Russia: Part 1

This is my long overdue post from fall break in Russia. We spent nine days in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Larry had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of his adventures.

We started the trip with an overnight train ride to Moscow. Here's Larry super excited for his first train ride.

One of the places we visited in Moscow was the famous Red Square. The Red Square is located next to the Kremlin, a walled fortress which contains the government's headquarters, museums full of artifacts from the Russian Tsars (emperors) and other sights. Once inside the Kremlin we got to see a lot of beautiful Orthodox cathedrals. However, Larry's favorite was St. Basil's Cathedral in the Red Square itself.  In his excitement to see St. Basil's up close, Larry jumped out of my pocket and nearly got himself lost. Fortunately, we were quickly reunited and proceeded to explore this stunning building. You can learn more about St. Basil's  and get a glimpse inside here and here, but one cool fact we discovered is that it took over 300 years to finish painting all the murals inside the church. 

Naturally, Larry couldn't pass up the chance to take a selfie with this beautiful church. (kindly photobombed by our friend Spencer who was also super excited to be there)

Next to St. Basil's is Moscow's posh shopping mall, GUM (pronounced goom). It was beautiful and SO big!

Here's Larry taking in a second floor view of one part of the mall. 

One of the highlights of Moscow was getting to visit the Tretyakov State Gallery. There was so much beautiful art, but the highlight was their collection of Orthodox church art and icons. We got to see the world famous icon of the Holy Trinity by Andrei Rublev.  

It's bad manners for llamas to take selfies with church art, so Larry posed with a postcard of the icon instead.  

After a fun time at the circus we walked around the city for a bit. This photo is kind of dark but you can see a ring of flags in the background.  These are the flags of member countries of the European Union and they were placed here as a symbol of friendship from Russia to their neighbors in the EU.

Moscow is an exciting, fast paced city and we enjoyed our time there. But the best part of the trip was yet to come. Stay tuned for Saint Petersburg! Until then, enjoy these photos of the Red Square and the city at night.