Day 1 - Moscow

Red Square , not only is it awe inspiring because its grandiose beauty, but also because you're like "yes, this is Russia", I'm here. A place that inspired endless Hollywood movies and "doomsday" novels. The home of the once other superpower and cold war nemesis.


At the far end of the square, frame by the massive facades of the Kremlin and GUM, stood the icon of Russia: St. Basil's Cathedral. This crazy confusion of colors, patterns, and shapes is the culmination of a style that is unique to Russian architecture. Next to St. Basil's is GUM. The elaborate 19th-century facade houses a huge shopping center.



GUM (Gosudarstvenny Universlany Magazin (State Department Store) once symbolized all that was bad about Soviet Shopping: long queues and shelves of a few sparkly placed goods. A remarkable transformation has taken place since perestroika, and today GUM houses the same retailer one would find on 5th avenue in NYC. Capitalism and consumerism at it's finest!


The other two significant buildings on Red Square, that we would come back to visit, Lenin's Mausoleum and State History Museum . As for dinner, we ate at a very touristy restaurant, Drova, the equivalent of a Russian TGIF, near Red Square. It was conveniently located and they had an English menu. However, I mistaking ordered the bratwurst platter, and after being eaten it repeated and repeated. "Never again", that is until my short-term memory fades and there's a bratwurst platter on the menu somewhere.