St. Basil’s Cathedral
Moscow 2009
No visit to Moscow would be complete without a visit to St. Basil’s Cathedral. I’d always has the idea that the inside was cavernous, but it isn’t. It’s a rabbit-warren of nine small chapels connected by marble stairways and floral painted hallways.
As we followed the labyrinthine halls, I can remember imagining Tsar Ivan the Terrible entering the cathedral at the head of a procession, followed by priests swinging censers emitting clouds of fragrant incense, then dropping to his knees before holy icons to give thanks for his victory over the Khan in Kazan (1552).