Pinching Stalin's Ass

Hi All! two posts in two days? Shocking I know! it is almost 11 at night here, about 30 degrees and light as anything so rather than attempt to sleep I thought you all deserved another quick post before we re-enter the black hole of communication until Berlin in five or six days.

We have had a bit of a frustrating day in Moscow to be honest, but making the most of it - we queued for two hours at Lenin's masoleum today and the line closed just before we got in. During this two hours we all got sun-burned and minor heat stroke so the rest of the day was a bit of a struggle but we soldiered on (poor us, on holiday in gorgeous summer sunshine right???). After grabbing a bit of lunch we checked out Red Square a bit more, including the GUM department store and the busts of communist leaders. After that we all went into the Kremlin for a few hours - now, you may all know this but Kremlin is not what I thought it was. It means fortress and is a compound where a number of churches, a former royal palace (all the others were destroyed in communist times), military barracks and the office of Vladimar Putin. Very pretty and interesting and we had a really cool tour around the royal amoury, checking out old coronation gowns and faberge eggs and the like. After that we all headed out for dinner and a couple of beers and then went on a mission of a walk to Gorky Park to find me a statue of Joseph Stalin (my favourite dictator for those of you not in the know).

Statue located (poor Joe lost his nose in a post-communist celebration but otherwise looked in robust health) and I have a very fetching photo of me pinching his marble butt... fantastic stuff! The other very cool thing we found on the unanticipated two hour route march was a 90 foot memorial to Peter the Great which was extremely impressive and once again I wish I could put the picture up... I will keep trying honest!!!

The big thing I didn't mention is that all of today's travel (barring the two hour route march) was done on the Moscow metro system... trains extremely dodgy but stations all beautiful and full of chandeliers and art that my friend Joe put up in the 50s to show everyone how great Russia was doing. Wingman Sarah (not to be confused with Halfway Sarah) did a fantastic job of getting us around when our tour manager became a little unhelpful!!!

Anyway - better dash and get off to bed in preparation for our second attempt to visit Lenin tomorrow... catch you all next week!