I am back :) Sorry for the long dry spell, but I was busy leading a team in Russia. Of course I took my camera, so the next week or so I will post some images of the largest country on earth, starting of with the most famous sight: St Basil’s cathedral at Red Square.
Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad) is the Russian name of th square, right next to the Kremlin. As Krasnaya means Red as well as Beautiful, it is assumed that the colour red has little to do with the name, but the beauty of the place was referred to when it was renamed. Originally the beauty referred to the Cathedral shown above: The Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat (Russian: Собор Покрова что на Рву or simply Pokrovskiy Cathedral, better known as the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed or Saint Basil’s Cathedral – Russian: Собор Василия Блаженного). Legend has that the architects Barma and Postnik were blinded after finishing the building, so that they could not create anything of greater beauty…
In the front of the cathedral stands a bronze statue commemorating Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, who rallied Russia’s volunteer army against the Polish invaders during the Time of Troubles in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The statue was originally constructed in the center of Red Square, but the Soviet government felt it obstructed parades and moved the statue in front of the cathedral in 1936.
The initial concept was to build a cluster of chapels, one dedicated to each of the saints on whose feast day the tsar had won a battle, but the construction of a single central tower unifies these spaces into a single cathedral. Legend says that Ivan had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded to prevent him from building a more magnificent building for anyone else.
Saint Basil’s Cathedral should not be confused with the Moscow Kremlin, which is situated right next to it on Red Square. It is not at all a part of the Moscow Kremlin. However, many publications do make the mistake of calling this structure the Kremlin. The misconception has inadvertently been reinforced by Western television journalists, who have often stood in front of St. Basil’s during their reports.
(Thanks to WikiPedia for additional info used)