The Kremlin is a walled inner city of Moscow. It contains several important government buildings and a number of old churches.
I think that this was supposed to be the Parliament building.
I don't know which house of Parliament.
This building color is common in Moscow, particularly for government
buildings.
I'd hate to be anywhere near this thing when it was fired.
I wonder how they carried the ammo?
Rolled it on the ground?
This thing is called the Tsar Gun for its size. It was never fired but surely looks horrifying. Russia obviously had to have the biggest of everything. Just like Texas.
One of several churches in a cluster in the Kremlin.
This is the Church of the Assumption.
Russian Orthodox, of course.
Another view of the Church of the Assumption, scene of the
coronation of Tsars and the burial place of the patriarchs
and metropolitans of the Russian Orthodox Church.
It was not permitted to take pictures inside the church without
paying a fee.
Even if I had, they would not have turned out well, because the churches
are not well-lit on the inside, and flash would have been useless.
The domes are hollow and have religious scenes painted on the inside.
Russian Orthodoxy is a very visually-oriented religion; hence the
worship through icons as opposed to the written word.
Another church in the Kremlin.
The Armory is in the background.
The little porch on the left has an interesting history.
Ivan the Terrible married several times, and the head of the Russian
church decreed that anyone who had married more than N times could
not take part in church services.
Even though Ivan (who had exceeded N) was Tsar of Russia, he agreed to
this decree.
But he had this little porch area built so that he could walk up and
look in on the church service even though he could not actually go
into the church.
Another Kremlin church.
This one features a tall tower that Peter the Great decreed would be
taller than any other in the land.
The decree limited the size of towers in Russia for some years.
I can't remember if our tour guide said that they had to truncate some
existing buildings to make this true, or if the height above sea level
figured into the calculation.
Another Kremlin church, for those who can't get enough domes and
crucifixes.
The Kremlin Armory.
This building is not really a weapons collection but more of a museum
of expensive old stuff like Faberge eggs, jeweled icons, old royal
carriages, and royal clothing.
It is one of the oldest and richest historical museums in Russia.
I think that this was another case where you could take pictures on
payment of a fee, and I was once again too cheap to do so.
A must-see for anyone visiting Moscow.
A large cast bell.
The story behind it was that sometime after it was cast,
there was a big fire.
The heat caused a chunk to break off of the bell.
In other words, I didn't do it; it was like that when I found it.
I tried looking into the hole to find out if there was a clapper
inside, but it was too dark.
Author: Porter Clark <jpc@suespammers.org>
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Last update: December 31, 2001
