Photos and comments from an epic journey traveling most of the world. I begin in Chicago in January of 2007 and fly to Moscow and then travel across Siberia and the Gobi desert to Beijing. Photos, posts, commentary & thoughts to follow...
St Basils with the Christmas celebration in full swing.
Lenin's tomb.
Guard walking the walk behind Lenin's tomb. There are other notables buried against the Kremlin wall behind Lenin's tomb - most well known is Stalin.
Lenin's tomb.
More guards...
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Могила Неизвестного Солдата in Russian, or Mogila Neizvestnogo Soldata) is a war memorial, dedicated to the Soviet soldiers killed during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. It is located at the Kremlin Wall in the Alexander Garden in Moscow.
The remains of the unknown soldiers, killed in the Battle of Moscow in 1941 and initially buried in a mass grave at the 41st km of the Leningrad highway, were relocated to the Kremlin Wall in December of 1966 (25th anniversary of the battle). The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was unveiled on May 8, 1967. The torch for the memorial's flame was transported from Leningrad, where it had been lit from the Eternal Flame at the Field of Mars.
The centerpiece of the memorial is a platform, which consists of big plates made of polished red granite. The tombstone itself is decorated with a sculptural composition made of bronze (a laurel twig and a soldier's helmet lying on a banner; installed in 1975).
In front of the tombstone, there is a five-pointed star in a square pit, which emanates the Eternal Flame of Glory from its center. The flame illuminates a bronze inscription saying "Your name is unknown, your deed is immortal" (Имя твоё неизвестно, подвиг твой бессмертен, or Imya tvoyo neizvestno, podvig tvoy bessmerten).
To the left of the tomb, there is a granite wall with an inlay saying "1941 - To Those Who Have Fallen For The Motherland - 1945". To the right of the tomb, there is a granite alley made of porphyry plates with incapsulated soils from hero cities, Leningrad, Kiev, Volgograd, Odessa, Sevastopol, Minsk, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Tula and Brest.The plate for Volgograd has since been changed to Stalingrad, the city's name during the Second World War.
In 1997, a Guard of Honour was restored at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the order of the President of Russia.
The remains of the unknown soldiers, killed in the Battle of Moscow in 1941 and initially buried in a mass grave at the 41st km of the Leningrad highway, were relocated to the Kremlin Wall in December of 1966 (25th anniversary of the battle). The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was unveiled on May 8, 1967. The torch for the memorial's flame was transported from Leningrad, where it had been lit from the Eternal Flame at the Field of Mars.
The centerpiece of the memorial is a platform, which consists of big plates made of polished red granite. The tombstone itself is decorated with a sculptural composition made of bronze (a laurel twig and a soldier's helmet lying on a banner; installed in 1975).
In front of the tombstone, there is a five-pointed star in a square pit, which emanates the Eternal Flame of Glory from its center. The flame illuminates a bronze inscription saying "Your name is unknown, your deed is immortal" (Имя твоё неизвестно, подвиг твой бессмертен, or Imya tvoyo neizvestno, podvig tvoy bessmerten).
To the left of the tomb, there is a granite wall with an inlay saying "1941 - To Those Who Have Fallen For The Motherland - 1945". To the right of the tomb, there is a granite alley made of porphyry plates with incapsulated soils from hero cities, Leningrad, Kiev, Volgograd, Odessa, Sevastopol, Minsk, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Tula and Brest.The plate for Volgograd has since been changed to Stalingrad, the city's name during the Second World War.
In 1997, a Guard of Honour was restored at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the order of the President of Russia.
Another one of those things we like to export...
I want to call this 'the four horsemen', but, of course, there are no men on the horses and the apocalypse hasn't happened just yet. Go figure. A statue near the Kremlin. That's a Kremlin watchtower in the background.
Another view of the Kremlin - just south of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
An industrial, scary looking building close to my hotel. They had these huge scenes sculped into the side of the buildings... I guess that's how they motivated people back then...
in this box:
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