to the Tretyakov Galleries, the world’s richest collection of Russian art housing some thirty thousand works; to the Pushkin Art Museum where Turkey’s stolen Treasures of Troy are on exhibit. But before we do so, let us first pay a visit to the heart of the city, to the Kremlin, seat of government of today’s Russian Federation.

DAZZLING DOMES
The Kremlin (the word ‘kreml’ means ‘fortress’ in Old Russian) is a complex enclosed behind high walls overlooking the River Moskva. Only the churches on Cathedral Square, the State Arsenal and the Patriarchal Palace are open to the public. The resplendent interiors of the Great Kremlin Palace, the Palace of Facets, Terem Palace, the Presidium and the Senate can be viewed only in the books that are sold in the museum store. We enter the Kremlin through Trinity Tower, exactly as Napoleon did in 1812, except that there are far fewer of us and we’ve paid to get in.