Wednesday-Tourist Day

Today, we went to the Cosmonaut museum and Kuskovo Estate. John enjoyed the Cosmonaut museum. They had some nice displays including space food.

Outside the Cosmonaut museum they had some gardens with statues dedicated to different men who contributed to science, including a very impressive, modern flight statue.









After the Cosmonaut museum, our translator wanted us to see the Kuskovo estate. The Sheremetev family, in which one of the airports is named after, was a wealthy family that entertained the czar's. It was built in the mid to late 1700's and contained the main house, a formal garden, guest houses, a church, a green house (orangery) that now contains a ceramic museum and an Italian grotto. The Italian grotto was fascinating. It was totally unexpected inside. It had an under-the-sea theme and was inlaid with shells, glass, sand and mother-of-pearl shells. The picture doesn't do it justice. The main house still contains the original wood parquet floors,
paintings and some furniture. It was very lavish with gold gilding and crystal chandeliers. We were very glad that Violet suggested our visit.