Down to Gorky Park to listen to the Wind of Change

If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to not base a day of sightseeing on a song, especially 1991′s most popular power balad.  Wind of Change.  We really should have learned our lesson from 2006, after turning up at the hottest spot north of Havana, only to find that “their” copacabana is a health retreat popular with Hondurans, and that the real Copacabana is actually in New York City.

Down in Gorky Park, it’s basically last one to leave turn out the lights.  The only thing we were remotely interested in seeing, was a sign that says Gorky Park in an easy to read format, which we didn’t find, and Russias answer to the space shuttle, the Buran.  The one in Gorky Park is only a training vessel, that never flew in space, but it’s still pretty cool. Sadly, it was closed for maintenance.

Never flew in space, closed for maintenance

With this disappointment behind us, we headed off to the Fallen Monuments Park, which contains many vandalised statues that were torn down in the waves of anti Soviet feeling that swept over Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  This place was actually pretty cool.  Check the gallery below.

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Back onto the Metro and back to Red Square, for our visit to the Kremlin.  We wait for our guide out the front of the General Zhukov statue which is basically Moscows answer to the clocks at Flinders St.

General Zhukov

We met Irena, our guide.  Irena was pretty cool and about 150% into the Kremlin and Armoury.  The Kremlin is like NOTHING I expected, it was actually one of those rare moments when travelling, that you see something you’ve heard of, but really have no idea of what to expect.  Now, if your in the same boat as I was, look away now, because here come some pictures.

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See, how good was that!  In my opinion, stunning, and you haven’t even seen inside some of those churches.  The interiors of Russian Orthodox churches are stunning.

Later, we visited the Armoury, inside the Kremlin.  The Armoury contains pretty much all of the Czarist treasures, ranging well back into the middle ages.  The Armoury makes The Tower of London, look like a garage sale, the kind of garage sale you come late to and all of the good stuff has already been taken.  Inside, are solid gold bible covers, encrusted in rubys and emeralds, they have full suits of armour, including horse armour, there are handmade rifles and pistols, that are more artwork than weaponry, they have original clothing, carriages, art, plates, cups and the famed Faberge eggs.

The Faberge eggs, were much smaller than I expected, but this somehow makes them even more amazing.  One egg, commemorating the opening of the original Trans-Siberian, contains a minature train made out of solid gold, that is also fully operational.

At this stage we’ve been on the go for around 9 hours, but there is still more to pack into our day.  After a bit of a sit and a snack in the Alexander Gardens next to the Kremlin, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and grab some more photos of St Basils.

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Your probably wondering, what more could we have done, but there was more.  Walking back through Red Square, on the way to the Metro, we heard beautiful music coming from one of the churches.  We found ourselves wedged into a Russian Orthodox church, during the evening service.  One of those “happy accidents” that make travel, the truly awesome experience it is.  We stood shoulder to shoulder, with babuskas, old men, families and listened to truly angelic singing.  It was a pretty magical experience.

Finally, at around 7pm, we got back to the hotel and unleashed our hunger on the exec lounge for a second session of eating and drinking.