The Kremlin Armory and THAT Church

A nice, cold day on the way to the Kremlin

So, before I catch up with updating you on the many things that I've failed to write about to this point, I'll talk about today while it's still fresh. The main item for the day was another excursion, this time to the Kremlin armory - the place where they have all of the old czar stuff and the weapons. I was pretty darn excited going in, mostly because I expected it to be mostly weapons because, ya know, it's called an armory. But alas, such was not the case.

Nathan (guy from Missouri) and I set off late, so we got to Biblioteka Imeni Lenina station about 15 minutes later than we were supposed to (Scheduled time - 11:15. Arrival time - 11:30. Ish.) I was worried that we'd have to try and find the group on our own and would be too late or something - the tour didn't start until 12. Yeah. We went in and checked our coats, noticing on the way signs saying that photographs are not allowed. That wasn't about to stop Nathan, as he decided that he would turn off his camera's flash and take pictures stealthily. Eventually his camera inexplicably ran out of memory, and thus he began to use mine. So, even though it's not allowed, I have some pictures for you from the Armory.

We met our tour guide, who spoke English pretty well. It was her first time giving a tour in English, so she was a little nervous (I could tell since she started laughing just about every three seconds). And thus, we were off!

First we were told about the various thrones of the czars (Ivan the Terrible's first throne is plated in ivory, and Peter the Great's throne when he was 10 years old had a hole in the back so he could be given advice). Next came the royal carriages, many of which were pulled by servants (there were even mini carriages that the emperors/empresses-to-be would be pulled around in). Next came a hall with all kinds of saddles and horse equipment, including a life-size horse (not sure if it was stuffed or just a statue). After that we worked our way back to the first hall, which contained the various attire of the czars/emperors/empresses (with gold, some of the outfits would weigh around 22 kilograms [almost 50 pounds]).

Hey, I don't want to hear anything about quality.

Next came a bunch of gold stuff, including an extremely shiny, silver and gold crib which was a gift to one of the czars for their 6-month-old child. There were all kinds of beautiful, gigantic golden bibles and gold icons, but after a while it all started looking the same.

I like to sight-see. I appreciate art (kind of). I like history. But I'm going to be honest - I was really, really bored for most of the tour. That is, until we got to the 2 halls devoted to weaponry and armor. It was awesome. There were all kinds of rifles, pistols, suits of armor, czar military helmets, maces, swords, and more. Also, at this point, Nathan stopped caring and started straight-up taking pictures, hench the better quality of these.

Various weaponry - the guns are amazing up close.

Not very good quality, but this is a display with various suits of armor.

A life-size replica, fully equipped for battle.

After that the tour got fairly boring again, as the tour guide took us to a large hall containing all kinds of plates, pitchers and cups, all of which were impressive, but not as exciting as the area we had just come from.

After walking around the hall, our tour was over. We got Lena to take us to a building that I was told might have a honey exhibition going on - no such luck. The honey exhibition would be held in about 3 weeks, which meant that we had to find something else to do. After some discussion, we decided that we would walk into the distance towards the Church of Christ the Savior, partly because "we just need to cross the street, turn left, and go straight." YEAH RIGHT. Try turn left, walk straight for like 4 minutes, cross a field of snow because there is no crosswalk across the highway, cross two streets, walk under a bridge, and then walk straight again for about 5 minutes.

But eventually we got there, and man, it was worth the walk.

That's me in front of the church, if you couldn't tell.

A closer view of the church.

Outside of the church is a large statue of Czar Alexsander II, which I had to take a picture with.

He's got a pretty awesome mustache.

Behind that are two incredibly-detailed lion statues.

It really looks like it could get up and start walking around.
It's THAT realistic.

So detailed, in fact, that Nathan discovered that the designers actually included certain reproductive organs (though, thankfully not THAT one). Instead of a picture of that, here's a picture of VEINS on the statue. Yeah, they actually formed a circulatory system for these statues.

From far away, the Church of Christ the Savior is certainly pretty, but you don't get to see it's outer architectural beauty until you get up close.

Statues adorn all sides of the church, with small ones over the doors...





...and more elaborate ones on the sides.





Pictures aren't allowed in the church, so I don't have any of the inside for you (I'm sure I could have snuck some, but it didn't feel right), and it's too bad, because the inside of the church is breathtaking. Every church I've been to in Russia to that point (three of them) were elaborately decorated, but this was something else. Just about every single item in the hall (which was huge) was made of gold. The ceiling reached probably around 35-40 feet in most places, but there were a couple of circular sections where it went higher (I guess they were the parts with the domes) and which were painted. The biggest one was a painting that reminded me somewhat of the Sistine Chapel's famous painting, while another had a group of people with Jesus in the middle, with rays of light coming from around him. It was a pretty awe-inspiring sight.

We looked around for a while, going downstairs for a bit (where it seemed a baptism was going on) before we eventually left.

It was a good day, though I'd say the unplanned pilgrimage to the Church of Christ the Savior was much better than exploring the Czars old knick-knacks - sorry Ivan and Peter, God has you beat this time.