Dostoevsky frequently draws attention to the fact that Russians are very broad people. Perhaps this partly explains the country’s sprawling and strife-filled history; few cultures have struggled so seriously with such an extreme range of missions.
Visiting the Red Square in the heart of Moscow makes this apparent, and it points to how difficult it must be for Putin and his United Russia party to keep together such a diverse and unresolved land. In the square one is met with many strange juxtapositions: old Orthodox churches, communist iconography, Disney World-ish commercialism, tsarist double-eagles on the Kremlin...
We'll start our tour with the first – and perhaps most striking – thing you see when you walk on to the cobblestones of Red Square (however, the square isn't actually red; the Russian word for red, “krasnaya,” used to mean beautiful). That of course is St. Basil's Cathedral, the 16th century church built on order of Ivan the Terrible that looks like a mix between onions and a birthday cake. It is named for St. Basil the Blessed, a Moscow wonder-worker who was known for, among many things, healing the sick, going out year-round with little clothing, and putting out a fire in the far away city of Novgorod by throwing wine out a Moscow window. The building actually encompasses 10 different churches, each capped by a colorful cupola that looks like something out of Alice and Wonderland. Incidentally, when Lewis Carroll visited Moscow he described the building as “almost grotesque.” He also complained that his guide was “the most atrocious I have yet been with” (indeed, Russian tour guides are supposed to be notoriously boring and long-winded; however our luck so far has been very good). Ivan the Terrible is said to have blinded the architects of St. Basil's so they would never be able to create something so beautiful again.
Next, exit the venerable Saint Basil's through sliding glass doors, walk about twenty meters to the west, and you reach the Lobnoye Myesta, where executions were held.
Keep going and you will reach the GUM, or Main Universal Store, which is the most luxurious mall we've been in (granted, we're not the biggest of shoppers). Its narrow lanes, fountains, and white marble make it feel a bit Italian. It's a great place to walk around in on a rainy day.
Now exit GUM, new purchases in hand, and walk toward the southern entrance of the Square. On the way, you might hear the music coming out of the Kazan Cathedral, which Stalin temporarily converted into a public urinal. The building was built by one of the architects who was supposed to have been blinded by Ivan, so one of these anecdotes is likely not true. But no time to sort that out now, we've got to go see Lenin!
After waiting in line for a while, depositing your camera, phone, and other electronics, and passing through the metal detector, it's time for a brief walk-by in the mausoleum of the famous leader of the Revolution. Debates have gone on about what do to with his body, but for now he lies embalmed and illuminated in a glass container within a dark blocky red building seemingly constructed of Legos or on Minecraft. It was quite strange to see the Communist champion’s body in person, especially considering he’s lying directly across from such a nouve riche mall. How Russia and Russians view the revolution is one thing we’re trying to pay special attention to. In museums, a word used often is “tragic.”
After viewing Lenin’s resting place it is time to head out. On our way, we ran into a live Lenin look-a-like next to a rather plump version of Stalin soliciting photo ops. Later we saw a Spiderman walking around with fellow decked out as Shrek. As the 19th century thinker Pyotr Chaadev (whom the tsar declared insane) noted of Moscow, “it is an amazing town in which objects of interest are distinguished by their absurdity.” But it's not just the items themselves that can seem a little strange. In the most famous square in Russia we found a bewildering blend of communism, consumerism, religion, revolution, the mark of the tsar and spiderman – individual pieces of a broad and complex, if not quite contradictory, Russian culture.
An interactive panoramic view of Red Square-
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen5/f52-red-square.html
http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/visites/Place_Rouge/PR.html
The 2012 Victory Day parade on Red Square-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC57RR89qzM
UNESCO has some information on the square, as the Kremlin and Red Square are a UNESCO World Heritage site-
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/545
