The mild night air envelops me and, in the fledgling darkness, I pass young lovers sharing passionate kisses, Muscovites walk their dogs and all around is one of the world’s best known capitol city squares, Red Square. Flood lit and fairy lights all combine to add sparkle and life to the iconic Kremlin and St Basil’s Cathedral. I stand in the middle and revel in the 360 degree panorama. All around is a living fairy tale a melange of medieval European castles and Oriental domes. It is 11pm and the sun only set an hour ago on a frustrating day.
Our first day sees leaden skies overhead with frequent rain showers and even storms. This is a pattern that is repeated pretty much the whole time here. My frustration at trying to extract something half decent photographically would have been palpable to Suzanne. Compounded with this were issues with a crazy queue for Lenin’s mausoleum that left us just on the wrong side of the 1 pm closing time and an inexplicable mass of people queuing outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour preventing us from getting in. Later we find out that these are pilgrims from all over Russia to worship at the church as it has recently acquired relics of the revered St Nicholas. There is no public access to this tourist hotspot for months.
In the end we completed the afternoon with a tour that seems underwhelming until you actually do it, namely Moscow’s metro stations. As I have seen in North Korea the communists used the underground rail stations for propaganda and “art” for the masses. Most of the inner Moscow stations were built by the people in the 1950s and they were decorated with frescoes, chandeliers, statues and paintings. Each had individual themes and all were designed to promote Soviet propaganda. Inexpensive entertainment and most importantly unaffected by prevailing climactic conditions.
Come the evening and my wander through Red Square without any rain nor reliance on sunshine and the diabolic weather forecast I resign myself to believing that these night photos are as good as it gets.