St. Patrick's Day in Moscow

Early Sunday morning we went down to Moscow's main street, New Arbat. As we turned the corner onto Arbat we proceeded through the metal detectors through which all spectators had to pass. The parade route was lined with Russian Military personnel - one uniformed officer every five feet.

A few bagpipers bringing in the Parade!!!

The parade was nice, but certainly not up to what one would expect of a St. Patrick's day parade. The parade included about four marching bands, a couple of company sponsored floats, bagpipers, and a group of people marching their Irish Setters. There was no cheering from the crowd, no waiving at those passing by, and certainly no Mayors with their hair dyed green (like Mayor O'Conner). None-the-less the parade was quite nice and afterward we joined all of the Americans at Starbucks for coffee and lunch.

A couple of scary-looking Russian parade people!!

Unfortunately no one told these gentlemen that it was

the St. Patrick's Day parade -

they were a couple of months late for their parade!!

No smiling at this parade - you would not want any of the military guys

to know you were having any fun.........

Here come more military guys at the end of the parade to disburse the crowd.