I had pre arranged for us to have a tour of Moscow knowing we would most likely have nothing to do today. Again lucky for us I arranged it in the afternoon allowing us to sleep in late.
Our guide's name was Masha. He picked us up at the apartment and drove us around for 3 1/2 hours showing us all of Moscow including the stuff on the outskirts of town. It was awesome! We learned so much in such a short time. He obviously liked photography too because he made sure every picture came out great. Kind of dorky but we have a pic of willem and i in front of every major landmark in Moscow!
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| KGB office |
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| St. Basil's Cathedral |
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| in front of Lenin's tomb - our tour guide said we were Lenin Lovers :) |
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| the Bolshoi Theater - home to the Bolshoi Ballet |
Okay so here is one story we remembered. This statue was supposed to be a gift to the United States as a celebration for the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America initiated by Gorbachev. It was commissioned to be built and was completed and to be handed over in 1992. However at that time the Soviet Union was collapsing. The story goes Yeltsin approached George W. Bush and said we made this for you but can't afford to ship it to you. George Bush supposedly said ..thanks but no thanks and Yeltsin was left with this big statue on his hands. It later emerged in the location it is at now but if you look close at the neck you can see that Columbus' head was chopped off and a new head was bolted on and the statue now is to celebrate the 300 years of the Russian Navy started by Peter the Great. It would have stood on another point on Manhattan island facing the Statue of Liberty. Generally speaking people in Moscow hate this statue. They think it is ugly, it's back is to the Kremlin (a big no no) and it's history causes lots of controversy.
To close the day we picked up some food at the grocery and cooked at home. We got the phone call saying we were to meet our referral the next day at around 2 pm!
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