An Interesting Fact

Here is an interesting fact that you may not know. Red Square in Moscow is not called Red Square because some of the buildings are red brick or that the wall around the Kremlin is red brick. In fact, it wasn't even red back in the day, it was limestone, then brick that they paint red.

In Russian the word for the color red and the word for beautiful are the same root word so it actually means beautiful square.

So said my Russian class teacher in September and the tour guide that took us to see the Kremlin grounds.

There used to be a lot of festivals and things on Krasni Ploshad, a.k.a. "Red Square."

Thanksgiving Visitors

It has obviously been too long since I blogged because I got my pictures all out of whack. My sister and her friend Bo came to visit us for Thanksgiving. In random order, here are some of the highlights.

We saw Lenin's tomb. You go inside and see his body that is still on display after all these years. It is not peak tourist season so we didn't have to wait in line at all and it basically looked like you were looking at a wax figure, but it is something that I figure I had to do while living in Moscow. No photography inside.
Here we are at Red Square.
Near Gorky Park there is a park for fallen statues. Here is Stalin. They weren't all former Soviet ones, some where just artistic and Ghandi was there too.
Some holy relics inside one of the churches. A monumental part of their trip was when we learned what relics were. I have vague memories of learning it in school, but had forgotten, but they seem to be a big part of the Orthodox church.
Outside the monastary in Sergiev Posad, with our tour guide. It is the "spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox church." The main church was bigger than I expected. Most of the stuff there has never been restored so the frescoes on the wall are faded, etc. They were shut down by the Bolsheviks but were re-opened during or after WWII. It was interesting.
On the inside of the monastery. The church in the background is only used for confessions.
We also went on a tour of the Kremlin armory and the grounds. Here is one of the churches.
Bo and Oliver played elevator every day, multiple times. Every morning Oliver would freak out like he'd never seen Bo before. Oliver has issues with strangers. But during the day, and most likely caused by playing elevator, Oliver would "remember" and would love Bo the rest of the day.
Dani and Bo talking to our excellent tour guide at the Kremlin. The church in the background, I think is called the church of the Assumption. It is were weddings, etc. are performed, but wouldn't you know it was under construction. I'm not sure you noticed, but the sky is sunny in this picture, as well as the day we were at the monastery in Sergiev Posad. AND it was sunny when I picked them up from the airport. I don't think they appreciate how lucky they were to get the sun shining. It is always overcast. Or maybe they brought the sunshine to us because no sun since they left.
This picture should have been first. We brought them home from the airport, fed them and then we made them walk in the freezing cold to Red Square. Here we are at St. Basils. We wanted to get them over their jet lag as fast as possible.

We had a fantabulous time with them and we were so devastated when they had to go home.

Marine Ball 2

A friend just emailed me more pictures so I'll post them.

The very huge cake.
With our friend Aaron.
With our friends the Burts and the Queens. I'm not sure how I ended up between the Burts, but oh well.
Here is a picture of Kat.

Marine Ball

The Marines celebrate their birthday every year. And at Embassies they always have a ball. The movies always make it seem like the Marines are there to save all the Americans, but mostly they are there to protect the information contained in the Embassy, not us. But it is still nice seeing them around.

Here we are with Levin's boss, his wife, and his administrative assistant. She came with us and is our neighbor (she was in our jack-o-lantern carving pictures.)
This is during part of the ceremony. I was too short and our camera accidentally got on a weird setting so the other pictures were blurry. Next to the three marines here, to the right, is a top of a white hat you can see. That Marine is a female, and she is in our ward at church. Unfortunately, I didn't get her picture.

The dinner was nice and fancy and the alcohol was plentiful, but of course we didn't drink.

One reason we wanted to go is because it was in the Ambassadors residence and Levin wanted me to see it. It is called Spaso House. The American Ambassador in 1930's (the first to come back after the revolution) was given his choice of several houses and he chose this one built by a wealthy merchant in the 1910's. The American Ambassador has been living there ever since. In 1934 I think it was, the Ambassador held a big party which included live animals from the zoo and circus. The party was "Immortalized by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov in his satire of the Soviet era, The Master and Margarita, as the “Spring Ball of the Full Moon,” this event brought over 400 guests to Spaso House." The current ambassador, Beryle, recreated the party, but with animals in paper mache costumes. Not last night at the Ball, but a separate party before we got here.

Moscow Zoo

Friday was a Russian holiday so Levin didn't work. The zoo is literally a 5 minute walk from our house, so you'd think we'd go a lot, but we don't. I just need to borrow another kid and we'd get in free. You never pay for kids, just adults, and if you're bringing three kids you get in free.

Here we are with a wolf. If you're wondering why Levin isn't in the pictures it's because he refuses to get in them and when he is, he refuses to look at the camera. We have this same picture with him holding Leah but he's looking away and as soon as I give the camera back the wolf moves so he takes a picture and there we are.
You should have seen how many people were feeding this giraffe. Some were feeding him apples, I don't know what others were feeding him. Somehow I don't think that'd go over so well in an American zoo.
Leah finally got to go on her carnival ride. The animals were like airplanes where you could pull the lever and fly. She loved it! Levin said she was the only kid on the ride that was smiling.
Burger King is connected to the zoo so we exited out that way and had some lunch. Burger King has no seating that isn't upstairs and with a stroller that is hard so we ate outside. It hadn't been too cold of a day, but suddenly it was freezing! We were ready to go home afterwards.

Halloween Carnival

On Halloween the Embassy had a carnival for the kids. Unfortunately, both Leah and I were a little disappointed. Somehow Leah had the idea there would be rides there and I had the idea there would be more than two games.

Here she is doing the clothespin drop. The 11 yr old helping out was nice and moved the cup up closer to her.
Can't you just see by their faces how much fun they were having? Hmm . . .
Leah did like this. Unfortunately I could never get both kids lined up right.
She got some vampire teeth, but before we got home she'd already lost them - a 3 minute walk. So I ran back and got her some more. I felt justified and here is why. Every family was supposed to bring a bag of candy and a lunch item. When we got there, several people were there, but there were a plate of goldfish crackers and a big bowl of applesauce. And Leah only had the maximum chance of winning 4 pieces of candy and we had brought a lot. We pushed ourselves to stay 30 minutes and it was supposed to last for 3 hours. I guess next year I'll have more correct expectations and hopefully so will Leah. She kept telling me Halloween wasn't over because we hadn't gone to the carnival. I told her we did and she said, no because there were no rides. She's still asking about it.

Kolomenskaya

The last Saturday in October we went to Kolomenskaya. I hope I'm spelling it right. It was the first palace built by the Romanov Dynasty. I think originally everything was built out of wood, but many things have been rebuilt, but even the rebuilt stuf is really old. It was so cold that day.

I went inside this church, but it was actually being used so I didn't get to see much. Once again I forgot to bring a head cover and was saved by having a hood on my coat.

We stopped at a little place to have some bleeni (little pancakes) but they were sick. You know when our family doesn't finish something that is sweet it must be disgusting. Here is Oliver with his juice box that I think he later got all over himself. Whoever invented juice boxes? Kids love them, but what a mess.