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Red Square (Krasnaia Ploshchad')

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tretjak
tretjak
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4 out of 5
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Editor Pick

Red Square

  • August 27, 2000
  • Rated 4 of 5 by IWW639 from New Orleans, Louisiana
Red Square

Home of St. Basil's Cathedral and Lenin's tomb, I couldn't believe I was actually there. I felt like I was in a story book looking at St. Basil's. The onion shaped towers were awesome. They are that shape for two reasons, I'm told, the snow can't stick and they are flame shaped like a candle offering up to God. I don't know if that's true but it's some useless trivia that I retained.

Across from St. Basil's is Lenin's Tomb. The wax-like corpse former Soviet dictator is housed in a red and black block pyramid-castley thing. We had to wait in line for over an hour to walk thru. Pictures were not allowed, but I was able to catch the changing of the guard outside the temple. The guards march is sooo Russian, straight legged and swinging arm. Inside, we had to keep the line moving, and it was overwhelming to wonder what they saw in this dead dude.

Lenins tomb is located at the end of a line of former Stalinists graves.

From journal Moscow, USSR

Editor Pick

Magic Feelings at Red Square/Lenin's Tomb

  • August 11, 2000
  • Rated 4 of 5 by tretjak from Sundsvall, Medelpad, Sweden
One day the whole Swedish troop, Henrik, Niklas, Birgitta and I, took off early in the morning for the Lenin mausoleum in the heart of Russia: The Red Square. The enormous square is sealed off between 10 and 1 p.m. (when the mausoleum is open) and is open only from one direction. This meant we had to go a roundabout way of about 2 kms. Maybe the safety regulations were tighter when we there because a bomb went on the St. Petersburg to Moscow train (I told you about before). We finally reached the security control, and were subjected to a careful examination by the police force. Naturally the cops found our cameras. We needed to go some more kilometers to nervously leave our expensive equipment in a luggage store. The babushka there complained loudly when we paid with ten 100 ruble notes instead of one 1000 bill. Niklas had had enough and shouted loudly,'It probably would have been better if the Germans had taken over this s**t in WW2.' (By the way, in Russia WW2 is called the Great Patriotic War).

It is a magical feeling to visit the mausoleum. The military guards told us to be quiet and quickly walk past Lenin without stopping. He looks a bit like he is made of plastic. Considering he had been dead since 1924, he still looked rather fresh to me. Lenin is asleep wearing a black costume. The room is dark except from the light above the revolutionary leader 'Vlad'. A delicate (and probably unsolvable) problem is whether Lenin should be buried or not. Half of the population wants to get rid of their communist past, and the other half wants to keep 'Vlad' as he is (without doubt) part of the Russian history. I personally think that if Lenin is buried, a civil war will break out. I hope I am wrong. If they decide to bury him after all, it would be cool to go to Lenin´s funeral! Would Clinton attend?

At the Kreml wall behind the mausoleum Stalin, Breznjev, Tjernenko, Andropov, Kalinin and other celebrities are buried. Finally, in an opening of the wall, we find the grave of our hero, kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Mission completed.

From journal Moscow - city of contrasts

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