Meanwhile, I started to get used to living in Moscow, and decided to visit the monuments and places of that fantastic city by myself. By taking the subway, which was not far from my apartment, I got off near Red Square. It was a place that I had seen many times on TV during the Soviet Union’s parades.

I entered the square by passing through an archway. On the opposite side of the square, I saw the breathtaking view of Saint Basil’s Cathedral. It had been built by order of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, also known as Ivan the Terrible, to commemorate the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. It is the symbol of Russian art and culture. Legend says that when the Ivan the Terrible saw the masterpiece, he was so impressed with its beauty that he ordered that the architects who had designed it should be blinded, so they could not build something similar again.

The entire Kremlin area is full of masterpieces. Even the walls and towers of the Kremlin are works of art. Not far from there is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which is the tallest Orthodox church in the world. It stands by the bank of the Moskva River. It was rebuilt after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It had been razed to the ground by Stalin, who had planned to build the Palace of the Soviets on its site. Stalin couldn’t carry out his plan, and now the Cathedral of Christ the Savior stands to signify that it is impossible to suppress religion, which is rooted in the human heart.

This is an excerpt from A Hidden Sicilian History

Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
– A Hidden Sicilian History
– The Vibrations of Words
-Travels of the Mind
http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregrillo