Novodevichy Cemetery

This is a GREAT Cemetery!

After visiting the Convent we walked down the street to see the Cemetery. The entrance was no different that any other entrance in Russia...with a gate and a fence. The cemetery was used for Russia'a feudal rulers and church officials. Later it came to be used for Russia's intellectuals and merchants. In the 20th century, it was the burial place for many of the Societ Union's most well-known citizens. Now, there are Russian authors, playwrights, and poets, as well as famous actors, political leaders, and scientists. More than 27,000 are buried here.

Looking into the Cemetery.

Headstones in the cemetery. They are all monuments.

notice the man, dog, clown, and other monuments

ballerina

This is the marker for Boris Yeltsin.

It is a Russian Flag.

Various markers of magnificient men or men that could afford magnificient grave markers

Nikita Krushov

(Nikita Krushov)

This wall has the markers of people that died 1972-1973.

Baby Doctor

Chekov

Tree

Hands with a precious stone/heart?

Tank

This lady left her store at the entrance to show us where the tank was located. We were having a difficult time finding it.

Novodevichy Convent

Great day to play! The tour book said if you only visit one religious sight in Moscow it should be this one. So, we decided to visit it. Novodevichy Convent is still in use. It was a place where Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great sent their "female foes." The convent was founded by Basil III in 1524 and the Cathedral of the Virgin of Smolensk was built. Most of the other buildings were added in the late 17th century by Peter the Great's half-sister, the Regent Sophia. She was confined here after Peter reclaimed his throne in 1689 to spend the rest of her life. Napoleon's troops tried to blow up the convent but, according to a popular story, it was saved by the nuns, who snuffed out the fuses.

We started with breakfast, hosted by Scott Conlin at his "mission home" apartment. Chad, Bethany, Jim, friend, Scott, friend, Devere, Leon, Arva, Linda, Aliene, Don, (I am taking the picture)
Novodevichy Convent

Chad, Bethany, Leon, Don, Linda, Aliene, Jim, Arva, Me, Devere, Scott, Friend, Friend

Another digital moment with two crazy volunteers from Kaysville

another view

Cathedral of Our Lady Smolensk

We were invited into this building to hear five men sing beautiful Russian songs (both religious and traditional folk songs) in their deep Russian voices.

One of the songs the men sang was the "Volga Boat Song."

WOW!

Inside the Cathedral of Our Lady Smolensk.

The fortress-like walls surrounding the convent to sequester daughters, sisters, and wayward wives of the nobility!

Icon painting

Crown

Brocade Gowns

С ДНЕМ РОЖДЕНИЯ ТЕБЯ

С ДНЕМ РОЖДЕНИЯ ТЕБЯ,

С ДНЕМ РОЖДЕНИЯ ТЕБЯ,

С ДНЕМ РОЖДЕНИЯ СТАРЕЙШИНА ТФДЖИ,

С ДНЕМ РОЖДЕНИЯ ТЕБЯ.

Jim had a GREAT Russian/American Birthday!

Everyone sang Happy Birthday to him in Russian during the Devotional, he had fresh (not factory made as the Russians call the cake here) chocolate cake to share, and a delicious dinner at the Starlight Diner (a favorite American restaurant where a fairly good milkshake is served.)

Jim, Leon, Linda, Devere, Arva, Scott and I am taking the picture!

Sunday afternoon surprise adventure

Sunday afternoon, on our way home from church, we like to walk through Red Square and go past St Basil. The bus stop we use gives us a bit of a walk, and we like it. However, we decided to get off the bus at the next stop and see where that put us-closer or farther away. Surprise! It was about 2 miles past our original stop and right in front of Christ the Savior Cathedral. Great! We always wanted to visit this cathedral and now was a perfect time! We can see this cathedral from all over town because it is so big. We have read that it was used as a swimming pool during the war. We went inside and as usual, it was beautiful.

Christ the Savior Cathedral

Bell tower to the side of the Cathedral.

The grounds by the Cathedral.

Peter the Great statue in the Moscow river. It is by the Cathedral.

Standing on the bridge behind the cathedral.

Standing on a bridge behind the cathedral. The Kremlin is behind me.

There are two lions at the entrance to the grounds to the cathedral. (Reminds me of the lions at the Capital building in Salt Lake City.)

Sand sculpture event by the cathedral. Great detail!

As we were walking around the grounds, this limo pulled up and and bride and groom with their party pulled in front of us. Wedding couples travel all around town with their wedding party and put flowers on historical monuments. (The Krasny Oktyabr Chocolate Factory is the red building on the left in the back. Krasny Oktyabr was the Soviet name of the company, meaning "Red October" and celebrating the Communist Revolution. The factory was first called Einem. In 1918, it was renamed Government Factory No.1, Formerly Einem. It became Kransy Oktyabr in 1922.)

More of the wedding party and the photographer!

Honey Fair

Honey is VERY popular in Russia. Everyone LOVES honey. Therefore MANY people have bee hives and create all types of honey flavors. We decided to visit the honey fair that is always held for 3 or 4 weeks in September. Great adventure! It was located by Tzaritina Park. We got off the metro and followed the line of people that were passing us with sacks full of plastic containers full of honey! The fair was amazing. Jim figured there were about 700 booths or venders with their own special kind of honey. Each booth had a little shelf in front with small cups or dishes full of their different types of honey. Small plastic toothpicks or spoons were close by for us to sample the honey. How fun! Every sample of honey I tried was delicious, however, this was not the case with everyone. I always tried the normal looking honey but others were more daring and tried honey that had "stuff" in it. Yuck! BUT, we did come home with some great tasting honey! We had a great time! It was so good I made hot bread with butter and honey for the young adults on Monday for FHE!

One of the many vendors with their honey.

Linda, Jim, and Jack standing with our honey on one of the long rows at the honey fair.

Francis holding a large wooden spoon/ladel used for putting honey in our containers.

The Chambers of the Tsar Alexey Mikhaylovich / the wooden house at Kolomenskya Park

This building was worth the wait. It was being rebuilt in a different place in Kolomenskya Park. We found this sign that told us about the building. It is the Chanbers of the Tsar Alexy Mikhaylovich.

The Chambers of the Tsar

Alexey Mikhaylovich

Standing in front waiting for our tour in Russian. No English tours available. Jim, Jack, and Leon

Linda, me, and Francis

The front view of the "Chambers."

side view

The wood work and the decorations are amazing!

A different side of the building.

The back of the bulding
While we were waiting for our "Russian tour," we decided to go to the apple orchard and pick some apples from the apple trees. However, the apples had already been found, picked and eaten by all of the other park visitors!
This is our Russian tour guide dressed in a traditional dress of the Tsarina. The Russian women were to keep their hair covered. The detail on her head covering is amazing!

Standing on the front steps, on our way into the building, we looked up and saw this painting on the ceiling...a lion and a unicorn. Maybe the guide talked about this but we didn't have anyone there to translate it for us.

This is the front door into the buildilng.

This is the double headed Eagle. It is on the ceiling in the first room.

hallway

This is the dining hall. The Tsar's table is to the left. He has his own table. No one shares it with him. It is about the size of a card table. (I had a picture of the Tsar's table too but it accidently got deleted from the blog when I was deleting extra spaces...oops!)

Another celiing picture. This has the sun and moon and stars.

Looking at the Throne.

Another look at the Throne.

The Tsar's Throne

This chandelier has two cows in it.

Bed Chamber

another hallway

furnace in the Bynya

Hot Tub in the Bynya

The Bynya