colourful moscow

 
walking into red square in the morning was almost as exciting as the night before.
that glimpse of st. basil’s through the archway just kills me! so so cool.

on the way into the square, we noticed this darling easter market.
bless moscow’s heart – trying sooo hard to make spring happen, but it’s just not happening yet ;)
(those are definitely fake flowers.)
 
we loved all the huge painted eggs around the city centre.
the easter market wasn’t open yet so we decided to go into st. basil’s cathedral
and check out the market afterwards!

the gum is a gigantic mall that spans one entire side of red square. it’s pretty sensational.
  
the inside of st. basil’s is a maze of chapels and frescoes built and painted on layers of history.
 
there was a quartet of men singing in the center chapel
and the music was so so gorgeous and atmospheric.
 
the view down into the square from the inside of the cathedral is stunning.

we had to trade off going inside st. basil’s because moses was napping in the stroller and they didn’t allow strollers inside. so while ian was exploring the church, i went into the gum (i planned to stay outside enjoying the square but it was so bitterly cold).
the gum is super fancy and quite fun to explore, especially all decked out in spring decorations – it felt like a different, much warmer world inside that mall!
 
ian met us in the mall and moses didn’t catch a glimpse of that place because he was asleep the whole time! we are so grateful that little mo has mastered the stroller nap!

we were bummed that we couldn’t go inside lenin’s mausoleum (behind ian in  this picture ^^)
because it is closed on mondays.

i am obsessed with this building ^^ it’s a russian history museum that we were going to go explore…
…until we learned that everything was in russian with no english translation.
 
we headed out of red square to check out the easter market and go get some lunch.

and happened across this amazing doorway ^^ en route!

the market was so cute and festive, but everything felt a little bit off because it was so dang cold!

^^ moses looks pretty excited here…he’s on his way to his very first carousel ride! ^^
  
both ian and little mo loved the carousel and it was pretty fun to me to watch from the sidelines.
 
on our walk to lunch we saw more easter markets and springy decorations …
but we were chilled to the bone!
 
we had the most delicious russian dumplings for lunch! our friend who had visited moscow last october recommended this place – lepim i varim – and it was a home run. ^^

^^ headed back into red square
(we’re obsessed! and wanted to snap some photos of/with moses since he was now awake!  
mid-afternoon we went back to our hotel to meet up with … my parents!

they were traveling from dubai (for a speaking engagement) to switzerland (to see my brother and his family), and when they heard we would be in moscow at that time, they said they would meet us there! my parents have been to about one hundred countries, but had never been to russia! so they were super psyched to join us on the tail end of our trip.

after a joyous reunion, of course we walked them straight over to red square
and they were just as excited about it as we were the night before.
  
 
we rode the metro together to a pedestrian street in a different part of town that i had read had fun restaurants. it was actually quite an adventure finding a place to eat, and we ended up at this random cafeteria-style russian food place where we had to just do our best to know what we were ordering. that will always be a fun and funny memory, and the street was quite enchanting all lit up!

we walked past lit-up red square on our way back to the hotel!
we had less than twenty four hours together with my parents in moscow,
but it was sooo fun to see them there!
the next morning we went on a tour of the moscow metro and the kremlin all together…!