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''I have seen the King's majesties of England and the French King's pavilion, but none are like this''.
Captain Richard Chancellor, 1553.
Richard Chancellor was the first Englishman to visit Russia, during the reign of Ivan the IV - better known as Ivan the Terrible. Ivan entertained his guest to lavish dinners on gold plate, and gave him presents of furs and jewellery. Chancellor went sightseeing and saw that Moscow was a much bigger city than London, yet he described it also as ''a rude and barbarous kingdom.''
Today, Moscow still fascinates. Parts of that old Moscow still exist, most famously in Red Square itself, with the landmark St Basil's Cathedral. Then there is the very new oil-rich Moscow, of designer shops and men in black. The Bolshoi Theatre is closed for refurbishment until 2008, but you can still see the ballet and opera companies and the orchestra perform on the new Small Stage of the Bolshoi and at the Kremlin Palace theatre.
''The most beautiful street in the world''.
James Harris, English Ambassador to Russia, describing the English Embankment, St Petersburg, 1779.
Peter the Great dreamed about a city that would be as unlike Moscow as possible, a modern city that would be designed to a plan. He realised his dream with the building of St Petersburg. The first stone was laid in 1703, and Peter invited architects, masons, artists and craftsmen from all over Europe to create his new capital. After Peter, a succession of empresses and emperors added to the beauty of the city, each one of them giving to it a new style - Baroque, Rococo, Classical, Russian Revival.
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