Where are Ron and Ellen?
Russia, Summer 2007
Ron and Ellen at Petrodvorets, St. Petersburg, July 2007
Moscow
To see photos from Victory Park in Moscow, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Ready for Biking
To see photos from the Kremlin and Red Square, click on the thumbnail at the left.
2 July 2007
Moscow, RussiaDear family and friends,
We are in Moscow at our friend Bob McCutcheon's apartment; we have spent an hour or so this afternoon organizing our packs so that we have in them what we need for the bike tour, and leaving behind with Bob the non-biking clothes we will use when we go to St. Petersburg after we return from the bike tour.
We arrived here in Moscow, not on Friday as originally planned, but on Saturday, a day late. Our Thursday afternoon flight from Richmond to JFK airport in New York was cancelled because of bad weather (severe thunderstorms) in New York, so we could not make our Aeroflot flight on Friday evening. Luckily, our travel agent, whom we phoned as soon as we realized what was happening, told us to get something in writing from the Delta people saying our flight had been cancelled, and to talk to the Aeroflot people immediately on arrival in NY. We did both, and in the end, Aeroflot put us on the Friday evening flight with no penalties to pay. Saturday afternoon after arriving at Bob's, we put the tandem together, had dinner, and went out for a walk -- but we ended up taking a boat ride down the Moscow River to the Kremlin, walking around Red Square and the beautiful gardens surrounding it, seeing St. Basil's Cathedral (which looks almost like something out of a Disney fantasy, with its many multi-colored domes), and then home again.
On Sunday, Bob led us 12 miles on his bike (and we followed on the tandem) as we crossed the city of Moscow to the hotel where the bike group is staying so we could leave our bike in their storage room until tonight, when the bikes will all be loaded into a truck to head to tomorrow's starting point.
Bob's son, Matthew, took the Metro and met us at the hotel, and he rode Bob's bike home again, while we went back on the Metro, with a side trip to Victory Park, a bit beyond Bob's apartment. This is a beautiful post-Soviet era park, built in memory of World War II, which is still very much alive in the memory of people here. It is a huge open plaza, with fountains and monuments, including a very moving Holocaust monument, lots of people strolling, roller blading, and just sitting.
Today we met the tour group on the Metro platform one stop from us (we were 10 minutes late because we got lost in our starting station trying to find the right one of the 3 lines that cross there!), but the group was even later, so it didn't matter. We walked down Arbat Street, the famous walking and shooping street, to the Kremlin, where we had a guided tour. Most impressive. The word "kremlin" means fortress, and most older cities have a Kremlin, the walled part in the center. This Kremlin is where the seat of Russian government was for many years under the czars, and there are huge and beautiful buildings, multiple cathedrals with gilded "onion" domes on top and frescos and icons inside, and large plazas. The current government buildings are there, so it would be similar to the US Congressional office buildings and the Executive office buildings rolled into one.
After the tour, we went inside St. Basil's, which is like a multi-level labyrinth, with tiny ornate chapels under each of the nine multi-colored domes.
We are about to take Bob and Matthew out to dinner, then tomorrow morning we meet the bike group at their hotel at 9 (we hope to be able to find the right metro train quickly tomorrow!) to take the bus a ways out of Moscow and start biking. We are not sure whether we will have any Internet access until we return to Moscow on the evening of 13 July, so no one should worry if you don't hear from us until 14 July.
Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
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Last updated: 2 August 2007
