Those who pray, Those who are no longer with us and A beautiful view

привет, my friend!

The day was quite nice today, so I continued touring around Moscow.

My first stop was the Novodevichy Convent. On the way, I stopped by the Luzhniki Sports Complex and found out where they are selling tickets for the Volleyball World League finals, which will be played in Moscow in 2 weeks. Brazil is already qualified and is the favorite to win.

Anyway, back to the convent: it was built in built around 1500 and then rebuilt by Peter the Great's sister Sofia in the late 1600s. When she staged a coup d'etat against him, he exiled her in the convent and hanged a couple of her friends outside her window to remind her who's the boss. NOTE: if that was Peter the Great, I wonder what Ivan the Terrible was capable of. Here's a pic of her house:

The convent was quite nice, there a very tall Bell Tower, a huge church (Smolensk Cathedral) and a smaller one (Assumption Church). Here's a pic of all three of them lined up and then just the bell tower alone:

The inside of the cathedral was really nice with frescoes on all the walls. This is a picture of the althar:

After seeing the convent, I went to the adjoining Novodevichy Cemetery. Many recent Russian important figures are buried there, such as ex-premier Nikita Khrushnev, writer Gogol, airplane designers Illyushin and Tupolev, Gorbachev's wife, author Mikhail Bulgakov and Stalin's second wife. There were several Jews buried there as well, like film director Eisenstein, pianist Rubinstein, and violinist David Oistrakh, but the only one that had any Hebrew inscription was Isaac Levitan. Here are some interesting pics.

Tupolev (I also wanted to take a pitcure of Illuyshin's, but there were some drunk soldiers around it and I was afraid of pissing them off):

Nadya Stalin -- I wonder if the purpose of the glass box is to protect the statue from being destroyed by widows and orphans of those killed by Stalin.

My last stop was Sparrow Hills, the highest point in Moscow where one can see the entire city. I came out of the subway into a park, and had to hike my way to the top of the hill. I could swear my Lonely Planet had the wrong subway station on it, when I finally spotted a tour bus and realized everything was alright. Here are some pics:

On the way back, I took a ski lift down to the river bank and walked to the subway station. I am now at the hotel, and just wrote 2 e-mails to tour companies in order to organize a visit to the Monino Air Force Museum, the largest on Soviet planes. Hope it works out!

пока!