Better Red Than Dead, and other ironic circumstances.

Moscow. Is. Unbelievably. Cool. And. The. Women. Are. All. Amazingly. Beautiful. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. You know somebody is serious when they have to put a period at the end of each word, emphasizing the importance of each thought. That's why I did that like that. 'Cause I'm trying to emphasize that I'm serious. Not just messing around here, no sir-ee. I might just want to become Russian. Mail-Order American Husbands, anyone? Nyet? Ah well.
I had an official tour guide today, (she taught Greg Olsen, the 3rd Space Adventures client to go to the space station, how to speak Russian!) and she took me to the Kremlin's Armory and Diamond Fund, which were wicked cool. I saw a girl that looked almost exactly like my friend Jen there! (3!) We were supposed to do the Actual Kremlin and Red Square, but they were all closed off for the day because November 7th is a big important Russian Patriotic holiday; On Nov. 7th, 1917, Lenin took power from the Czars and Communism was born. On the same day in 1941, there was a secret rally and whatever happened at this rally caused The Soviet Union to enter World War II. So in 2005, there were protests, parades, and speeches in the area all day. It was awesome. I found myself in the middle of a big Red flag-waving fist-pumping rally for 3 hours this evening... people were waving the hammer and sickle all over the place and I saw alot of old U.S.S.R. flags (CCCP) ... Speaking of old, %95 percent of the protesters/ marchers/ whatever the heck they were were at least 60 years old... I think that the youth of Russia likes their cellphones and their shopping better than communism.
Apparently, this November 7th was particularly significant because it was supposed to have been cancelled this year...  Putin created a new holiday called the People's Day of Union or something like that and held it on November 4th, and made a speech in Red Square and everything, and it was meant to replace the other, older more controversial holiday of the 7th... only the people didn't seem to get into the 4th too much, and they all showed up as usual in front of Marx's statue on the 7th and did their thing, even excercising a bit of Democracy by calling shame on Putin for trying to cancel such an important Communist holiday. (Kind of the opposite of what we're doing in the States, which is our Government using Communist tactics to promote Democracy... interesting times, yes indeedy.) Got some great pictures; we're talking Time magazine stuff here. But that's probably because, since my camera was on for 2 out of the 3 hours I was there, I was bound to catch a few good ones... I deleted quite a few superfluous photos already.
Anyway, don't worry, Space Adventures has kindly re-scheduled my official Red Square, Kremlin, and St. Basil's tour for tomorrow afternoon. Which will be cool, but I don't know if it can top all the good commie stuff I got to do today.
And I fly in the Mig-25 on the 9th. EEEEEEE.

Comments

[Christy]

Hey Mike - According to Mandy once they hit 30-35 they all become babushkas... Sorry.

[mary]

interesting to read how things have changed since i was there in 96-97. we could go freely to dome of the rock. i remember it was big... smelly... socks.
i loved jerusalem but bethlehem was more fun. the people there were friendlier and liked to have parties. did a lot of dancing in bethlehem.
glad you got there!