Night location: Moscow, Russia

It is difficult to describe the scale of what we have seen today. The Soviets/Russians place great value on huge open spaces, towering monuments and domineering buildings.

To start our day we returned to Red Square and joined the queue to visit the Lenin Mausoleum. Since 1924 his body has been embalmed and on display for patriots to pay their respects. After an hour of waiting in the line we went through some security screening and then walked at the base of the Kremlin wall towards the square pyramid shaped building. Photography inside was strictly prohibited and stern guards maintained the appropriate tone of reverence expected for this leader. After descending down some stairs we saw the shrine with his wax-like body illuminated. Outside are the grave sites of other significant communists including Josef Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev and Felixstowe Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Cheka, forerunner of the KGB).

After refreshments at Laduree we caught the metro to Pobedy Park and walked down the grand corridor of Victory Park that is lined with statues, monuments and fountains in the direction of the massive Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII).

Inside the museum we started in the Hall of Memory and Sorrow which immortalised the 27 million people that died between 1941 and 1945 'defending the Motherland'. The sculpture underneath the dangling crystal teardrops hanging from the ceiling represented all the women who mourned for their lost loved ones.

Moving on from here we visited six large scale dioramas that artistically displayed the six main battles of the war. In each half circular room there was a central image depicted on the main feature wall with physical objects arranged to create a 3 dimensional effect and the other walls were entirely painted with other scenes from the same battle. We all felt that this was absolutely brilliant and entirely unlike anything we have seen before.

The main exhibition 'Feat and Victory of the Great Nation' was also impressive with interactive and thematically grouped displays. Of particular interest was the representation of civilian life during the war. One information board concluded with the following lines:
"In spite of all these hardships, the Soviet people laboured selflessly and stoically in the rear. They trusted their leaders, did not doubt their policy. For most of the workers of the rear, this slogan became law: 'All for the front, all for the victory!'"

There were also some interesting reflections about the Nazi regime. It seemed mildly ironic that the soviets were demonising the nazis when referring to their concentration camps, rationing and occupation strategies. The similarities between the two regimes seemed to be lost on the museum curators.

After dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and a photography visit to the Bolshoi Theatre, we went on a self-guided tour of the metro thanks to our Lonely Planet guidebook. We started at Komsomlskaya which featured an emblem at the top of limestone pillars that represented the youth workers who helped with construction, while a different platform had a cheerfully decorated ceiling. Prospekt Mira featured elegant, white porcelain depictions of figures planting trees and living in harmony with the earth. The main platform at Novoslobodskaya embraced the art-nouveau style with thirty-two stained glass panels depicting the six so-called intellectual professions: architect, geographer, agronomist, engineer, artist and musician. At one end of the central hall was the mosaic 'Peace in the Whole World' which had substituted the original portrait of Stalin with a pair of white doves. At Belorusskaya the ceiling mosaics celebrated Belarusian history and culture and at Kievskaya the frescoed panels displayed idyllic representations of Ukranian life. Ironically, the fresco at the end of the hall celebrated 300 years of cooperation between the two nations.

The rumoured most beautiful station of Mayakovskaya is going to have to wait until tomorrow as we were unable to access the required line today due to some train mishap that we are still unsure about!