Touring and Sight Seeing - Friday Mar 16

Milla asked us if we wanted to have her do the Armory tour and the Diamond Vault tour at the Kremlin for us. We decided to take up her, so we met Milla at 9:15 and she drove us into the city narrating all the time about the buildings and statues and good places for us to see. She parked the car on a side street where a friend works. We walked to the Kremlin and there's quite a long line to get in for the opening at 10 am. Milla put on her tour guide badge and told us to follow behind her. She walked up through the line, almost to the top, and stop to speak with a few women leading a tour group of kids. We think she asked if we can follow their group, and they OK it. Not sure what the people behind us thought! We got past the metal detector and continue to follow Milla to the coat check area and to the ticket counter. We bought our tickets and the tour begans.

First to the Diamond Fund Exhibition collected by tsars and empresses. She described it as a big safety deposit box with all of the great Russian treasures. Lots of diamonds and jewelry in addition to saphires, amethysts, rubies, emeralds, etc., and some beautiful historical jewelry. Also a lot of gold and platinum nuggets and bars.

Then to the next museum, The Armory. There are no paintings in the Armory but works of art none the less. Gowns of the royalty, royal carriages, suits of armor and weapons, Faberge Eggs, gold or silver gifts from other countries that are very ornate and intricately designed.

Milla is a wonderful tour guide and walked us around all the rooms and the exhibitions and gave us so much information. She was even allowed to stay in and continue her tour with us during the time that they clean and "refresh" things, including the air, and other tour groups have to leave.

We met up with Nathan and Keir in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square at 1:30 pm. Thought we'd grab a quick bite for lunch at McDonalds's, but the line was very long and there were no tables to eat at so we went to Sbarro's pizza, another American chain restaurant.

With Nathan and John reading the maps, we found the corner where Old Arbat street starts. This has been converted from a road to a pedestrian walkway. Many small shop, booths and kiosks. Lots of souvenirs and a farmer's market; not as many shops as I had imagined. Then walked back on New Arbat street; lots of casinos. There are also many kids on skateboards practicing on the planter boxes and walkways, as if this was a skateboard park for them.

We stopped for some drinks at a small cafe; wasn't easy but finally got our drink orders in. Their English wasn't very good and none of our Russian made it any easier! We've got to memorize the words for, "Please come back in a few minutes.", because they never give us enough time to read the menu.

The hardest part of the day was coming back on the subways. We're lucky to have had Nathan & Keir show us how to get the grey line - the same line as they use, but they go south and we head north. So many people on the escalators (very, very long escalators); quitting time in Moscow!

We're meeting Nathan & Keir on Saturday about 10:00 am, maybe head over to Gorky Park area and then take a slef-tour of the subway stations that are considered works of art themselves.

Tentative schedule for Bryansk is to leave Sunday on the noon train; get in around 6 pm and check into the Chernigov. Then, finally, on Monday, we go to the court to get the court decree and whatever else we need to do, and then, along with the Clarks, in two cars, drive to Klintzy to get their two children and Bethany, come back and then we'll go and get Andrew in Karachev.

We'll have a few hours then to spend before the 11 pm train back to Moscow and then there are doctor appts for the kids and going to the embassy, and more paperwork to complete before we get to bring them home on Saturday 3/24. That could all change, but we'll try to keep you posted. We are using Sasha's laptop that he dropped off in his apartment, but he wants it back tonight, so not sure if he'll let us borrow it other nights or not. Besides how much free time will we have once we get the kids?!