December 18, 2005
Moscow, Russia
Dear Chris and Friends,
Stanley and I are currently in Moscow. Moscow is located in the Russian Federation. As you may know, Russia used to be part of the the Soviet Union or USSR. This was a communist country. Communism is a system of government where the government plans and controls the economy. In communism, no one owns anything. Everyone shares everything. Often this doesn't work out well though.

For a long time the USSR and the US did not get along very well. This time was called the "Cold War." This was not a war like in Iraq. There were no troops, and they did not shoot at each other. Both countries built up large stores of weapons in case they went to war. Also, both countries spied on one another a lot. Because of the spying and everyone being afraid of one another, it was very hard to go to visit the Soviet Union. Today, Russia is capitalist like the US. This means that now people can own things and start businesses. Also, the government is no longer controlled by one party as much. They even have a new flag now. This is the new flag:

This was the old flag:

Russia is much different than the USA. First of all, they speak a different language--Russian, and the written language is different as well. It is called Cyrillic. Chris, your name would be written like this "Кристофр Муди" in Cyrillic. There are very few people in Russia that speak English well; therefore, it is very difficult to go to Russia if you don't speak Russian. I do speak Russian, so it is much easier for me.

Another thing that is different about Russia is the weather. Moscow only has two seasons, winter and summer. The summer is very short and is very similar to summer in Delaware. It is much colder than Delaware in the winter and it snows almost all of the time.

A third difference is the presence of the mafia. In Russia, there is a large mafia (or organized crime). This causes a lot of problems and Russia can be very dangerous at times. Partly because of the mafia, there is a really big difference between the rich and the poor in Russia. This means that the rich people are really rich and the poor people are really poor. The majority of people are very, very poor in Russia and life is very hard for them.

Another big difference is the amount of daylight. Because Russia is so far north, the amount of daylight depends on the season. The days are very long in the summer. The sun did not set until 10:30 p.m. when I was in Moscow in August. The days are very short in the winter. When I was there this time, the sun did not come up until about 9 a.m. and set around 3:30 p.m.

Moscow is a very expensive city to visit. In Russia, the money is called rubles. Approximately 28 rubles equal one US dollar. My hotel bill was 17,000 rubles for two nights. This is about $600 in US money. And, I was not staying in a fancy hotel. You may recognize the hotel. It was called the Holiday Inn. I will attach a picture of Stanley in front of the Holiday Inn sign. I will also attach a picture of some ruble money.

Moscow is a very large city. It is the capital city of Russia. Over 13 million people live in the city. The city dates back to 1000 years ago. The first notes in history about Moscow are from the 1100's. Moscow has had a very hard past. The city has been invaded many times and has had many large fires.

Moscow has many interesting places to visit. One of the most recognized is St. Basil’s cathedral. I will attach a picture that I took in August.


Many people confuse St. Basils and the Kremlin. The Kremlin is the place where the government meets. There are also many churches and a palace. The Kremlin is the place where Moscow first started. Here is a picture of me in front of the Kremlin in August:

The main religion of Russia is now Russian Orthodox. This is a Christian religion and is similar to Catholism. In the Soviet days, religion was illegal. I will attach a picture of the largest church in Moscow. In the Soviet era, it was torn down and replaced by a swimming pool. All of the treasures inside (the marble, gold and jewels) were used to make the beautiful subway stations. It was later rebuilt to resemble the original church.

I took some pictures on Stanley on the plane as we were leaving Russia.

I also keep all of the Stanley pictures on my photo album at: http://community.webshots.com/user/asarnoci You can also find many more pictures of Moscow.

I hope you are having a wonderful school year!

Sincerely,

Amanda

  ¶ 10:41 AM