Kremlin, Moscow,Russia

We boarded the train for Moscow the following day -- it was hard to imagine that Moscow could surpass our time in St. Petersburg -- but it did.  The two cities are vastly different: St. Petersburg is the Venice of the North, while Moscow is a Cosmopolitan city.  In preparation for the next Olympics, they have done a magnificent job of converting the city into a modern Metropolis.

Upon arrival, our doorman greeted us at the entrance to what was once a government hotel, The Hotel National, a lavish five-star hotel located on the edge of Red Square.  It sits in front of the Ritz-Carlton and diagonally across from the new Four Seasons -- a better view than either hotel.  Permitting one to actually experience Moscow, the hotel has been renovated with eighteenth century artifacts and furnishings and is run by an excellent Russian staff.  We toured our hotel suite, enjoyed the view of Red Square, and then decided to investigate the Kremlin.

Instituted by Peter the Great at the end of the 17th Century, the original Kremlin was not completed until 1736 by Field Marshal von Munnich (mainly due to a lack of funds from having to support wars).  After buying tickets at an electronic kiosk, Vic, Brendon, and I went into the Kremlin, toured several cathedrals and museums (for more information about the cathedrals http://www.moscow.info/kremlin/churches/index.aspx.), and admired some of the 875 cannons won by Tsar Alexander I from Napoleon's French army during the War of 1812 (included in that number are Prussian, Austrian, Italian, and Bavarian cannons).

We also admired an enormous, bronze bell caste in the 15th Century that originally hung in Ivan the Great Bell Tower; however, during a mid-seventeenth century fire, it shattered after plummeting to the ground.  Using the bronze from the original, they caste a second, larger Tsar Bell in 1655 (weighing 100,000 kg) that was destroyed by fire in 1701.  A final bell was caste in the ground between 1734 and 1737, but it too succumbed to fire and cracked when guards threw cold water on it, leaving the bell that remains on the Kremlin grounds today.  We finished our tour that day in the Alexander Garden at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin Wall.