Unusual places

[Gary_M]

I was in Moscow last year, and I was amazed by some of their 'metro' stations - very beautiful - with marble walls, statues, etc.

 

[hermes]

I was in Moscow last year, and I was amazed by some of their 'metro' stations - very beautiful - with marble walls, statues, etc.

That reminds me of another place, I don't think he's still there but Lenin's corpse used to be on public display in a glass case in a mausoleum on the edge of Red Square. At each corner of the coffin stood an impeccably dressed and scary-looking soldier with a rifle and fixed bayonet. The soldiers were as motionless as the body. It was very quiet and dimly lit. Quite an unsettling experience.

 

[Gary_M]

That reminds me of another place, I don't think he's still there but Lenin's corpse used to be on public display in a glass case in a mausoleum on the edge of Red Square. At each corner of the coffin stood an impeccably dressed and scary-looking soldier with a rifle and fixed bayonet. The soldiers were as motionless as the body. It was very quiet and dimly lit. Quite an unsettling experience.

He was still on public display when I was there (June 2005), but I couldn't get in to see him as Putin was having some meeting the day I went and most places were restricted.

Incidentally, I also heard rumours that in one of the hot summers they stopped people seeing him as his nose appeard to be 'melting' - casting suspicions that it was in fact a wax figure on display

 

[notb665]

The most unusual place I have been to was somewhere in Lincolnshire but it was so bizarre I have since forgotten the name.

I went to some kind of "Country Show". I was bought up in a greenbelt area of the West Midlands so was not adverse to the odd pile of cow dung.

But this was a different kettle of fish altogether. Everybody had a wax jacket and a collie dog. Quite a lot of them had two heads and an extra finger on each hand. (Only joking about the last bit but you know what I mean!)

Wandering round the demonstrations of sheep and that, and the stalls of jams and fox hunting techniques and stuff, I came across somebody doing a demonstration of taxidermy. Pull the feathers off, cut here, drain it off, skin it here, plaster of paris there, stuff like so... etc. Lots of the stages. It was interesting. Even so, with having never seen anything like that before and I am sure it requires an in-depth knowledge of anatomy and dissection, I just find statues of realistic looking dead animals weird. They had lots on display: heron, sparrow, hens, owl, deer, various fish, duck, thrush, blackbird, swallow, fox, fox cubs, a lynx (!), badger, various mice and rodents (voles, shrews, rats), a squirrel, pheasants ad nausea. I think they bought two of every single species there was, it was like some kind of frozen-in-time Noah's Ark.

 

[johnny_t]

A long time ago, I went to a church in Portugal and the inside was entirely covered in gold. At the back, there was a small door, which led through to a museum full of stuffed 'mutant' animals - 8-legged lambs, two-headed tortoises, that sort of thing....

 

[hermes]

At the back, there was a small door, which led through to a museum full of stuffed 'mutant' animals - 8-legged lambs, two-headed tortoises, that sort of thing....

Did you feel at home?

 

[empip]

Great barrier reef .... and the Coral sea.
Clear, clean water ... Beautiful fish, unusually friendly .....

you went diving pip? how deep?

About 20 tinnies, deep.