Well Hello Mr. Lenin!

Finally another post! I've been "busy". BUT! we finally made it to St. Basil and the Lenin Mausoleum. It was the coldest day we've seen since we got here it was like, -20F. It was really bad. BUT! We really enjoyed our time there. The square is pretty big, but it is smaller than you imagine. St. Basil is smaller than you imagine it to be as well. But it's still an amazing piece of architecture. We obviously don't have pictures because you are not allowed even a cellphone inside the mausoleum and, that was our main purpose at the square. We really didn't feel like leaving our stuff with the people at one of the boots, so, the pictures of St. Basils will have to wait for another time. Inside the tomb, it's all dark and scarcely lit. There are guards stationed everywhere. You go in, in a line, and just keep moving. You aren't allowed to gawk about or explore. As the line moves, so do you. If you linger too long, then one of the guards comes up to you and tells you to move. It's got this "kindergarten field trip to the museum" kind of feel to it, also, you're not really supposed to talk, as the guy is kind of a big deal.

As for the man himself, like St. Basil's, you have this larger than life idea about political figures. However, he was quite small/short. I suppose we're all used to thinking of big gruff revolutionaries thanks to Stalin, Castro, Guevara, but Lenin looks like he was a gentleman. He may or may not have been, in life (I really don't know, I havent really studied him), but lying there he looks like he was quite delicate. In the dark tomb his glass coffin is the only thing extremely well lit and you are quickly ushered out. As you walk out, you can see the graves of other Soviet leaders including Joseph Stalin. Each grave is marked by a plaque and a very large bust of the man buried there. It was an experience.

By the time we left the Mausoleum/Necropolis our toes and our fingers were hurting from the cold. The time spent in the tomb is so fast, you don't even have time to thaw out half way. Luckily for us the GUM (which is now a mall) is right across in the square and we spent most of our time de-frosting walking around the mall and having lunch. We left, tried to go to the Puskin museum, but there was some serious line and no real indication that they were letting anyone in even though it was like, 3PM.