We plan to get up early today in order to beat the crowds in the Kremlin. And fail dismally. The Metro takes us to the centre of Moscow again. Even at this time there are crowds, and the whole system gives the impression of being able to move colossal numbers of people. (In fact, the Moscow Metro moves more people than the London Underground and the New York Subway combined).

[Manezhnaya Ploshchad]

Like yesterday, we head under the road to the Kremlin. Again, we arrive in Red Square from the north-east, and wonder how to get to the north-west corner. The Square is fenced off again. We're next to the State History Museum, where there are impersonators being Lenin, Trotsky and no doubt some other hero of the revolution, who I don't recognise. Cathy cracks the navigation problem by walking behind the History Museum into Манежная Площад. We accost some English speakers on the way and get directions to the Kremlin left luggage and learn how to get into Lenin's mausoleum and the Kremlin, which will be explained in due course.

[Tomb of the Unknown Solder]

[Soldier with wonky cap]

Further around, towards the Александровский сад is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with the traditional guards and everlasting flame. Next to the Tomb, are monuments to the 12 Hero Cities, which I have fun trying to translate.

Cathy takes advantage of the toilets beside the main entrance to the Kremlin, by the Кутафья башня, and regrets it. The gents is closed, so the ladies' has become unisex. It's apparently the "manky squat" variety, and on top of that, the cubicle doors are alarmingly short. Meanwhile, I find the left luggage, which is the other side of the tower. They're X-raying everything, so the queue moves at the usual Russian speed. It also costs 60 rubles.

This is what you need to know to visit Lenin:

• The Mausoleum (at time of writing) is open from 10am to 1pm, except for Mondays and Fridays. During those hours, most of Red Square is fenced off.
• You can't take anything in there. You particularly can't take cameras. There's a metal detector in use, and they know about camera phones. You can stash cameras and bags in the left luggage, but the cost for a camera is the same as the cost for a bag, and if you want to get your camera back out of your bag before heading into the Kremlin, it's another 60 rubles to check your bag back in. It might just be easier to elect a camera guard for your group and force him to wait in the queue until the rest of you have finished.

• [Northwest corner of Red Square]

  Queue number 1 starts towards the north-west corner of Red Square. The guard at the front checks punters for cameras and he regularly throws people out of the queue. There appears to be some sort of system for getting back in at the head of the queue once you've stashed your camera.
• Every so often, the guard releases a bunch of people from queue number 1 to queue number 2, which is for the metal detector. And after we're checked, we amble across Red Square (hence the barriers) to queue number 3 for the mausoleum.

[The mausoleum]

We descend the dimly-lit stairs into the mausoleum. The waxy looking guards prepare us for our first sight of Ленин. He's looking a lot more realistic than some of his guards. This ought to be one of those Big Moments; seeing this man who died in 1924, and whose image is one of the foremost symbols of the СССР. It doesn't, to be honest, feel like it. Perhaps I'm still a little struck by being in Red Square, which seemed about the least accessible place in the world to me when I was growing up. Or perhaps I'm just intimidated by the soldiers.

[Seating]

When we escape from the tomb, we're sent round the front of the seating and back along the Kremlin wall. Soldiers whistle at anyone who does something they don't like, i.e. walk in the wrong place. This part of the Kremlin wall is the burial place of many of the most prominent figures of the Советский Союз.

As usual, I have a go at transliterating the names. Сталин is obvious, not least because of the large monument. I also see Андропов and Гагарин.

[Top of shopping centre]

Then we head round Kremlin to the shopping center under Охотный ряд where we get cheerfully ripped off for some lunch.

Cathy is in the Kremlin ticket queue at the Кутафья башня for forty minutes while I fish the camera out of the bag (you aren't allowed bags inside the Kremlin, but unlike us, you might want to remember your guide book). Finally she gets to the front of the queue and asks the friendly customer service representative for tickets to the Kremlin and the Armoury, and receives two Kremlin tickets and a нет.

All further attempts to expand on that are met with нетs, and pathological disinterest. We're paying twice as much as the Russians here, you'd hope they would make an effort. Cathy tries (and fails) to get some information out of a nearby policeman with broken English. He doesn't understand why, but suggests another ticket office in the Александровский сад. All in all, rule no. 1 in Russia is don't stand in the huge, slow moving queue. There's almost always a better way.

To get to the alternative ticket office, turn South down the steps (the left-luggage side), keep going for a few hundred metres and it's in the kiosk on the left in front of a cafe. We find the ticket offices inside. Taped on each one is a bit of paper with a list of times on, with нет against each one. We have a go, and the FCSR unsympathetically conveys sold outness. A bloke at the window next to us tries to trump the lack of tickets by waving an American Express card and gets told to нет off. In other words, buy your Armoury tickets early.

[Entering the Kremlin]

And after at that fun, we're ready to come back to the Kremlin entrance, and go inside.

I have another one of those "I'm sure quite what I expected to see, but that definitely wasn't it" moments. The first thing we see in the Kremlin, a place that brings to mind the centre of power of the Советский Союз, is a bloke with a peaked cap and a seriously over-used whistle.

[Whistling bloke]

[The Supreme Soviet and Ivan Park]

The policeman and his whistle are single-handedly responsible for guarding the Kremlin Arsenal, the Russian President's Official Residence and the Supreme Soviet. They're taking it very seriously. He makes it very clear (to anyone who speaks whistle) that the punters

[State Kremlin Palace (formerly Palace of Congresses)]

need to stay on the pavement outside the State Kremlin Palace. Cathy plays "What's the time Mr. Wolf?" with him and doesn't get shot.

The architecture inside the Kremlin is European, rather than the Soviet architecture I was expecting. The only noticably modern building in here is Krushchev's Palace of Congresses, which manages to make a fortune in marble look like concrete. The other thing you don't expect is the number of cathedrals which make up the heart of a formerly atheist state.

[Cathedral of the Assumption]

[Inside Archangel Cathedral]

[Cathedral of Annunciation]

[Inside the Cathedral of Annunciation]

[Archangel Cathedral]

We casually enter a random Cathedral (OK, the Cathedral of Annunciation) to find splendid icon-covered walls. Another, Archangel cathedral, is full of sarcophagi with dead tsars.

[The Tsar Bell]

[Tsar Cannon]

Also in here are the Царь-пушка or "Tsar Cannon", the largest cannon in the world. It was cast ostensibly to defend the Kremlin, although it's reckoned that the barrel is too thin to be able to be fired. And the Царь-колокол or "Tsar Bell", again, the largest bell in the world, which cracked in the casting pit during a fire. The chunk that broke off weighs over 11 tons. While the hordes try to take a reasonable photo of the Bell, there's a numpty on his phone, oblivious to the world, spoiling everyone's photo. In the end I give up and take a photo of him.

[Belfry]

[Belfry top]

[The Arsenal and Vodovzvodnaya Tower]

Eventually, we wander out alongside the Arsenal and through the Водовзводная башня

[Along Neglinnaya River]

and along the Неглинная River.

[Bolshoi Theatre]

After that, we take a quick trip around central Moscow - to see the Bolshoi Theatre and the Дума.

And then, we take a Metro to Пушкинская, to the Museum of Contemporary Russian History on Тверская. It has plenty of interesting exhibits, although a lot of it is lost on non-Russian speakers.