Moscow is the biggest city in the biggest country in
the world. Its heart and soul, as well as its geographic center, is the Kremlin, a
triangular, walled citadel on the Moscow River bordered by Red Square and Alexander
Gardens. Red Square is inseparable from the Kremlin as part of the historic and spiritual
center of Moscow. Its name has nothing to do with communism but comes from the old Russian
word for "beautiful."
Surrounding Red Square are such attractions as the Historical Museum, GUM (Russia's
biggest department store), the rebuilt Christ the Savior Cathedral and reconstructed
Resurrection Gates, St. Basil's Cathedral and the Lenin Mausoleum (with Lenin still there,
but destined to be buried in St. Petersburg sometime in the future).
The Kremlin is circled by three ring roads. The first is the Boulevard Ring, only
1.2 mi/2 km from the Kremlin -- a circle of leafy boulevards lined with 18th- and
19th-century buildings. It's charming, dilapidated and a traffic nightmare during business
hours. The ironically named Garden Ring, slightly farther from the Kremlin, is in
fact an eight-lane, traffic-choked highway lined mainly with massive Stalinesque
administrative buildings and apartment blocks. It roughly marks the boundary of
pre-Stalinist Moscow -- all the buildings outside it date from his rule or after.
The outer ring road is the boundary of the city of Moscow, although in a few places
high-rise apartment buildings spill out into the surrounding farmland and forest. Major
arterial roads radiate from the Kremlin to this outer ring road and then become highways
to all the cities of Russia. In the countryside around the city are little settlements of
holiday cottages, or dachas, where Moscovites retire to escape the dirt and heat of
Moscow in high summer and to plant their potato crops for next winter. |
