Moscow - Red Square!

 The airplane was an hour and a half late leaving Helsinki - and we had only an hour in Moscow before our plane left for Novosibirsk - it left before we even landed!  The airlines put us up in the Raddison Blu - hotel attached to the airport, and fed us breakfast!  They also booked us on the next plane to Novo - 9:05 pm the next day!  So we took a taxi to Red Square!  Elder Smith was reluctant to ask anyone to take our picture - I wasn't!

 There was a Christmas street fair thing in the middle of the square - see the carnival ride? There were awesome vendor shops and lots of people...and it was cold - but not too bad, just colder than Finland.

 This is the GUM - state department store - many lights on it - and decorations on the trees - see the large tree at the left - real pine boughs stuck into a wire mesh tree!

 A skating rink - right on Red Square!  Notice the Kremlin Fortress Wall all along the back of the picture ..and the yellow Kremlin Senate Building.  We went to get tickets and the lines were long and after you got tickets there were long lines again to get into the building.  We didn't have much time - sure didn't want to miss another flight!  So we hope to go back sometime ...we have training in Moscow this week - one day - and in March 2018.

More wonderful scenery.  In the Kremlin they have so much that I wanted to see - the crown jewels, the diamond throne,  from the 1600's  - just the palace in whole would be awesome..maybe someday. We did go in the gift shop and bought a paperback book - the History of Moscow - elementary edition, and also a small book on the Kremlin - fascinating reading!

 This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - guarded by real soldiers!  They change every half hour - too cold I guess.

 Beautiful painted Merry-go-round - all the little ones were so bundled up they could hardly move!

 This Church was free - so we went inside.  It was nice to get warm and see the paintings, etc.

This is a great statue - to some Russian General - Oh - you can still see Lenin's body - Elder Smith said no!  The armory building has over 800 old cannons - some captured from Napoleon's army.  There is a Tsar-cannon - weighs 40 tons, cast in 1586 - in defense of the Kremlin.  It is ancient - first mentioned in 1147 - 12th century.  It is funny - most of the old buildings are Churches - and they have preserved them - through the 70 + years of communism and Godlessness.