Three days in moscow

Well, actually only two full days. Monday I went on a tour around the neighborhood around the Kremlin. We started at St. Basil's cathedral. The tour guide, who had actually helped build it, pointed out many interesting facts like: "Do not lean against the walls", "we can not go inside of this chapel", and "do not lean against this car." To be honest, I found the tour a bit dry, despite the fact that the tour guide obviously longed for the days where she would have been shot for hanging around red square with Americans. We also saw many numerous churches in various stages of being rebuilt with a vauge resemblance to the original, and entered almost three. The third one had a few requests we had to satisfy before we entered, like wiping our feet, taking off our shoes, thrice-crossing ourselves, and foreswearing beef. We decided we could just continue the tour.

Yesterday, we went on two absoutely amazing tours. We met at the gate to the kremlin where there enough tennis-shoe clad american tourists to capture Normandy. We got to see the Great Kremlin Palace, the functioning residence of state for recieving dignitiaries, signing treaties, and press conferences. We passed through multiple security checkpoints, including checking passports against the tour list. The palace is superlative, completely over the top, and makes the opulence of Versaille look like a La Quinta. From the moment that I saw monolithic granite collums twenty feet high, my jaw dropped and kept dropping. It was just amazing. There was gold tracery and mouldings everywhere in style ranging from baroque to classical to rococo. A security guard followed the tour group.
Afterwards, mom and I went to see the Diamond Fund, a clever device that lets the Kremlin squeeze even more money by charging a separate admission to see the state jewellry collection. Most imperial jewellry I have seen mostly consists of an object like a crown, scepter, neckalace, orb, etc. made out of gold, then studded with diamonds and precious stones randomly all over like the worlds most expensive beadazzler. The Russians actually designed thier jewellry and objects with the stones as a single concept. There were flower brooches made with hundreds of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires, it was all absolutely amazing craftworkd and artestry. Also on display were diamonds the size of acorns, rough cut diamonds, heaping trays of the cut stones, and gold nuggets the size of footballs.
Today I leave for Paris on czech airlines. Wish me luck and I'll try to keep everyone posted on my futher adventures.