Pics from Moscow

[clutchkiller]

Got back from a vacation in Moscow on 4/5/06, here are a few pics from the Kremlin and Red Square. Spent the best five days of my life there

 

[tpetty]

Great pictures CK! What made it the best 5 days of your life though?

 

[upperEA]

Ya Clutch who was she

Really there is some phenomenal architecture there. Just think not long ago the only way an American would have gotten those photos was if he worked for some covert government agency

 

[clutchkiller]

Thanks UpperEA and Tpetty, to answer two questions at once…. The most amazing woman I’ve ever met in my life! And… Moscow is an awesome city! It is not like the rest of Russia, and it is sometimes referred to as “a country within a country.” I have done a ton of reading about Tsarist Russia, so this was kind of a “pilgrimage” for me (not getting into the most important reason for being there).

UpperEA, a lot of the Kremlin was off limits to the general public, and the only time I had any encounters with the Moscow police/militia, was when I tried to take a couple of pictures of the former KGB building (in a different part of the city). I took two pics and some militia dude pops up from nowhere and asked me to delete them (which I did quickly)… it was a good thing that I was not using a film camera, because I would have lost all of the pictures, and not just the two.

Some more pictures…


One of four churches at the Kremlin

The Tsar Cannon (built in 1586).

The paintings on and inside the churches are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. We were cold and in kind of a hurry, so the pictures are not as good as I would have liked them to be.

Lenons Tomb, we could not go inside.

Where public executions took place. The little gold colored things are coins, people throw them and makes wishes…. I had to elbow my way through a crowd to take the pic.

A monument dedicated to the general responsible for driving the French out of Moscow during the War of 1812. I can’t remember his name right now…. Starts with a “G.”

A monument built (I believe) in remembrance of the French leaving (or some kind of march, lol). The traffic in Moscow is chaotic to say the least, this pic was taken on a weekend, if it was a weekday the pic would have been of a traffic jam. NO ONE in Moscow wears a seatbelt. Also, the smog in Moscow is terrible, a good majority of the cars do not have catalytic (sp?) converters.

 

[clutchkiller]

The guy on the horse is Mikhail Kutuzov.

 

[spectr17]

Kewl pics Clutch. That's one big ass cannon. Any idea what the bore was?

 

[clutchkiller]

Jesse, it is 890mm. The barrel is 5 meters long and it weighs over 40 tons. The cannon was built during the reign of Ivan the Terribles son Fyodor. Both the cannon and the huge Tsar Bell have never worked, on the other side of the bell there is a very big piece missing (it was damaged during the cooling process).

 

[clutchkiller]

What happened to the pics? KGB? CIA?

If anyone is interested... you can still see them in the member photo section.

 

[Lan-Lord]

yeah, when the photo gallery was upgraded, the url of the older pics changed.. We're analyzing options to see if we can get it working again.