From Russia with love, part 1 (read from bottom up)

always winter and never Christmas?
Outside of Moscow (on the estate of the man who killed Rasputin!) we came across Edmund on a troika. Well, o.k. it wasn’t Edmund, but it sure looks like it could have been! November, and it looks and feels like the middle of winter! For more information about this estate, check out www.arkhangelskoe.ru.





Colossal waste or inspired vision?
In the words of WayToRussia.Net: “The Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Is the main church in Moscow. Opened in 1883, in a memory of Russian victory over Napoleon in 1812, this building was the biggest cathedral in Russia. But communists didn’t like it and planned to build a Palace of the Soviets in it’s place. So the Cathedral was destroyed. Meanwhile, communists couldn’t manage to build the Palace so they place an open swimming pool there. Nowadays, Moscow Mayer decided to rebuild the Cathedral. He spent fortune to build Cathedral again.” WayToRussia.Net - worth checking out! (By the way, the Russian language does not make use of articles. Can you imagine how confusing it must be to figure out “the” and “a” without some frame of reference in one’s own language?!)






Day of Unity
On Russia’s new Day of Unity (our first Saturday in Russia), we were unable to make our way into the Kremlin, or even into Red Square. Security was tight. Still, how meaningful to be in the heart of Moscow at this momentous time and place. We came across a small communist protest against economic and political changes that are leaving so many people behind, especially those who don’t live and work in the big cities. Somehow the bird sitting on top of Marx’s head makes the whole sight seem that much more tragic.






another changing of the guards...
Russia is a land in the throes of another kind of changing of the guards: the new is replacing the old (often with the older). Here we see that the red star of the USSR has been replaced by the two-headed eagle (an older symbol of Russia) on top of one of the Kremlin’s many towers. Interesting how appropriate this symbol is for a nation that spent the last century being pulled in (at least) two diametrically opposed directions. How exciting to be in Russia in November of 2006, when for the first time since the revolution, November 7th was a regular working day. For the past few years November 7th has ceased to be celebrated as Revolution Day - and has been commemorated instead as a Day of Grief, or a Day of Reconciliation. But this year the holiday was excised outright for the very first time, and replaced by a new holiday: November 4th, designated as a “Day of Unity.”






changing of the guards...
And now for something completely different - RUSSIA! This is the tomb of the unknown soldier, located along an outside wall of the Kremlin. The soldiers guarding it are very young, probably recruits in training. There are many very young soldiers in Russia. A lot of attention goes to security here in Russia. Even in our hotel and at the university and in the churches and in the shops and in the metro and in the museums... there are guards who watch our comings and our goings very closely.