Russia — Facts and observations
• Red Square in Moscow is not red at all. It is a wide expanse of gray slate pavers. It is so called because red means beauty in Russian.
• Since communism fell from grace in 1991, there has been talk of moving Vladimir Lenin's tomb from its long-standing Red Square locale, and Moscow is said to have only one statue remaining dedicated to him and one to Josef Stalin.
• The Kremlin's five churches, including St. Basil's Cathedral, considered to be the symbol of Russia, are neighbors to the 150-store government-owned GUM shopping mall and the soon-to-open very upscale Red Square Hotel, both housed in one-time secret-shrouded Soviet government buildings.
• Many of the country's public buildings and village homes are brightly painted — mostly yellow and white — to enliven the scenes and the senses during the drab, gray days of the long, cold winters. Ditto the rainbow of colors on church domes.
• There is no religious significance to onion-shaped domes on church buildings. They are so shaped to facilitate the runoff of rains and melting snow. In most cases, domes are placed over individual altars in the church below.
• Muscovites rarely smile at or acknowledge people in public because, our guide explained, it's a throwback to the tyrannical Stalin era when everyone was suspected of subversive activities, even family members. The trait may take two or three generations to disappear.
• You can tell if a bottle of vodka has been diluted with water by heartily shaking it for a few seconds in a rotating motion — if the liquid therein forms a tornado-like swirl, it has not been diluted.
• There are no golf courses in the region (I wasn't the first to ask, said the tour guide).
• Popular souvenirs among tourists are beautiful, pricey, hand-painted enamel boxes inspired by Catherine the Great, who used them to store her chewing tobacco.
• The wife of Russian leader Alexander II, the Liberator (circa 1856), had her two lower ribs surgically removed to facilitate a tiny waistline.
• On the election process during the Communist regime of Stalin, one of the tour guides quoted him as saying: "It doesn't matter how people vote. What matters is how you count the votes."
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Anonymous | March 24, 2008 at 7:31 p.m.
