Sunday was Easter here in Russia. To celebrate we decided to head to the Novodevichy Convent and Cemetary. After spending the morning looking at the graves of unknown, but rich, Russians, we headed back to the main part of town and went on the literary walking tour recommended by the Lonely Planet. If you ever decide to go to Moscow, I don't think I would recommend it. It's not that it was bad, but how many statues and homes of Pushkin do you really need to see?
On Monday, our last day in Moscow before heading to St. Petersburg, we were at a loss of what to do. We started with checking out the Diamond Fund at the Kremlin. It is a very dark room full of angry looking guards, gold, diamonds, and other precious jewels. Apparently, the Russians take their jewelry very seriously because some kid turned to yell at Jenny when she laughed at some joke I made about Catherine the Greats coronation crown.
Next we walked along Arbat Street. This was sort of like 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica. Closed off to cars, it was a mix of souvenier shops, cafes and American fast food joints. It was here that we saw our first Starbucks. I was starting to worry that Starbucks still hadn't made its dent into Russia.
We still had a few hours to kill before our night train to St. Pete's so we went in search of the american movie theater at the Radison hotel. Unfortunately, this closed (no one at the hotel seemed to know it ever existed). So instead we sat in the lobby and rested for about an hour and then took the metro back to the Kremlin to see a perfomance of Swan Lake. We had to take off before the ballet ended, but I'm confident the prince found his swan princess at the end.
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