Красная Москва площади и Кремля! (Moscow's Red Square and the Kremlin!)

Well, we finally made it to Moscow on Monday morning.  We passed through the Ural mountains on the train from Yekaterinburg, officially taking us out of Asia for the first time since December 28th.  We are now in the most populated city in continental Europe, officially at over eleven million people.  This is our last city of 46 we've been to in 22 weeks.  It is bittersweet in many ways.  We are both so ready to be home, but at the same time very much enjoying reflecting on what an amazing lifetime experience this trip has been.  This isn't the time for a travel seminar of course, so please enjoy the pictures.

Amazing gold domed cathedrals are all over Moscow.

That's St. Basil's cathedral in the background!

On the Moscow River on a perfect June day.

Memorial and museum for Russia's "Great Patriotic War," known more popularly as WWII to us Americans.

This subway escalator took about 4 minutes it was soooo long.

I think it says KFC in Russian.

Klaire

Inside Red Square.

A Padre in the Kremlin

One of several beautiful Kremlin cathedrals.

The Tsar's cannon weighs in at 40 tons.

This Tsar's bell weighs in at 200 tons! That's 400,000 lbs!

The not-so-secret, "secret" garden.

Moscow is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.  Its so amazing, and honestly took me by surprise.  It is certainly the financial, and cultural center of Russia.  We would love to visit again in the winter sometime.  As its stands with the perfect weather we've had, I would recommend it as a destination for anybody willing to go through the arduous visa application process.  Claire and I are both so glad we did.  What a terrific way to end our honeymoon!

See you all back in the USA!

Jeff's Pun of the Week

Pasta Putin-esca!

Yekaterinberg

A 49 hour train ride from Irkutsk brought us to Yekaterinberg just 40km from the border between Asia and Europe.  Riding on the train has been so fun.  Russians on the train have been very nice and interested in who we are and what we are doing.  Most don't speak English and since we don't speak Russian, our conversations have been limited but can still last a couple hours.  Our guidebook also describes all of the little towns we pass through, so we get to learn some about Russian history.  The landscape has been surprisingly similar being mostly birch tree forests and small wooden houses.

Buying beer at one of the stops

Getting some air

Birch forests - and now you've seen Siberia!

Yekaterinberg (or Yakinberg as we called it before we figured out what the actual name was) is a mid to large size city known historically as the city where the Romanov family was murdered in 1918 during the Russian Revolution. There is not too much to see or do here, but we have enjoyed our time.  The city is pretty and we found a great Russian restaurant that is buffet style, so we can pick and choose. Tomorrow morning we head out to Moscow, where we will be staying with my second cousin for three nights, then homeward bound!

Romanov Memorial (Church of the Blood)

City Hall

Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were here! (Just kidding)

Some of the beautifully painted buildings behind us

Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

We've been in Russia for a couple days now after crossing the border from Mongolia.  We've been learning the Cyrillic alphabet and trying our best to learn some Russian words as we've found little English so far.

Irkutsk is the capital of Eastern Siberia, and known as the "Paris of Siberia." It will celebrate it's 350th year as a city this summer.  It is a beautiful town filled with old wooden buildings, European architecture, restaurants, shops and even a great veg Indian restaurant that we've now eaten at twice.

One of the buildings downtown

We love the Russian Orthodox church architecture

We only stayed one night in Irkutsk then headed to Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world.  We initially wanted to head to the most popular tourist town about 70km from Irkutsk, but after our extremely helpful hostel manager found out, many of the rooms were already booked.  The hostel manager, Dmitri, then told us about his friend's hostel located further south on the lake in a tiny village of about 7 houses.  We said sure, so the next day Dmitri accompanied us to the hostel, which involved taking two trains.  It was beautiful.

The main building of the hostel

Siberian Friskey

View from the water

Jeff and Dmitri

Still ice at the lake's edge

View from behind the hostel

Train coming through town

View from a hike we took

We had an incredible experience staying there not only because it was beautiful, but also because staying at the hostel was like a homestay.  The hostel also serves as a summer camp for kids, so we ate meals with the staff, hung out with the great cats, and spent a few days just relaxing.

I've got a cat companion. Don't be jealous Spooky!

Terelj National Park and Ger Camping

The last two days we went camping in a ger in the Mongolian National Park Terelj.  The Mongolians are historically a nomadic society and for generations lived in gers, which are circular tents. We spent two nights in the ger with a Canadian couple from Halifax.

Gers usually have a 20 foot diameter

The family we stayed with setting up the fire inside our ger

The dogs made sure the cows didn't come too close to the gers

The landscape

The token camel hanging out

Us at the top of a short hike

 On the first day we were allowed a 2 hour horse riding allotment.  Unbeknownst to us, our "guide" was the son in the family (who seemed to let the boy do all the chores).  I thought he was about 10 but turns out he was 15.  He berated us the entire time we were trying to ride the horses as none of us had any clue how to ride one.  The horses also kicked each other and were unresponsive to us, probably because we had no idea what we were doing!  The "guide" even left us halfway through to find our way back.  It was not exactly the best horse riding experience.

I should have known before we were in for it!

Our guard dog we nicknamed Bear.

The second day we were lucky enough to see a representation of the Naadam Festival that occurs during mid-July.  There was a large group of German tourists who were bused in for the day and we walked over to see the show.  The Naadam Festival is something like the Mongolian Olympics with a type of wrestling, horse races, archery, and other events.

The wrestlers

The first night and all through the second day we got one of the few rainstorms the area will see.  It was quite cold during the rain, but when the sun came out late in the afternoon on our second night, it was absolutely beautiful.  The highs were the upper 50s, lows in the 30s.  We are also so far north that the sun sets around 9pm and rises around 5am.

Another view of the landscape

Turtle Rock

We had a wonderful few days staying in the ger.  Tonight we take the train to Irkutsk, Siberia.  We will arrive in 2 days.