I visited the annual Moscow Autumn Tourism Industry Week for the second year running, and this time I was swept by the organisers to a bus excursion. I admit: for a second I hope I’d be able to bring you the views of the famous Borodino field where the decisive battle between the French Napoleon and the Russian Kutuzov had been fought. Alas! in spite of the 200th anniversary the battle celebrates this year, I was the ONLY (!) person who wanted to go there. “Please understand we cannot take you on your own”, the organisers explained/complained/begged, so I retreated.
Out of 2 excursions I chose the one that offered to visit the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and the bunker of Joseph Stalin. The other one was taking people to the State Historical Museum and the Planetarium, but I visited both in the past and figured out I could easily visit them again. Much easier than arranging a visit to Stalin’s bunker.
At the moment I uploaded the photos of Moscow traffic, parks, and buildings made from the bus window. We were blessed with the weather, as you can see. And the route took us past the endless lines of traffic going to Crocus Shopping Mall and farther to the luxurious suburbian mansions of the New Russians. We caught the glimpses of the never-opened hotel under the red bridge; the Moskva City Business Centre that is still under construction; the impressive Radisson Ukraine Hotel, the British Embassy, and the White House (the Government seat) that are all located on different sides of the same Taras Shevchenko Embankment. We rode past the Kremlin, through Zaryadye District to Lefortovo, the latter known as a place where the German community resided in the 17th c. and where Peter the Great spent his youth.
