluttering flag. In 1935 Stalin removed the imperial double-headed eagles from the five tallest towers and replaced them with these red-glass stars. According to our guide today (Igor), the stars are important to Russians because the 5 points of the star represent the 5 continents that Russia wanted to have power over.

This picture isn’t the greatest, but I am including it because I want to tell the story, and stories are always better with pictures. Okay, see the falcon? The Russian Army has some members that are falcon trainers. Every once in a while they’ll have them out with the falcons to scare pigeons away from the shiny pretty domes. It helps keep the domes shiny and pretty and pigeon poop free.

After this we had a tour of the Kremlin’s Armory. There was no shortage of things to look at in the Armory. We saw Katherine the Great’s coronation gowns, Tsar Alexy’s 800 diamond throne (oooh sparkley), and the carriages (and sleighs) of Empress Elizabeth, just to name a few things. No photos allowed there either, so you’ll just have to trust me that it was fantastic.

My favorite display by far was that of the Fabergé Easter Eggs. Carl Fabergé and his goldsmiths designed and constructed the first egg in 1885. It was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III as an Easter surprise for his wife, Maria. Empress Maria was so delighted by this gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a “Court Supplier” and commissioned an Easter gift each year thereafter, stipulating only that it be unique and contain a surprise. They were amazing and so beautiful. I wish my husband would get me a Fabergé egg each Easter.

Okay, almost done. I promise. I can’t help it, I write like I talk, and I talk a lot.

After leaving the Kremlin we walked around Red Square. We passed by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The tomb contains the remains of one soldier that died in December of 1941. The inscription reads, “Your name is unknown, your deed immortal”. The tomb is watched over by two guards and newlyweds often bring flowers and have their photos taken here.

We also passed by Lenin’s tomb. Unfortunately it was closed while we were there so we were not able to go in and pay our respects.

The last thing we saw today was St. Basil’s Cathedral. This cathedral was built between 1555 and 1561 to celebrate Ivan the Terrible’s capture of Kazan. Legend has it that once the cathedral was completed, Ivan had the architect blinded so that he could never again create anything like it. Napoleon ordered it to be destroyed in 1812, however (thankfully) his troops did not have enough time.

Okay, the end. I hope you all enjoyed today’s history lesson.

PS – Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad.