красный площадь

...sounds like "khrass-nee blosh-odd" (I think..).  This means "Red Square".  There is a whole lot of history in Red Square...I certainly do not know all of it! But I will share things that I have learned that I found interesting! Here are some photos of my day at Red Square on Saturday:

This is what you see as you approach Red Square, you enter under the two pointy tower things on the left. This building is a museum of Russian history.  

This is the Lenin Mausoleum, in front of the Kremlin wall.  Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in the early 1900s, which started communism after the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family (Anastasia's dad). So they have Lenin's body embalmed in there, and the public can walk through to see it.  It looked closed yesterday, but one day (as creepy as it may be) I want to walk through.  I hear the rules are super strict for viewing Lenin...no pictures, laughing, talking, breathing, etc. 

  

This is St. Basil's Cathedral.  Ivan the Terrible ordered it to be built in the 1500s after his victory over the Mongol khans at Kazan on October 1, 1552.  Rumor has it that the two architects hired to build this thing, were made blind afterwards because Ivan didn't want them to build anything as beautiful again. I suppose a simple contract of agreement would not suffice.

Here are some photos of the inside of St. Basil's:

Pictures do not really do it justice.  I was very intrigued, and probably could've spent a couple more hours wandering around this building. Some rooms were really dark, some were really bright with lots windows, some had super high ceilings with beautiful chandeliers...there just was a lot to look at. 

I'm not the best videographer, but took this video:

The echoing hymns really made me feel like I time traveled (ok.. until I ran into a middle-aged couple inside who were both wearing Penn State hoodies. I can't tell you how exciting it is to run into English speakers...let alone from my home state!)

Here are more photos of Red Square during the day:

...and the area around Red Square:

This is inside of a mall nearby called GUM. It's expensive, and used to be for the Soviet elite and privileged foreigners. 

This is the Bolshoi Theatre. I feel like this theatre has been through a lot in its day. It has been caught on fire a couple times, one being during a French invasion in 1812.  The Bolshoi was closed from 2005-October of last year for restorations.  I can't wait to see a show here sometime!

After exploring for a while, I went to an Irish pub with a couple friends for a dinner break...until it was dark enough outside for nighttime views of Red Square:

And a video:

Here is a view of the Moscow River (I myself am a fan of this photo):

And this is just some fountain we found and sat in front of on our way back to the metro :)