ST. PETERSBURG, NOVGOROD, AND MOSCOW

St. Peter and Paul's Church, interior, St. Petersburg.
Exterior of St. Peter and Paul's Church.
Romanov reburial site within St. Peter and Paul's Church.
The Hermitage.
The interior of the Hermitage.
The church of Spilt Blood
The "Venice of the North".
Catherine the Great
Gums department store.  It is located on one side of Red Square.
This broken bell is inside the Kremlin.  A Kremlin is a fortified complex of buildings.  There are many Kremlin's not just the one we hear about in the news.
One of the churches within the Kremlin.
The clock tower within the Kremlin.
The star on top of the clock tower, in the Kremlin.
Another Kremlin in Novgorod.  We were told 30,000 people barricaded themselves in this during WWII.  The refused to surrender to the Germans.  In the end, only 30 people lived to tell their story.......
The University of Moscow, one of the buildings known at the "Wedding Cakes".
Red Square.  The Kremlin is on the left, this is facing north, and on the right is Gums department store.
A Moscow subway station.  Lenin wanted art for the average person so he made the subway stations filled with art.  Some stations are bronze sculptures, other stained glass, mosaics, etc.
Moscow high density apartments and a mall on the freeway from St. Petersburg.
The freeway from St. Petersburg to Moscow, at the Moscow border.
I had to have a Cosmo in Moscow.......  :)
The escalator for the subway in Moscow.  The subway system was used as a bomb shelter in WWII and they are very deep underground.
The IKEA in Moscow, more high density apartments and a war memorial.  The memorials are all over Russia.  One in 5 Russians died in WWII.
Gums department store at night.  When you see this, it looks like Disneyland.  They say,  "If you can't find it in Gums, it doesn't exist!"  Hard to believe this is the side of Red Square where the cameras were in the '80's as the ICBM's and soldiers went by....
The Crown Plaza Hotel, Moscow.  It's attached to the World trade Center in Moscow so we had to go through detectors to get into the hotel.  $250.00/night for a basic room!
The exterior of the Hermitage.
Art from the Hermitage
The church of spilt blood, St. Petersburg.
There were many locks on the bridges in St. Petersburg.  When a couple gets married, they get a custom lock for themselves and lock it on the tree, throwing the key into the river.  Once it's locked, it's never to be unlocked, like the marriage.
Traditional music and song performance in St. Petersburg.
The Russian Crest on red velvet, in gold thread and jewels.  It was on a thrown.
The center of the Kremlin.
Mock up of the first time they tried to kill Rasputin with poison.
Kremlin church spires.