Kremlin Ghosts

Could anything be more ordinary than the Moscow Kremlin?

We Muscovites have lived alongside our Kremlin for so long that it is difficult to remember when we first saw these massive red walls, when we first heard the mysterious names of its towers, when we first tried to imagine what the Tsar-Bell would have looked like in the bell-tower, or what the firing of the Tsar-Cannon would have sounded like. Later in our lives, the cupolas of the Kremlin cathedrals fixed themselves in our memories, along with the chimes of Spassky Tower, whose clanging became associated with the clinking of champagne glasses, and with Red Square, where everyone has strolled at least once ...

Yet, if you look more closely, you can see an entirely different Kremlin, one which is gone forever, but which cannot leave, because its ghosts are too tightly bound to this place.