A first priority was to change a lot of dollars for roubles to pay for the Trans Siberian Railway ticket to Irkutsk and, as this was Sunday, we didn’t expect to be able to find a bank open. A further worry was that banks had been very sniffy about our dollars, with the cashiers looking very suspiciously at the banknote number in the corner. The possibility that we wouldn’t be able to change the notes and would be left with no money despite having a load of dollars kept me awake much of the night. On the off-chance, we tried to find the little Islamic bank the plain-clothes policeman had taken us to in Nikolskaya Street and, amazingly, we found it. Getting a lift to the 4th floor we went into a small room where a jolly lady changed our dollars with no questions asked and no printing of bits of official looking paper. After a celebratory coffee, we went to Red Square and decided to have a look inside the Russian History Museum, a large red brick building which takes up the whole of the northern side of Red Square. It cost £20 each to get in and has masses of interesting stuff, but the inscriptions are in Russian; I couldn’t understand the technical vocabulary and Jennifer couldn’t understand any of it.
Kievskaya metro station on the way to Red Square
Lubyanka Prison
The Printing House, built in 1559
Mammoth tooth and tusk
Corpse of a Sungir woman found in Yaroslavl Province, dated to 32,050 to 28,550 BC
Boat made from a tree trunk, Bronze Age, found at Shchuche village, Voronezh Province on the River Don.
Wooden idol found in Sverdlovsk Province, 4,000 to 3,000 BC
Burial chambr with skeletons of about 70 people, found in Kolikho Valley, Krasnodar Province, 1800-1300 BC
Slab with the image of a deity associated with a fertility cut, 2000-1500 BC, found in Khakassiya Province of southern Siberia,
Slab with carving of the Sun Deity, 2000-1500 BC, Khakassiya
Weapons found at Borodino village, 2000-1750 BC. Possibly found after cannon-fire at the Battle of Borodino exposed them
Bronze Age “She-Guardian”
Weapons made by tribes of the Aral Sea region, 700-500 BC
Drinking horn made by the Coban people of the North Caucasus, 6th century BC
Items from the Kazbek culture of the North Caucasus, 6th to 5th century BC
Marble sarcophagus found on the Taman Peninsula, Krasnodar Province, 4th to 3rd century BC
Statue, found at Stupki, Donetsk Province, 12th century
Items found in Nuremburg, Germany, 12th century
Throne found in the Kremlin
Icon
Icon made in Moscow, 1686
Cup made for Peter 1st, 1700-1725
Teaset made in St Petersburg, 1861
Clock made in France, 1815
Box for sewing implements, made in Tula, 1801
Writing set. Moscow, end-19th century
Lenin’s Rolls-Royce
Church near the Kremlin
Moscow University
Moscow River