At the heart of Moscow, is the Kremlin and Red Square. Wes and Delia took us down late one night to see it all lit up, and we managed to get back and hang out a few times later in the week. The area is full of people, drifting around, tourists taking photos, eating and people just hanging out.

Along one side is an expensive store Gym (pronounced Goom), streching about 100m, on the other side is the wall of the Kremlin and Lenons Tomb. We weren't able to get inside Lenons Tomb, due to long queues and limited opening times. Although before we went I was quite keen to see him, when we were actaully there I wasn't so keen. Seeing a dead guy covered in wax lost its appear once actually there. At each end are churches, with the most famous one, St Basils at one end. But the colors really come out at night when put under the spot lights.

Russian Orthodox churches are scattered everywhere throughout Moscow, easily spotted due to the garlic style tops. The most famous is obviously St Basils and it really is very impressive from the outside.

Russia, well Moscow at least really is a city of strong imagry and powerful symbols. It was great to stay with Wes and Delia, they really opened their home to us and made everything so easy. Thanks again guys. Think the next trip to Russia may have to be a tranz-siberian rail ride starting at Saint Pettersberg going to China.

Russia was a place that defied my expectations. The stories from people at work of people all wearing brown and grey, and having to line up to get toothbrushes couldn't be further from the truth, well at least not these days, and the Kremlin shows that life isn't very grey and brown at all.

For those uneducated (like me), the Kremlin is the Russian Parliament, so I guess there have been some very important decisions made there over the years. And I guess, by the number of cathedrals, they felt that they needed some help in making all those decisions. In saying that, they are stunning and the dome-y things on the top make me wonder who gets the tricky job of going up and cleaning them...
Not a lot else to report without going into the history (which was all in Russian, so I can't help you there), but check out the photos.

St Nicholas, the Russians seem to adore him. At Ismailova (an open air market), he is everywhere, hand carved and painted wooden ornaments of Santa and all sorts of other Christmas decorations. After strolling around with Wes and Delia, we started to loosen our normally overly tight wallets to start buying the odd knickknacks. We ended up with a large array of hats, marishka dolls, Santa’s, hip flasks, Christmas ornaments etc.

On our first day, Wes and Delia graciously allowed us to borrow their car and driver. This gave us a bit of freedom to explore a few places we wouldn't normally be able to in Moscow. Although the weather was far from pleasant, we still made the most of getting around. First stop was on top of the University hill which overlooks Moscow, the actual view was pretty forgettable with the most memorable thing being a ski jump and the actual University building which just said communism all over it.

Slava (our new shadow) then took us to Victory Park, a memorial to World War 2. The part was full of dominant, proud images of soldiers, weaponry and symbolisium. At the centre of the park was a museum, after battling to find a way in, we were quite impressed with the array of history on view.

At this point we noticed that unlike most cultures with a language barrier, as soon as the realise you don't understand them they revert to baby language and a lot of hand signals. Russians don't. As soon as they see a weakness of not understanding, they are off, talking a hundred miles an hour like you are the most ignorant fool in the world.

Last stop for the day was the Russian Exhibition Centre, originally built in 1939, this huge site was a centre to show off what the Russian people were capable of. It had a building dedicated to Engineering, Space, Atomic Energy, the Peoples Education, Radio-electronics and the Soviet Culture. It really is a huge site, which in more recent years has been turned into a bargin basement of stalls, boutique shops and garden supplies.

Going to Russia doesn't start with booking your flights, oh no, it starts with a que..a que to get your VISA. Naturally, it is open only two hours a day, during work hours. And naturally the ques are that long you need to get there an hour in advanced to make sure you are in the part of the que which gets seen too in the allocated two hour daily VISA slot.

Going for Easter, we were all set to stay with Wes and Delia. Wes is my old boss at ConocoPhillips, but is currently on an expat assignment in Moscow. Wes is great value and always has a smile on his face, he and his driver (Slava) came out to airport to pick us up.

First impressions of Moscow were that it was like anyother European city, but it seemed slightly better laid out, wider streets, bigger open pedestrian areas etc. We were looking forward to exploring.

Going back to their apartment, which was like stones throw from the Kremlin and the Red Square. They quickly introduced us to the good Russian vodka, which isn't anything like Smirnoff vodka. Next day...