Moscow, Russia: The Kremlin, in All its Glory

On our first day in Moscow, we visited the impressive past and present center of the Russian government, the Kremlin.  The walled fortress, used as a seat of Russian government from the fourteenth century on, was the locale of the grand dukes and patriarchs, the residence of the tsars, and was still important in imperial Russia, when the emperors moved the capital to St. Petersburg for two hundred years.  Despite all this history, its recent stint as the seat of the Soviet Union (1918-1991) is probably the strongest image evoked by the name 'The Kremlin'.  Above you can see us in front the city-facing west wall of the complex.

This is Trinity Tower, one of the twenty in the fortress's walls.

These are the bell towers of cathedral square, which has five different cathedrals built from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries.  Housing the bodies of all the tsars (and many of their families) save one, and used for the coronation of all the tsars and emperors until the 1918 Revolution, these cathedrals had a myriad of frescoes and icons dating from the 11th until the 17th centuries.  Unfortunately, no pictures inside were allowed, and I couldn't get a good panorama shot, but imagine cathedrals completely surrounding me in the picture above, and you get the general idea.

About a third of the area enclosed in the Kremlin is forest, fruit trees, and flower-lined paths.  Since the tsars and dukes used to live there in the Grand Kremlin Palace, my guess is that the royalty and nobility used this area as a sort of 'palace grounds'.  I used it to consume my usual afternoon ice cream.

One more thing: congratulations to two very dear friends.  I wish you both a lifetime of happiness, love, and hockey :-)  Love you both!