Second Full Day Together: Red Square, Part 2

Mr. Beaver:

We promised when we concluded Part One that there would be a second part to our tale of our second full day spent together in Moscow--the day we ventured to Red Square. However, other events in our lives seem to keep demanding blog posts and much time has passed.

We still want to recount the day. What an amazing gift from God to be able to see Red Square together, with it's world famous sites, when you've just become a family! (For the first part of the story, see XXXXX--I'll get help from my teens with this tomorrow--Mrs. Beaver.)

As it turns out, this retelling is going to take at least three posts. Here's a bit more of our adventure:

We started our second full day again with family Bible time. The next step was some study of tour books and maps.

Speedy and Jaynie learning about the captial of the country of their birth.

Cassandra, Alexander and Princess Bink studying the map of Moscow.

After becoming a bit more informed, we bundled up for the trek to Red Square. Our hearts overflowed with gratitude to the Lord to have the opportunity to see one of the world's great cities--the great city of our nine Russian adoptees--together as a family.

As we left our flats (remember we had to have five flats in two high rises because each flat slept only two or three), we considered using the Metro. This Metro station was the closest to our flats and is shaped like the Soviet star.

This was a common sight near high pedestrian traffic areas in Moscow like Metro stations--a little old woman curled into a ball, begging. A Russian Orthodox icon is in her cup. Speedy had just dropped some coins into her receptacle. The temperature was probaby only about 35 degrees.

As we considered using the Metro and our newness to being a clan of 14, combined with the crowds inherent to the Metro, our choice was easy -- we would walk the 1.7 miles instead. Plus, the walk provided opportunities to build relationships.

We frequently walked in pairs to avoid being in the way of other pedestrians. Can you imagine--our family now makes up SEVEN pairs?!?

On our approach to Red Square we passed by the Russian State Library. A giant statue of the prolific writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) sits in front of the angular building. It's hard to get perspective on Dostoevsky's size here, but the building is easily four stories tall.

However, the mammoth statue was almost concealed by our dozen children.

"Red Square, parts 3 and 4" are coming!

Day 2 in Moscow: Another Blessed Gift from God

While this post is titled "Day 2" it's actually more like a continuation of Day 1, as we both had jet-lag-induced insomnia last night. The picture to the left is a 2am view from our room of a beautiful, Stalin-era building (yesterday's blog incorrectly identified it as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but that is actually a different building). It's even more striking when the weather is clear. As Princess Bink would say, it was 'drooling' here last night.

Nevertheless, what better to do when awakened at 2am than spend time in His Word? We both spent significant time savoring His Word, and despite our fatigue, found sweet sustenance from the Lord in the middle of the night in this city that has become precious to us.

Our day was a fabulous blessing from beginning to end! We walked up the Arbat, a fun pedestrian shopping street, to the Kremlin and Red Square. The photos below show the Arbat, which houses fancy shops, tourist traps, and yes, you guessed it, a McDonald's. Here in Moscow they serve 'fish rolls' instead of the beef and chicken snack wraps to which we've become accustomed. Of note, the Arbat also has two Starbucks, a Sbarro and now, it even has a Cinnebon! Guess where we're going for breakfast tomorrow!

Address and street sign - "53, Arbat Street"

Once we reached Red Square we visited GUM (Gosudarstvenny Universalny Magazin - Russian for state department store), a huge, 3-story shopping mall bordering Red Square. Is it only me, or does it seem ironic that one of the world's largest and most expensive shopping malls borders Red Square? When I visited the Soviet Union on a student trip in the late 1970's, GUM was a picture of Soviet failure... "long queues and empty shelves, bar a few drab goods. A remarkable transformation has taken place since Perestroika and today GUM is a bustling place with more than 1000 fancy shops." (Lonely Planet, Russia, p165).

While in GUM, we found a great little cafe serving one of Mrs. Beaver's favorite foods, blini. Blini are a delicious cross between filled crepes and pancakes. We tried ham and cheese blini, and couldn't resist dessert blini with fresh strawberries and vanilla sauce inside.

Unfortunately, we don't have many pictures from today because we discovered that our camera wasn't working. But we were able to find a decent camera shop in GUM and should be back on track tomorrow. Denise tells me the shopping and purchase were very interesting, and very good practice, as the clerk knew very little English while I knew very little Russian. We essentially used what we call "Ringlish"... but it worked out. While we didn't plan on this particular expense, we felt it was imperative that we have a camera... it's not every day that you find yourself in a foreign country adopting three wonderful children.

Even though the journey and the rigors of court are likely to stretch our faith, we can't wait to be reunited with our new children. Please pray that we will be salt and light to them and to everyone else we meet along the way. Let HIS Name be praised!

~Mr. Beaver