St. Basil's church in Red Square (Moscow)

Three fourths of Russian’s live in the cities or towns of western Russia. Russia’s capitol is Moscow. However, the country has several other very important major cities such as St. Petersburg, founded in 1703 by Czar Peter the Great, Yekaterinburg, where the last czar and his family were killed, Volgograd, a hero city during WWII, and Vladivostok, a major port city in the east.

Russia is home of the deepest lake in the world and the largest single source of fresh water, Lake Baikal. There are several rivers that run through Russia. The major rivers are the Volga, Lena, Irtysh, Yenisey, Ob, and the Amur. Russians have had to build canals to connect their rivers so interior cities have warm water ports for shipping.

Russia has only two mountain ranges the Urals, and the Caucuses. The Urals are in the center of Russia and run north and south. The Caucuses are located between the Black and Caspian Seas. Throughout Russia’s history, the lack of good land barriers, such as mountains, and the large number of bordering countries, has made the country very accessible for invaders and invading.


Moscow

The photographs on this page are of famous monuments in Moscow, the capitol of Russia. Old Russian cities had a center that was walled off like a fort or a castle. Inside were the most important buildings–churches, palaces, government offices and so on. These were called kremlins and in many ways they were similar to castles you can see in old European cities. The kremlin in Moscow became so important because it was the center of the government of the Soviet Union for so long.

The Kremlin in Moscow and the kremlins in other Russian cities are very old. The first fort in Moscow was built nearly 850 years ago! The Kremlin in Moscow is also very big. This was done so that the important buildings could be built inside far away from the walls where cannon fire couldn’t reach them.

Perhaps the most famous place in all of Russia is St. Basil’s Cathedral. It’s in Red Square in Moscow, right next to the Kremlin. You’ve probably seen it on the news on TV when a reporter is speaking in Moscow. The first time you look at it, St. Basil’s looks like a beautifully decorated sand castle! But it was very carefully designed when it was built in 1555-61 for Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible"), nearly 450 years ago. If you were able to look at it from the air you would see that it’s actually in the shape of an 8-pointed star. There are 9 separate churches in it. The central church is nearly 200 ft. tall.

Ivan had St. Basil’s built to celebrate a great victory at a city called Kazan. There is a story that Ivan had the men who designed St. Basil’s blinded so they could never build anything more splendid. That’s just an Ivan the Terrible legend, though, because these same architects lived to design a chapel at the back of St. Basil’s four years after Ivan died.

Napoleon’s armies stabled their horses in St. Basil’s during his invasion of Russia! He actually ordered it to be blown up
but, fortunately, that order was never carried out.

St. Basil’s is at one end of Red Square. The GUM department store is on one side of the square. It’s actually a big indoor mall. On the other side of the square is Lenin’s Tomb where it is sometimes still possible to walk in and see Lenin’s
embalmed body. It’s been on display since 1924.