Today was the day I have been waiting for. We were finally going to visit the Kremlin. The White House of Russia. The capitol of the capitol. The location of the all the important government offices. Unbeknownst to me and several other people, the Kremlin is not actually a building. It is more of a fortress. It is a walled area of several cathedrals, armories, and government offices. Billions of dollars in valuables are stored within the Kremlin walls.
Because of the importance of the location, I was surprised to notice the lack of security measures that were taken when we entered the Kremlin gates. All we had to do was walk through a metal detector. They did not scan or even check our bags. They did not ask for our passports or student identification cards. Astoundingly, when someone was beeped passing through the metal detector, the guard in attendance just said "Go" without a further care in the world. Compared to security elsewhere in Russia, this is nothing. We have to provide identification every time we enter the MSU campus and must pass through two metal detectors and another identification check to get to our rooms. There is a guard on each floor of the building of MSU and usually two at every entrance. They also have the power to stop you in the halls and ask for your passport if need be. For a tour of our state capitol, you had to go through a background check and register through a senator or congressman.
Once inside the Kremlin, our tour guide showed us some of the buildings from the outside, mentioning that the yellow buildings were government offices (to my disgruntlement, we never stepped foot inside one). We also saw the largest cannon in the world (which was never used because the it was too heavy to move) and the largest bell in the world (which cracked because it was too heavy to be used). I feel like Russian history is just a long line of attempting to look really good, but failing in reality. Much of it is based on a facade of elegance and grandiose ideas that hide the practical realities of earth. Our dormitory, for example, appears large and intimidating on the outside, but on the inside, you realize that the Soviets didn't have a large enough budget to make the living situation very practical. The Soviet Union as a whole was based on an illusion of strength (as seen in the strong military building following World War II and Stalin's rapid industrialization), but many people were just lying to meet Stalin's quotas, leading to an extremely inefficient economy and creating a veil that was eventually uncovered with glasnost and perestroika. Several people were lied to. They thought that their standard of living was superior to that of any other country in the world, but that is because people were rarely allowed to travel overseas to experience consumer products for themselves.
Anyways, we went to Cathedral Square, where the tour guide explained to us that there were cathedrals for different purposes. These uses ranged from baptism, everyday prayer, tourist visitation, important ceremonies, and funeral ceremonies for great leaders. We then saw a touristy ceremony for the changing of the guard. There were horses in it and guys with swords! I enjoyed it. We then went to the armory, which was a magnificent building (this time more beautiful on the inside, than on the outside) that housed several of the Kremlin's royal gifts and jewels. We were shown the dresses and carriages of Elizabeth I of Russia and Catherine the Great. Elizabeth lived quite lavishly from what I could tell by all of the carriages she owned. Continuing with the facade theme, one of her last carriages was actually made of wood, but painted gold because she was running out of money in the treasury. Random fact: I read on Wikipedia today that Tsarina Anna enjoyed practical jokes and once hand the warning bells of Moscow rung to see how people would react to a panic. It wouldn't be Russia without it's random stories.
Also in the armory were several gifts that were given to tzars as gifts from other countries and thrones of tzars (including the famous dual-seated throne for Peter I and his half-brother Ivan V with a hole in the back of Peter's seat for his older sister, Sophia, to listen and feed him information as he spoke with diplomats). Many of the items were divided into pre-Peter the Great and post-Peter the Great, because of the difference in Asian and European style items. Peter was known as the great Westernizer, and adopted European clothing and styles in his kingdom that continued until the Bolshevik Revolution.
One of the students who was with us, Marina, took us on a tour of the subway stations. At lunch, she was telling us about how several of the Central Asian immigrants from Russia (those who were waiters at the restaurant we were at) were rude and like to cheat you out of your money. It was interesting she said that, because the last time we ate at the restaurant, the waiter billed us for more than our dish cost. It was a good thing we caught it, or else I would be left paying 35 more rubles than I had to. I think a large part of this is because we are foreigners. It is difficult for us to dispute the charges, because we can't speak Russian very well. We had a student with us that one time, but there was another time that I was buying a candy bar which was labeled for 12 rubles. The cashier charged me 14. I put down twelve coins and pointed to the price, but the cashier simply pointed to the calculator. I was left paying two more rubles that I needed. It was really the equivalent of 7.5 cents, but is the principle that matters.
Marina also told us that she was a communist sympathizer and that she voted for Putin in the next election, because he appeared to have a plan that would bring Russia forward. It is interesting how a communist could be attracted to Putin. Marina was nostalgic of the Soviet times and must have appreciated a powerful leader when she saw one. She said that the Yeltsin years were some of the worst years of Russia and that was because of capitalism. It shows how Putin is attractive to several different groups.
The tour of the subways was pretty cool. It was neat because it was like taking a step into the Soviet past. Almost every subway was built during the reign of Stalin and Khrushchev and the architecture, monuments, and statues definitely show it. Although most of the communist perophanalia was either destroyed during perestroika or uprooted and placed in an area next to Gorky Park, but this could not be done in the subways, because much of the destruction would involve destroying the subway station as a whole. On the ceilings of the stations, there were tiled portraits of Lenin giving speeches to the masses hammer and sickles galore. One station had dozens of statues of working men and women (and dogs for some reason). The ruby star was a common symbol as well (the five points represent the five hand of the working man). Marina also showed us where statues of Stalin had been taken down. You could tell her Soviet sympathies in the way she gave her presentation. She mentioned that there have been no great subway stations built since Stalin. She also went so far as to say that Stalin was modest enough to delay the finishing of a subway station by two years so that people wouldn't think that it was on his 50th anniversary and thus a tribute to him. My projection is that Stalin probably realized it was going to take longer to build the station than originally planned and told everyone that he was delaying it out of modesty. Instead, he just put a statue of himself in the center of the entrance to the station. What a nice guy.
Because of the importance of the location, I was surprised to notice the lack of security measures that were taken when we entered the Kremlin gates. All we had to do was walk through a metal detector. They did not scan or even check our bags. They did not ask for our passports or student identification cards. Astoundingly, when someone was beeped passing through the metal detector, the guard in attendance just said "Go" without a further care in the world. Compared to security elsewhere in Russia, this is nothing. We have to provide identification every time we enter the MSU campus and must pass through two metal detectors and another identification check to get to our rooms. There is a guard on each floor of the building of MSU and usually two at every entrance. They also have the power to stop you in the halls and ask for your passport if need be. For a tour of our state capitol, you had to go through a background check and register through a senator or congressman.
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| The Kremlin |
Anyways, we went to Cathedral Square, where the tour guide explained to us that there were cathedrals for different purposes. These uses ranged from baptism, everyday prayer, tourist visitation, important ceremonies, and funeral ceremonies for great leaders. We then saw a touristy ceremony for the changing of the guard. There were horses in it and guys with swords! I enjoyed it. We then went to the armory, which was a magnificent building (this time more beautiful on the inside, than on the outside) that housed several of the Kremlin's royal gifts and jewels. We were shown the dresses and carriages of Elizabeth I of Russia and Catherine the Great. Elizabeth lived quite lavishly from what I could tell by all of the carriages she owned. Continuing with the facade theme, one of her last carriages was actually made of wood, but painted gold because she was running out of money in the treasury. Random fact: I read on Wikipedia today that Tsarina Anna enjoyed practical jokes and once hand the warning bells of Moscow rung to see how people would react to a panic. It wouldn't be Russia without it's random stories.
Also in the armory were several gifts that were given to tzars as gifts from other countries and thrones of tzars (including the famous dual-seated throne for Peter I and his half-brother Ivan V with a hole in the back of Peter's seat for his older sister, Sophia, to listen and feed him information as he spoke with diplomats). Many of the items were divided into pre-Peter the Great and post-Peter the Great, because of the difference in Asian and European style items. Peter was known as the great Westernizer, and adopted European clothing and styles in his kingdom that continued until the Bolshevik Revolution.
One of the students who was with us, Marina, took us on a tour of the subway stations. At lunch, she was telling us about how several of the Central Asian immigrants from Russia (those who were waiters at the restaurant we were at) were rude and like to cheat you out of your money. It was interesting she said that, because the last time we ate at the restaurant, the waiter billed us for more than our dish cost. It was a good thing we caught it, or else I would be left paying 35 more rubles than I had to. I think a large part of this is because we are foreigners. It is difficult for us to dispute the charges, because we can't speak Russian very well. We had a student with us that one time, but there was another time that I was buying a candy bar which was labeled for 12 rubles. The cashier charged me 14. I put down twelve coins and pointed to the price, but the cashier simply pointed to the calculator. I was left paying two more rubles that I needed. It was really the equivalent of 7.5 cents, but is the principle that matters.
Marina also told us that she was a communist sympathizer and that she voted for Putin in the next election, because he appeared to have a plan that would bring Russia forward. It is interesting how a communist could be attracted to Putin. Marina was nostalgic of the Soviet times and must have appreciated a powerful leader when she saw one. She said that the Yeltsin years were some of the worst years of Russia and that was because of capitalism. It shows how Putin is attractive to several different groups.
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| Moscow Subway Station |
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