Moscow

Moscow has been fascinating. We expected a Soviet city and found a European city, with buildings that reflect the 18th century mostly.

Red Square isn't as large as we anticipated. Of course, we have been in Beijing and Ulaan Bator, where they know what a big square means. But it's also those memories of the newsreels with the Kremlin "heavies" reviewing the massed military parades from the balcony on Lenin's mausoleum. It's isn't that big - in fact the Lenin Mausolem is only about 5 metres high. It must have been quite a crush to get all that Soviet military hardware into the square.

We did a tour of the Kremlin, including the various churches within (Assumption, Annunciation and Archangel) and then to the Armoury. This contains the treasures of the Kremlin, including lots of gold and silver plates, various historical armour and costumes and items like Faberge eggs.

We found a couple of interesting places for lunch ("business lunches" are good value), we took our own tour of the Metro (fantastic stations), we saw the rebuilt Church of the Holy Saviour, we went to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, we strolled down Arbat Srtreet and we took a cruise on the Moscow River. The Bolshoi Theatre is closed for renovations, but we managed to see the company perform the opera Yolanda in a smaller (newer) adjacent theatre. We even found time to call in to see V.I. Lenin (after some queuing). We had a busy time, but we got some sense of this city.

Then it was one more train ride - the overnight to St Petersberg. This is an 8 hour trip, which leaves just before midnight. It was one of about six trains to St Petersberg that night. First class gave us a comfortable night's sleep.