Kristen decided to stay home to do homework, but I took the metro by myself into the center of the city to meet Murray. This is a little more difficult than it seems at first glance because everything is written in Cyrillic letters. I had to figure out the correct station to change lines. Then I had to figure out where the new line was and which way I needed to go on it. Finally I had to figure out which station was my exit, and once in the station, I had to figure out which door to go out and where to go once I surfaced. Apparently the stations signs are fairly new; during the communist era, there were no signs and no maps, so I really had it much easier than I could have.
After I met Murray, we jumped back on the metro to Victory Park,(another link)
the place where Napoleon waited in vain for the mayor of Moscow to bring him the keys to the city signifying Napoleon's victory. Instead the Russians deserted the city leaving a wide swath of land around the city destroyed so that Napoleon was forced to leave or starve. When Napoleon finally figured this out about a month after he entered, the Russian army showed up and chased him all the way back to Paris, inflicting such heavy losses on him that it became the turning point of the war.
The land for Victory Park was set aside in 1961, but it wasn't until the early 1990s, approaching the 50th anniversary of "The Great War" (WWII), that the park was created. There are 5 terraces of fountains, one for each year of the war. The 1418 fountains represent each day of the war. Walking up Victory Park was an obelisk with Nike, the winged goddess of victory at the top. The statue is 10 centimeters tall for every day of the war, 142 meters tall, so tall that it requires lights at the top to warn passing aircraft. Elaborate carvings cover the entire obelisk. At the bottom is a statue of St. George killing a swastika-covered dragon.
An Orthodox church is clearly visible near the front of the park; the mosque and synagogue, allowed in an ecumenical spirit, are considerably less visible. Also hidden away is the holocaust memorial.
Originally it was at the entrance to the park, but it was considered too gruesome, and a crane came to move it to a more hidden site behind the main monument. A row of starved, naked figures gradually 
give way to a cluster of tombstone, a grim reminder of the horrors of the holocaust. Behind are piles of clothes and other items which were taken away along with the victim's identity. 
This monument really grabbed me emotionally; I found it even more moving than Dachau.
At the back of the park is a junkyard filled with tank parts and other war memorabilia. A small lake has a couple of warships docked, and a railroad car carries a rocket.
We bypassed the museum itself. One thing I realized is how much of the load Russia carried during World War II. It's easy for us to downplay her role in the spirit of the cold war. But millions of Russian civilians died. If Hitler hadn't fought on two fronts, the war in the west would have gone much better for Hitler, and much worse for the allies. And if the Russians hadn't shown their customary tenacity, Hitler would not have had a double front for long. 
It is customary for wedding parties
to visit all the major monument, so the park was filled with brides and grooms with their drunken attendants. I liked the flowers on the front and top of the limousines. 
We didn't see any on horses or accompanied by brass bands as apparently sometimes happens.
A triumphal arch dedicated to the victory over Napoleon
stands on the main road next to the park. It has a chariot on top. We walked through the the underpass to get to it and then under the monument.
We walked back to the metro station to start our Metro tour. (This site has very nice pictures and explanations of the exact tour we did. This time compressed YouTube will give you a feel for how busy the stations generally are.) 
One of the first places we passed was the white house where the Russian legislature was holed up during the constitutional crisis in 1993. Yeltsin dissolved the Supreme Soviet and pushed for a new constitution, thus effectively ending the USSR and creating the Russian state. I had been on the metro so much that I was used to the elegant stations, but it was nice to take the time to look at them more closely. One of the most interesting was the Komsomolskaya station which had mosaics on the ceiling. The first was of famous medieval war hero Alexander Nevsky carrying the icon of Christ not with human hands.
The last icon shows people carrying a picture of Lenin.
Each metro was decorated differently. We tried to guess when the station was built by how it was decorated. We also remembered that the bronze probably came from melted church bells, and the ornate decorations often came from churches. The marble from the original Christ the Savior church is in the metro nearest to it as are some of its benches. While we loved the tour and appreciated the beauty, it was sad to think of how many churches were devastated.
After I met Murray, we jumped back on the metro to Victory Park,(another link)
the place where Napoleon waited in vain for the mayor of Moscow to bring him the keys to the city signifying Napoleon's victory. Instead the Russians deserted the city leaving a wide swath of land around the city destroyed so that Napoleon was forced to leave or starve. When Napoleon finally figured this out about a month after he entered, the Russian army showed up and chased him all the way back to Paris, inflicting such heavy losses on him that it became the turning point of the war.The land for Victory Park was set aside in 1961, but it wasn't until the early 1990s, approaching the 50th anniversary of "The Great War" (WWII), that the park was created. There are 5 terraces of fountains, one for each year of the war. The 1418 fountains represent each day of the war. Walking up Victory Park was an obelisk with Nike, the winged goddess of victory at the top. The statue is 10 centimeters tall for every day of the war, 142 meters tall, so tall that it requires lights at the top to warn passing aircraft. Elaborate carvings cover the entire obelisk. At the bottom is a statue of St. George killing a swastika-covered dragon.
An Orthodox church is clearly visible near the front of the park; the mosque and synagogue, allowed in an ecumenical spirit, are considerably less visible. Also hidden away is the holocaust memorial.
Originally it was at the entrance to the park, but it was considered too gruesome, and a crane came to move it to a more hidden site behind the main monument. A row of starved, naked figures gradually 
give way to a cluster of tombstone, a grim reminder of the horrors of the holocaust. Behind are piles of clothes and other items which were taken away along with the victim's identity. 
This monument really grabbed me emotionally; I found it even more moving than Dachau.At the back of the park is a junkyard filled with tank parts and other war memorabilia. A small lake has a couple of warships docked, and a railroad car carries a rocket.
We bypassed the museum itself. One thing I realized is how much of the load Russia carried during World War II. It's easy for us to downplay her role in the spirit of the cold war. But millions of Russian civilians died. If Hitler hadn't fought on two fronts, the war in the west would have gone much better for Hitler, and much worse for the allies. And if the Russians hadn't shown their customary tenacity, Hitler would not have had a double front for long. 
It is customary for wedding parties
to visit all the major monument, so the park was filled with brides and grooms with their drunken attendants. I liked the flowers on the front and top of the limousines. 
We didn't see any on horses or accompanied by brass bands as apparently sometimes happens.A triumphal arch dedicated to the victory over Napoleon
stands on the main road next to the park. It has a chariot on top. We walked through the the underpass to get to it and then under the monument.
We walked back to the metro station to start our Metro tour. (This site has very nice pictures and explanations of the exact tour we did. This time compressed YouTube will give you a feel for how busy the stations generally are.) 
One of the first places we passed was the white house where the Russian legislature was holed up during the constitutional crisis in 1993. Yeltsin dissolved the Supreme Soviet and pushed for a new constitution, thus effectively ending the USSR and creating the Russian state. I had been on the metro so much that I was used to the elegant stations, but it was nice to take the time to look at them more closely. One of the most interesting was the Komsomolskaya station which had mosaics on the ceiling. The first was of famous medieval war hero Alexander Nevsky carrying the icon of Christ not with human hands.
The last icon shows people carrying a picture of Lenin.
Each metro was decorated differently. We tried to guess when the station was built by how it was decorated. We also remembered that the bronze probably came from melted church bells, and the ornate decorations often came from churches. The marble from the original Christ the Savior church is in the metro nearest to it as are some of its benches. While we loved the tour and appreciated the beauty, it was sad to think of how many churches were devastated.
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