Russia Moscow - Red Square a childhood dream come true
I had the opportunity to visit Red Square on the way to climb Mt Elbrus. It has been a childhood dream, a bucket list goal and here I was in mother Russia and I was about to stand in Red Square and take in all the iconic and grand old buildings I had only seen in photographs, James Bond and spy movies. I cannot begin to explain the absolute joy I felt. Only slightly mared by taking along the wrong travel partner who turned out to be rather difficult, but I will be back and one day to share it with my hubby and family. Pushing aside my disappointment I was going to enjoy my Red Square experience come hell or high water.
I visited the square twice. One of the days it was piping hot and the second we had a storm and it was raining. Both days were epic and I will treasure the experience for the rest of my life.
In 1990 both The Kremlin and Red square were recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site mostly due to their history dated back to the 13th century and here 2016 I stood. Just WOW!
I have divided the blogs up as Red Square as a whole with the Kremlin and a few other places of interest included. A separate blog for St Basil's Cathedral and Iberian Gate and Chapel. I have also created a separate blog for the outside and surrounds of Red Square, as well as the underground Metro rails system and one on what I got to see of Moscow the actual city. I hope you will enjoy them and one day go and visit. Moscow is certainly a place to explore and create your own adventures in the flesh and not while watching a spy movie!!
At the entrance to Red Square stands the incredible Iberian Gate and Chapel, its beautiful red and white bricks and turquoise blues and greens draws you in and you know you are in for a visual treat. Resurrection Gate or Iberian gate is the only existing gate of the Kitai-gorod in Moscow connecting the north-western end of Red Square with Manege Square.
It has such a history all by itself and I have decided to create a separate blog just on this area as well as the spot outside to the right of this above photo that depicts the center of Moscow. The gate has two huge buildings on either side and on the left the brown building is the Moscow City Hall and on the right side is the red building, the State historical museum. Just in front of the chapel on the paved area is a bronze plaque marking kilometer zero of the Russian highway system.
The buildings surrounding the Square are all significant like Lenin's Mausoleum, for example, which contains the embalmed body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union. Close by in the South is the elaborate brightly domed Saint Basil's Cathedral and the palaces and cathedrals of the Kremlin. The buildings are all well maintained and spotless, they almost look plastic or a brand new movie set!
Below is a useful map I found of Red Square. Kremlin; Lenin Mausoleum; State Museum; Kazan Cathedral; V. Gates; GUM store and Saint Basil: So on the Eastern side of the square is the GUM department store, and next to it the beautifully restored Kazan Cathedral. The Northern side is occupied by the huge red State Historical Museum, whose outlines echo those of Kremlin towers. The beautifully ornate Iberian Gate and Chapel have been rebuilt to the Northwest side.
The only sculptured monument on the square is a bronze statue of Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, who helped to clear Moscow from the Polish invaders in 1612, during the Times of Trouble, its found near St Basil's Cathedral (more later). Nearby is the Lobnoye Mesto, an interesting circular platform where public ceremonies used to take place. Both the Minin and Pozharskiy statue and the Lobnoye Mesto were once located more centrally in Red Square but were moved to their current locations to facilitate the large military parades of the Soviet era. The square itself is around 330 meters (1,080 feet) long and 70 meters (230 feet) wide.
As you enter through the gates you don't know where to look first. It overwhelms you in so many ways it is so hard to describe. It takes your breath away and your heart nearly stops. So many memories of movies, story books and fantasies collide in one vivid and beautiful sight. "Pinch me", I heard myself say!! This was my first view. (see above photo). To my left is the Kazan Cathedral that dates back to 1612-25 and then it was reconstructed in 1993. Further along to my left is the famous GUM department store which I visited. More pictures and information to follow in a separate blog. to my immediate right is the State Museum and further along on the right is the start of the Kremlin and in the far distance to the right you can see St Basil's Cathedral peeping out.
As I was walking along the cobbled walk way,I could not help but wonder how many bricks had been used to pave it. More so how many bricks were used in the entire Red Square. It just boggles the mind just thinking about it. Incredible! The buildings are just so incredibly colourful and huge. It just did not seem real!
The spot where the museum now stands was formerly occupied by the Principal Medicine Store, built by order of Peter the Great in Moscow baroque style. I was told that several of the rooms actually housed royal collections of antiquities while other rooms were occupied by the Moscow University, founded by Mikhail Lomonosov in 1755.
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| The beautifully carved old doors at the back of the State Museum. |
The museum itself was actually founded back in 1872 by Ivan Zabelin, Aleksey Uvarov and several other Slavophiles interested in promoting Russian history and national self-awareness. The board of trustees, which comprised of of Sergey Solovyov, Vasily Klyuchevsky, Uvarov and other leading historians, watched and presided over the actual construction of the museum building. It took a long time to complete and once done, it was handed over to Vladimir Osipovich Shervud (or Sherwood, 1833–97).
View from the northwest side:
The present structure was built based on Sherwood's neo-Russian design between 1875 and 1881. The first 11 exhibit halls officially opened back in 1883, while the Tsar and his wife where visiting. In 1894 the Tsar Alexander III became the honorary president of the museum and the following year, in 1895, the museum was renamed the Tsar Alexander III Imperial Russian History Museum. The interior of the museum was beautifully and intricately decorated in a style known as the Russian Revival style. The talented artists where the likes of Viktor Vasnetsov, Henrik Semiradsky, and Ivan Aivazovsky. Sadly sometime during the Soviet period the murals were proclaimed gaudy and were plastered over. A tragedy!! Thankfully in 1986 to 1997 the museum went through a painstaking restoration to regain its original appearance.
The museum as seen from ground level: I only manged a quick peak and did not go inside to view it properly. So another bucket list quest prevails! This was rather impressive to find out that they have a magnificent longboat excavated from the banks of the Volga River (sons would love this!), several gold artifacts which belonged to the Scythians, some birch-bark scrolls of Novgorod, manuscripts going back to the sixth century, Russian folk ceramics, and wooden objects.(my historian daughter would be doing cartwheels!). The library holds precious manuscripts of the Chludov Psalter (860s), Svyatoslav's Miscellanies (1073), Mstislav Gospel (1117), Yuriev Gospel (1119), and Halych Gospel (1144). The museum's coin collection alone includes 1.7 million coins, making it the largest in Russia. something my youngest son would love to see!! I am told that in 1996, the number of all articles in the museum's collection reached 4,373,757. No one could or would give what the current collection was. 
If found this a little confusing but a branch of the museum is housed in the Romanov Chambers Zaryadye and Saint Basil's Cathedral. The Museum of Women's Emancipation at the Novodevichy Convent became part of the State Historical Museum. Some of the churches and other monastic buildings are still affiliated with the State Historical Museum. So this museum and its affiliated buildings its just huge. After going to the Greek Archaeological Museum in Athens which comprises of several floors, I wondered how this would compare item per item. Would be interesting.
I had had some misconceptions on what some of the buildings were called as not everything we see is the Kremlin. I could not spend as much time taking it all as our time was limited. We could not get into the Kremlin as it was closed that day and a lot of construction of a temporary stadium with scaffolding was being erected for a big function. I got to stand in front of St Basil's Cathedral and stand on its lush green grass and touch its walls as I looked up at the giant kaleidoscope of colours and ornamental adornment. It did look just like a giant ginger bread house. The lines to go in were very long and sadly I could not go in but this is something I will leave and share with my family first hand.
Lining the sides of the paved Red Square are many vendors with their wares housed in wooden huts, carts and other interesting structures. The handcrafts are magnificent and your senses are filled once again with a kaleidoscope of colours, ethic richness, a strong proud culture and a rigid vibrancy.
Red Square remains, as it has been for centuries, the heart and soul of Russia. Few places in the world bear the weight of history to the extent that Moscow's central square does. From the 16th Century St. Basil's Cathedral - one of the most famous pieces of architecture in the world - to the constructionist pyramid of Lenin's Mausoleum, Red Square is rich in symbols of Russia's turbulent and intriguing past.
Red Square began life as a slum, a shanty town of wooden huts clustered beneath the Kremlin walls that housed a collection of peddlers, criminals and drunks whose status left them outside the official boundaries of the medieval city. It was cleared on the orders of Ivan III at the end of the 1400's, but remained the province of the mob, the site of public executions, and rabble rousing, until much later.
The square's name has nothing to do with communism or with the color of many of its buildings. In fact it derives from the word 'krasnyi', which once meant 'beautiful', and has only come to mean 'red' in contemporary Russian. The name became official in the middle of the 17th century - previously it had been Trinity Square, due to the Trinity Cathedral, the predecessor of St. Basil's. Popularly, it was also known as 'Fire Square', reflecting the number of times medieval Moscow burned. During the Mongol and Tartar invasions, it was the site of fierce fighting, and right up until the end of the 17th century cannon stood ready to defend the square.
Red Square came into its own in the 20th Century, when it was most famous as the site of official military parades demonstrating to the world the might of the Soviet armed forces. Two of these will be remembered forever. The first was the parade of 7 November 1941, when columns of young cadets marched through the square and straight on to the frontline, which by that point was less than 50km from Moscow. The second was the victory parade on 24 June 1945, when two hundred Nazi standards were thrown in front of the mausoleum and trampled by mounted Soviet commanders in celebration. The year 2000 saw the return of troops to Red Square, with a parade to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War Two.
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| selfie in front of the Kremlin |
Since Perestroika, however, the emphasis has moved away from official pomp, and Red Square has been used increasingly for rock concerts, big classical music performances and a whole range of large-scale events from fashion shows to festivals of circus art. Moscow met the millennium here with a huge firework display and street party.
Today it's hard to think of a place that is more beloved of Muscovites and visitors to the city. The varied beauty of the architecture and the magical atmosphere belie the square's often brutal and bloody history, but the combination makes Red Square a truly fascinating place that you'll want to come back to again and again.
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| The large, circular item in the center is the Lobnoye Mesto, a circular platform where public ceremonies used to take place. Both the Minin and Pozharskiy statue and the Lobnoye Mesto were once located more centrally in Red Square but were moved to their current locations to facilitate the large military parades of the Soviet era. |
We stopped for a bite to eat. it is really very expensive to eat here in Red Square but the food was delicious, but certainly only a one time affair!
Then of course I had to try the Russian ice cream and wow it was delicious and severed with much pomp and ceremony!
all in all it was an intriguing and breathtaking experience being catapulted into another era another world so far away from where I come from. worth the trouble and definitely should be on everyone's bucket list
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