Blisters on our feet

I wish we'd brought a pedometer. We're on our feet almost all day, and we both have blisters. Sleeping Beauty is down for the count, and I'm here in the internet cafe.

Our major activity today was seeing the Armory Museum. It is part of the Kremlin complex, and houses the Royal Treasures of Russia. There are possessions of the Royals, many being presents from visiting nobility. The collection includes 84,000 items, and over 4,000 were displayed. Words simply cannot convey the overwhelming number of treasures.

We hired a guide to take us around. For $15 you get to skip the line, and have some one to tell you what you're seeing. Individual items are not described in English, so having a guide is really helpful. It also created a delightfully eerie situation. We went in with our guide, and it was a crush of humanity.
People were packed together trying to listen to their guide's lecture, while tuning out every one else's. There would be 20 people in from of a display case, with 2 or 3 different guides, speaking different languages. Sometimes we'd get a case to ourselves, but often not. I didn't take a picture specifically of the mobs, but this gives you an idea.

Now fast forward to the end of the tour. We left our guide at the door and went back up to the display hall to have a view of the treasures at our leisure. There were NO OTHER PEOPLE!
It was spooky to be the only people in a 5,000 square foot hall that had contained hundreds of people 30 minutes before. It appears that groups are admitted every hour, and they all get herded through by their guides. When they complete the treasure room, they all move to the Carriage Room, for 15 minutes before the next admission, the Treasure Room is EMPTY.

This is a Gospel Cover. There were a dozen of these. All in gold encrusted with jewels. This one has cloisenay on the cover.





This is an air freshener (click the picture to enlarge it). Apparently the world was a malodorous place of yore. It wasn't clear to me if they just stuffed it with nice smelling things, or burnt incense. But it was quite a bit more beautiful than any thing available from Johnson and Johnson!

This is a sailing ship goblet. Mostly I'm including this shot to show you how each case had 2 dozen fabulous objects, and there were dozens of cases.


Finally, we went through the Carriage Room. Pictures cannot convey the grandeur of these vehicles. There were about 20 of them, all huge and magnificent.

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