Our final morning in Moscow opens with sunshine and blue skies and sees me playing catchups for all that we lost through bad weather. A very early breakfast, of course caviar again but without the champagne then across the road for a picture of the famous Bolshoi ballet theatre and a metro trip out to one of Moscow’s top attractions the Novodevichy convent. Suzanne parts ways with me and indulges in her favourite past time, shopping. Somehow at the moment Moscow churches seem out to frustrate me. The other day it was the indefinite defacto closure of Christ the Saviour, today the church at Novodevichy is closed and covered with scaffolding for renovations.
I meet up with Suzanne for one final time in Red Square and this time we successufully visit Lenin’s mausoleum. The degree of preservation is really quite amazing and I am struck by the fact that he actually cut a handsome figure much softer than the hard steely eyed Lenin statutes that adorned all of the former Soviet Union. The experience here is less rushed than I remember at Mao’s mausoleum many years ago. There are 5 embalmed Communist dictators world wide. I have seen Lenin and Mao. I missed Ho Chi Minh when I was in Hanoi as he was in Moscow for his annual touch up when I was there. I missed the 2 Kims in Pyongyang when I was there as it was closed in preparation for the recently deceased Kim Jong Il. So close to achieving an unusual “collector’s” set!