January 7th NCL Star cruise to Antarctica , Argentina and Chile with a 10 day stay photo travelogue

[scubacruiserx2]

 Inside of GUM  ( pronounced goom in English )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extreme close up . A DSLR is considered a sign of wealth in Russia . Most people have cell phones but can't afford cameras .

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  After this our guide took us to check in our hotel before we met our friends for dinner . It was directly across the street from Red Square .

 

 

 

It has a very long and storied history and was the most that we had paid for a hotel room up to that point , but we bit the bullet and paid it . It included a BIG breakfast .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_National,_Moscow

 

 It had doormen open the doors for us , a first for us . Pat checking in and our guide in the foreground .

 

 

The sitting room 

 

 

The Common area

 

 

Our bed room

 

 

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  Our friends called for us early and we found out from them that the

State Historical Museum was open for free and that they we having  a tribute to WW II , so went there first before dinner .

 

 

 

There is a statue of General Zhukov a hero of WW II and WW I In front 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov

 

 

 

 It was mostly Soviet propaganda WW II posters that I got a kick out of .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were some American thinks as well like a Tommy Gun . Here's a photo from Wikipedia showing the ornate building inside 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  We met Michael and Anna while waiting in a long line to board a cruise in South America . We were behind them and they were speaking in Russian and I started a conversation with them in Russia . They were very surprised that we could speak Russian . We had a nice cruise with them and they invited us to meet if we went back to Moscow .

 Dinner was next at another Ukrainian  Restaurant with strolling musicians this time .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked them to their Metro station and said goodbye before walking back past the Kremlin , which we would explore in the morning , to our hotel .

 

Edited April 15 by scubacruiserx2

[scubacruiserx2]

 Breakfast at the National

  The buffet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Chef

 

 

The dining room

 

 

The plate

 

 

The View of Red Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 I was awake before my wife and breakfast and took my camera for a walk .

 

 

I found a colorful underpass to cross the busy street to Red Square under the street .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The State Historical Museum and the Resurrection Gate that leads to Red Square

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 After popping up I was near the State Historical Museum and the Resurrection Gate that leads to Red Square .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Square wasn't open yet

 

 

But the Kazan Cathedral was

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazan_Cathedral,_Moscow

 

Returning to the Hotel for breakfast

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  We had some free time before meeting our guide so we went for a quick walk across the street .

 

There is a 3 story mall beneath these domes across from hotel called Okhotniy Ryad .

 

 

 

 

 

 

The center dome has a map of the world when seen from the mall underground .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not my video

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  The fountains of the Alexander Gardens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near our hotel was the Four Seasons Hotel ( was the Hotel Moskva formerly ) is on the label of Stolichnaya Vodka .

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  Our guide had promised us a special changing of the guard but we must first enter the Kremlin in the rain . Notice that we are wearing our Russian camouflage , i.e. Black .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind this photo of the Calvary you can see the Tzar Cannon which has the largest caliber bombards in the world .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Cannon

 

 

The Tzar Bell is the largest Bell in the world .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bell

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 Our next stop was the Moscow Armory to see it's collection of Fabege Eggs . There was a long line to get in and our guide could not go with us past the book shop . We found the Eggs and took a photo until we were told no photos . We did buy a book at the book shop so we took photos from the book and found a video on line .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  We went down in the Metro at Ploshchad Revolyutsii ( Revolution Square ) .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Rubbing this dogs nose is said to bring good luck and that's why it is discolored .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The last photo is Lyudimila Mykhailivna Pavlichenko (12 July 1916 – 10 October 1974 was a Soviet sniper. She shot German soldiers in World War 2. She was one of the top military snipers of all time, and is credited with 309 kills.^[1] She was the most successful female sniper in history. Wikipedia

 She toured the US during WW II to try to convince us to open a second front from the West against Germany before D-day .

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 At this end end the station was a mosaic that says "Peace Throughout the World." It is the Novoslobodskaya Station .

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back from the train platform and waiting for a train at the platform

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 The last station that we visited was Belorusskaya a station with panels in the ceiling that pictured  everyday peaceful life in the USSR .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's in the last panel that we see ( or don't see that counts ) . Originally there was a picture of Uncle Joe Stalin that was removed under the de - Stalinization program of removing him from history .

 De-Stalinization (Russian: десталинизация, romanized: destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power,^[1] and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system.

Monuments to Stalin were removed, his name was removed from places, buildings, and the state anthem, and his body was removed from the Lenin Mausoleum (from 1953 to 1961 known as Lenin and Stalin Mausoleum) and buried.  Wikipedia

 

  The last mosaic known as “Embroiderers,” originally included a portrait of Stalin, but during the de-Stalinization period it was replaced with the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (hammer and sickle).

 

 

 

  The large mosaic in the previous station suffered a similar fate when the image of Stalin was replaced by a dove of Peace .

 

 

 

Edited April 18 by scubacruiserx2

[ColdCruise]

@scubacruiserx2

you may want to repost all your lovely photos from Russia under a separate trip report with a Russian themed subject so people interested can find them. I don’t think people will look in an Antarctic themed report thread for Russia info and your photos are superb and would be well received.

 

Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely I will ever travel to Russia now, although I would have loved to see St Petersburg and ride the Transiberian railway. Some things are not meant to be.

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  We surfaced and began a walking tour with the building on the 100 Ruble note - the Bolshoi Ballet Theatre founded in 1776 , the year of of the USS's independence . Bolshoi means big or large and the note is worth 1 US Dollar .

 

 

 

 

 We loved the way that the fountain in the front formed a water curtain .

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshoi_Ballet

  

 Visiting here reminded me of a song from when i was in High School called Pretty Ballerina by the Left Banke.

 

 

 

Edited April 18 by scubacruiserx2

[scubacruiserx2]

 Our favorite church in Moscow is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior 

 

 

 

 The original church was build to honor Christ the Savior by Alexander I  "to signify Our gratitude to Divine Providence for saving Russia from the doom that overshadowed Her" when attacked by Napoleon in 1812 . The current church is the second to stand on this site. The authentic church, built during the 19th century, took more than 40 years to build, and was the scene of the 1882 world premiere of the 1812 Overture by Tchiakovsky . Wikipedia 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  After our visit to Moscow we took the Metro to an pretty church in Saint Petersburg called Chesme  .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesme_Church

 

 

As we were there we saw a group of children from the public school being bussed to the church for a field trip . Can you imagine that happening in our public schools ?

 

The graves behind it were decorated for Victory Day .

 

 

 

 

 

 Inside of the church was a service with the priest sprinkling incense in front of the icons .

 

 

 

In my Bible reading this morning it says about Israel , " But the more they  were called , the more they went away from me . They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to images . "

 

 Is this a violation of the second commandment ? 

 

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Edited April 19 by scubacruiserx2

[scubacruiserx2]

 Returning to Moscow we will finish our tour of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior . We walked out on the bridge crossing the Moscow River for a better view .

 

 

 

The view of the Kremlin and the church inside of the Kremlin

 

 

 

 

 

 There were thousands of people inside and coming out and in the Cathedral when we went inside .

I believe that the rebuilt church could hold 9,000 people standing up for hours for worship . It was going on and so we could look but not photograph . 

 The first church was looted and demolished by Stalin in December of 1931 .

 

 

 

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin chose the prominent site of the cathedral as the proposed site for a monument to socialism known as the Palace of the Soviets. It was to have modernistic, buttressed tiers to support a gigantic statue of Lenin perched on top of a dome with his arm raised in the air.

 

 Photo and text from Wikipedia

 

  The building was never built because Germany attacked Russia . After the war and with Gorbachev 's Perestroika ( Restructuring ) the Cathedral was rebuilt with funds raised from over a million citizens ( Including a large donation by Mc Donald's ) . It only took 6 years to rebuild instead the of 40 for the first one .

 

 The construction of the pool on a site of the destroyed cultural heritage caused a negative reaction of the Moscow public. The history of the site's Cathedral, the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets, and the Moskva Pool was commonly summarized with the ironic expression "First there was a church, then rubbish, and now shame" (Russian: Сперва был храм, потом — хлам, а теперь — срам., romanized: Sperva byl khram, potom – khlam, a teper' – sram.)

 

 The new interior dome . Photo and previous text Wikipedia

 

 

Edited April 19 by scubacruiserx2

[scubacruiserx2]

 Several other photos of note before we leave Moscow .

 

 

 

  Lubyanka . Former home of the KGB ( Now the FSB ) was and is still a prison . It was said that you can see Siberia from the roof of this building .

 

Uncle Joe in all his glory . 

 

 

His daughter moved to , married and lived in the USA . His wife wasn't so lucky . She " Committed suicide " .

 

 And the founder of Moscow , a Prince from Kiev , Ukraine .

 

[scubacruiserx2]

  It was nice to go to Moscow but nicer to be back in Saint Petersburg at the Train station .

 

 

 

 It was a little late and the metro to our apartment was not crowded

 

 

 

It was nice having an apartment with a number of rooms . Looking from the dining room into the kitchen .

 

 

A living room with a Russian clothes dryer

 

 

A sitting room 

 

 

A bathroom . The bathroom and the kitchen had tile floors that were heated electronically with a turn of the knob . The clothes washer was in the bathroom .

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 Having spent a couple of hours looking at the countryside on the train from Moscow , we wanted to go into the countryside instead of the city . We had purchased a Saint Petersburg City card that gave us a free hydrofoil ride to see the fountains of Peterhof and free or reduced prices at other places .

 

 

We have been there in a car with a guide , but never alone on the boat . It's a 57 minute ride in the car but only 30 minutes on the boat .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterhof_Palace

 

 We boarded the boat near the Hermitage but we had to cross a dinner cruise board to get onto the hydrofoil .

 

 

One of the hostesses on the boat spoke English . 

 

 

We didn't pay for 1st class up front , but sat in the free seats . It's a diesel engine that was loud , smoky and stinky .

 

 

We past by the cruise port and saw a HAL ship in the port so it was going to be crowded .

 

 

 

Edited April 20 by scubacruiserx2

[scubacruiserx2]

  The view of the hydrofoils from our cruise in 2019 .

 

 

Note some people hanging out of windows of the Meteor  # 247.

 

 

 

 

 It's a long walk down the pier and through the park to see the fountains being turned on .

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scubacruiserx2]

 The anthem of Saint Petersburg was fully recognized on May 13, 2002, when the initial version approved by the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg on April 23, edited and then signed into law by the Governor of Saint Petersburg .  Wikipedia

 It is called Hymn of the Great City by Reinhold Gliere , and it played when they turn on the fountains and when you arrive at the train station in Saint Petersburg . It was also played for Princess Diana when she visited Saint Petersburg , before it was fully recognized .

 

 

 

We told you that it would be crowded with cruise ships in port 

 

 

 

 So we will use photos from other visits when ships were not in port 

 

 

 

 The view from the palace looking toward the dock where our boat came in .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Samson opening the jaws of a lion in which Samson is symbolized as Russia defeating the lion which symbolizes Sweden , from whom Russia defeated to take the swamp land which became Saint Petersburg .

[scubacruiserx2]

  Above the Grand Cascade and the Grand Palace is the Upper Gardens . 

 

 

 

The focal point of the Upper Gardens is the Neptune Fountain which was made in Nuremberg , Germany in 1650 but required too much water to operate . Russia bought it in 1782 but it was stolen by Germany in WW II . It was tracked down in Germany and returned to Peterhof in 1956 .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We had parked on the other side of the street near the Peter and Paul Cathedral .